Brent’s eyes kept jumping from his drink, to the counter, and back again.
And it was beginning to get on my nerves.
“What is it?” I asked exasperated.
Brent’s head whipped back around and he flushed. “Her,” he whispered, attempting to nod his head without actually doing so.
“Her?” I looked past him, puzzled. “Oh, you mean Counter-Girl?”
“Yeah,” he answered in a hushed voice. “The girl at the counter.”
“Right. So what about her?”
“Well…” Brent was still flushed. “She’s got a white shirt on, and I don’t think she’s wearing a bra, and… Don’t look at her!”
I shook my head at him. “They’re just nipples. You downloaded how much porn back at college? What’s the problem?”
“There’s not,” Brent answered, flustered. “And no, I didn’t!”
I looked at him with a raised eye-brow. She wasn’t Amy, yet he was going on about her breasts. A good sign as far as I was concerned.
I picked up my bottle, swirled it around a bit, then downed the last of it. “I need another beer,” I said, clanking it back down on the table. “Why don’t you get me one?”
Brent looked up at me venomously. “Why don’t you get your own?” he said. I think he thought I was trying to be mean.
“Fine,” I said, standing up. “I’ll get her number.”
“That’s not…” Brent stuttered out, then went silent.
I gave him a sardonic grin. “C’mon, I’ll be there for moral support.”
“But what if I make a bad impression?” he asked meekly.
“Just stay focused on her eyes and you’ll do fine.”
We made our way over to the counter. The girl behind it brightened when she saw me. “Hi!” she said cheerfully. “So did you find him?”
Did I find who? I wondered. Then I remembered; she had been one of our pit-stops as we were looking for Brent. Weird, though, that she’d remember that from a week ago. “Yeah,” I answered, nodding my head towards Brent. “Eventually.”
“So this is the missing roommate, huh?” she said, smiling at him. “So where’d you end up at, anyway?”
Brent flushed. “Nowhere, really. A friend of mind just dragged me off.”
“Is that all?” Counter-Girl asked, sounding puzzled. “It sounded like a pretty big deal.”
I snickered. “Nah, nothing big,” I said with a grin. “Just our local vampire hunting loony dragging him off at gunpoint was all.”
“Vampires? Gunpoint?” she asked, looking scared but interested at the same time. “How does that happen?”
“By being cursed,” Brent answered wryly.
“Cursed?” Counter-Girl said. Now she looked a little fascinated, but mostly terrified.
Nice pickup line, I thought, rolling my eyes. “Ignore my roommate,” I explained. “He thinks it’s a better explanation than ‘I’m stupid.’”
She looked at me, still shocked, then burst out laughing. “I see.” She chuckled. “Does this happen often?”
I shrugged. “Just twice, but Brent was the one that brought him home in the first place.”
Brent scowled at me instead of answering. “So is this a new friend you haven’t told me about or did you pass out fliers when I disappeared?”
I shrugged. “Just to everyone at Café Yoko’s,” I said with a straight face. “Anyway, you’re right; I should have introduced you two. Drama-boy, meet Counter-Girl.”
He gave me a glare before giving Counter-Girl a polite smile. “Brent,” he introduced himself. “And you?”
“Counter-Girl, is it?” she said with a laugh. “Who cleans messes with a single swipe! Who can lift two pint glasses one handed!” She chuckled again, then gave Brent a mysterious smile. “Well, you can call me CG then.”
“CG?” Brent asked. “As in Counter-Girl? You don’t have to call yourself that.”
“Well,” she said, “if I’m going to have to compete with vampire hunters, maybe I’ll need the name?”
For the first time during the whole conversation, Brent said something right. “Why would you have to compete with him?”
“Well, he sounds like an adventure,” she said, giving Brent an ‘I want you but you’re probably unhealthy’ look. “So how’d you become cursed?”
Brent flushed a bright red. I cleared my throat and answered for him. “He doesn’t actually have a reason, he just thinks he’s been unlucky lately. Right?”
“Right,” he answered unconvincingly.
Counter-girl gave him a skeptical look. “Well, then why would…” She stopped as a few other customers walked up. “I think we’ll have to talk some more later. Did you guys want something to drink?”
“Just a couple of beers,” I said. “We’ll say ‘hi’ next time we’re here.”
“Please do,” she said. She gave us both a bright smile as she plunked two beers on the counter and I paid for them.
“When are you working next?” Brent asked hastily as I was turning around. Socially adept and appropriate; what a surprise.
She gave him a demure smile. “From midnight to eight almost every night this week,” she answered.
“I’ll… I’ll see you around then,” Brent said, then spun around and walked back to our table. Counter-girl let her gaze linger on him for a few seconds before turning back to her new customers.
Brent was in his chair before I was. “Not a number,” I said as I sat down, “but something, I suppose.”
“Yeah,” Brent agreed, sounding a little giddy.
I reached across the table, twisted the cap off his beer, then set it back down in front of him. “So did you stay focused on her eyes like I told you.”
“I tried.”
“Really?” I asked. “Then what color were they?”
Brent straightened in his chair. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m pretty certain she is wearing a bra, it’s just cream colored.”
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