our own. Come for the beer, stay for the bad comedy.
“Odd.” He tilted his head and considered me, his eyes doing the same slow travel mine had done on him. It took everything I had not to fidget under his gaze. “Typically women don’t mind when I’m on my knees in front of them.”
My gasp was drowned out by the laughter from a handful of patrons around us, and I dropped character enough to glance around to make sure there weren’t any children who may have heard him. While I was thus flustered he stepped closer, reaching one hand up to catch a lock of my hair that had come loose from its twist.
“Besides . . .” He studied the way my hair curled around his fingers as though it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. “This would be different.”
“Would it?” I tried to maintain my air of nonchalance, but it was harder than usual to take a breath over the pounding of my heart.
“Aye.” He leaned in closer, his eyes searching mine. What was it about that eyeliner that made his eyes look bolder, sexier?
“How so?” We had long since stopped performing for any kind of audience. My voice was little more than a whisper, and I was fascinated with the shape of his mouth, now a scant few inches from mine. I licked my suddenly dry lips and his breath stuttered for a split second.
“Well, love. I’d be fighting for you.” His mouth was so, so close to mine, and his voice was low, almost gravelly, like he was telling me a reluctant secret. “That would be a fight worth winning.”
Then he dropped my hair and straightened up, and with a tip of his hat he was gone.
I blew out a long, slow breath. Yeah. Quite an uneventful afternoon.
Eleven
As the end of the day approached, the crowd thinned out and we let the extra volunteers leave to help close up the ticket office. Stacey grinned at me as we cleared off tables. “Looks like we can make it to pub sing today!”
“Thank God for that.”
My attitude must have shone through in my tone of voice, because Stacey rolled her eyes in response. “I know I won’t shut up about it, but it really is a good time. You’ll see.”
“I’m sure I will.” I was prejudiced against pub sing not because of Stacey’s enthusiasm but because being there would make Simon happy, and apparently we all existed to make Simon happy. All memory of Simon-as-hot-pirate dissolved away as I remembered his diatribe at us the week before, when we’d missed both days. It made me want to skip it for the rest of the summer just to spite him.
But it didn’t matter, because it looked like we were headed for the stage at the front, so I tried to let go of those prickly Simon thoughts. We hadn’t had a customer for fifteen minutes, and Jamie had already locked up the cashbox and started stashing the alcohol away until the next day. We were all but dismissed for the night, so there was nothing left to do but—
I hadn’t even taken a step out of the tavern area, following Stacey, when a banner fell on my head. The swath of fabric covered me like a bad Halloween ghost costume, and I stopped in my tracks because I couldn’t see anything except purple. It took a little thrashing, but I fought my way out from under it, then I crumpled the fabric in my hands and looked up into the trees. It was one of the banners that formed a pseudo-canopy in the trees; I spotted the blank spot immediately. Apparently it had come loose and none of us had noticed it.
“Well, damn.” I craned my neck and tried to figure out exactly how I was going to get it back up there.
“What happened . . . oh, no.” Stacey followed my gaze up into the trees. “What did you do?”
I shot her an incredulous look. “Are you kidding?”
“Here.” Jamie had the cashbox under his arm and he was already halfway out of there, but he stopped and put the box down on one of the tables. “I can get it back up there.”
“No.” I waved him off. “You need to go turn in the cash. I can do it.” I eyed the tables underneath the trees. They seemed solid, and high enough that I could reach the branches without a problem. I could climb up there