@adam-hayward
It’s job number three, and one of the easier and more above board ways she gets paid. There’s no theft or magic involved. The first is something she’s trying to get away from, the second, something she probably should. It’s a quick and slippery slope to go from tarot readings and selling charms to opening the door for something darker. The kind of thing that’ll turn her hands to weapons. She knows that better than anyone.
This is simpler. Pouring beers for old men in the middle of the afternoon.
At least until he walks in. Dani thinks she’s not supposed to notice, or maybe he doesn’t care, but either way she spends too many quiet moments studying the slope of stranger’s shoulders just wondering if it’s him.
There’s a list of things she’s told herself to say if she saw him again, things she’s practiced quietly to herself, over and over. I don’t want to see you anymore, get out, please leave, you shouldn’t be here. If she repeats it enough times then maybe it’ll convert those words to muscle memory, and she won’t have to think too long or too hard about forcing them past her lips. What she’d like to do is simply turn around and retreat out the back, hide in the quiet alley behind the bar until she thinks he’s gone. It’s easier when she doesn’t have to see him, she can pretend she doesn’t still think about him.
She fails at that too. Leaning across the bar, voice raised slightly so he can hear her over the quiet music. “You’re not as sneaky as you think you are.”