was a locals-only kind of place, not like the Hook in Hidden Harbor, which got the visiting hipsters as well as the islanders.
“Is Lulu still alive?” Niall asked. The owner had seemed ancient when he was a kid.
“And kicking,” Mat confirmed.
“Okay.” Why not? Maybe it would be a good thing. Maybe he and Mat could work on this friendship thing. Maybe Niall could do this after all.
“Yeah?” A broad smile stretched across Mat’s handsome face.
“Yeah. Don’t make a big freaking deal about it. It’s just dinner.”
Mat leaned closer. “Maybe, but it’s dinner with you.”
Ten
Mat
Mat arrived at Lulu’s before Niall. That wasn’t a shock, seeing he was over half an hour early. Nerves had him leaving the station as soon as he could. Asking Niall to dinner had been risky, but Mat had had a realization—or what he hoped was a realization—that morning, and he’d decided the risk was worth it. There was an invisible wall surrounding Niall, and it was Mat who was going to have to breach it. Niall didn’t know the way out. Mat needed to think a bit more like Fenrir: sneak around those barriers and make himself comfortable.
The diner was situated in what was likely an old modular-style home, a double or triple wide painted a bright shade of purple. Inside there was dark 1970s wood paneling plastered with terrible oil and watercolor paintings. All the art was for sale and had been as long as Mat could remember. Some of it he recalled being there back when he was a small boy.
He snagged a corner booth. It was too big, really, for only the two of them, but it would afford them a little privacy—unless Niall wanted to eat in the bar, where it was even darker. On a Friday, the bar would be busy, and likely they’d run into a regular Mat had ticketed at some point. That was definitely a problem with being sheriff: there was no place other than his house that wasn’t public space.
“Menu?” a female voice asked, startling Mat from his thoughts. He looked up and nodded, recognizing the server. “Evening, Sheriff,” she added.
He held up two fingers and Gracie left, returning seconds later with thick plastic menus and plunking down two glasses of ice water.
“I’ll be back.” Gracie disappeared through the swinging doors into the kitchen.
There were only a couple other tables occupied tonight: a couple Mat recognized who had recently moved to the island and Stan Elberman, an old-timer who decidedly ignored Mat. He’d been giving Mat the cold shoulder ever since Mat interrupted Stan’s impromptu hunting party last month.
Mat’s fingers thrummed against the tabletop. He was nervous. Up until this second he’d been focused on the fact that Niall had agreed to meet him, and now Mat realized he, Mat Dempsey, Piedras County Sheriff, was having dinner with another man—in public. And he was nervous.
Well, if Niall showed up.
He’d show up.
And when he did, Mat would basically out himself to everyone in the restaurant. He was ready, he reassured himself.
“Can I bring you something to drink while you wait?”
It was temping to order a double vodka, but he settled on a nonalcoholic lager instead.
He was sipping his drink, trying to pretend he wasn’t feeling anxious, when the door opened and Niall stepped inside. Mat stopped breathing for a moment. Niall looked good, wearing a similar outfit to the one he’d worn to Sean’s funeral: jeans, white shirt, and wool blazer.
Good enough to eat and also all wrong. Niall wasn’t built for street clothes. He was a throwback, a Viking who should have a thick pelt of fox fur hanging off one shoulder and a bearded ax gripped in his hand. A skeggøx—Mat had gleaned the name from surreptitious research as a teen, and he may have refreshed his memory more recently. Niall took up a lot of space in Mat’s head. He took another sip of his beer, not tasting it, watching Niall as he approached the table. He wasn’t the only one; everyone else’s attention was drawn to Niall as well. He even had the attention of the cook on the other side of the kitchen pass-through.
Mat knew what appealed to him about Niall, but what drew others’ attention? A six-foot-four olive-skinned man with dark hair that curled at the ends and was long enough to brush against the collar of his shirt. Niall was a big man, but he wasn’t bulky; he was lean and muscled from years of exercise or maybe just a high