Teeth

Smoke

It didn't take long for others to arrive at the Dearg Due, the first newcomers arriving within ten minutes of us finding a table, me sandwiched against the wall with Lily and Caroyln on either side, as though they expected me to bolt like a misbehaving child.

I don't know that they were wrong per se. I kind of wanted to. I wasn't tired enough to sleep through it like I had been earlier, though the bagels and juice were at this point a long distant memory, and I was trying to decide if there had been some kind of secret signal to crank up the heat in here slightly to make it hard to keep my coat on, or if I were just being a stubborn idiot slowly baking by wearing a wool coat inside because I didn't want strangers judging the way the shirt hugged my desk-job abs.

Strangers on which my life may or may not depend.

"So why am I a grenade? You still haven't told me what's between you and my Mother." I finally ask, while my eyes are fixed on an laminated menu. Mostly strictly bar food, fried mozzarella, potato skins, a few sandwiches and a long list of beers. Of course they have corned beef, and Shepard's pie. The most approachable things an americanized palate are probably going to look for in an place like this, but my stomach doesn't care if it's pretentious or simplified, or even authentic, it just growls anyway. I wouldn't care if they were offering General Tsao's Chicken. I'm hungry and something to eat is something to do. And it doesn't involve watching the door.

"She never mentioned us at all?" Lily notes absently, reaching over for a copy of the menu and eying it with an brow arched, but her gaze is a thousand miles beyond the page.

"Enid, I'll have my usual... and if you don't mind... maybe some of that Shepard's Pie if it's ready. Our nervous friend missed lunch, and it sounds like there's a wolf in the room." She smiled faintly, ignoring or perhaps not considering that I might have looked into something different.

That seemed like something you got used to around Lily... and Carolyn too. Both of them were something of a force of personality, and I wasn't sure it was mutually exclusive to steering me around while I figured out my options.

Enid, who turns out to be the little blond barkeep, puts in an order with someone back behind the swinging doors to the kitchen and shortly wanders over, bobbing confidently to the beat of the music as though she weren't carrying a tray full of very full glasses. A ginger ale and a bottle go down in front of Caroyln even though I don't remember anything being ordered for her, and Lily's is a drink I can't identify, though the strange texture and deep red color make me kind of not want to, even though most of what I can smell is the bar and the long marinated smell of alcohol that belongs to the place. I almost protest when she clunks down a mug in front of me, though it proves to just be a glass of dark smelling beer.

"Yeah you're gonna want this, hon." Enid assures me. "Especially if Lily stops playing the cat and spits out the truth about those damn Madchens." She raised an eyebrow at Lily, who tips her chin slightly and takes a sip of her drink.

"I'm getting there."

"Knowing you, you'll still be getting there in a month or two. Do it. Have I steered you wrong yet?"

Lily's face softens, and it's the first time I think she's really looked as though she didn't plan the expression meticulously before sharing it. I could write volumes trying to figure out what makes someone be so careful to display that kind of control. It's different than the kind of control I remember having to use growing up, but I'm not sure that means it was less painful, not the way she looks to Caroyln as does so. Still... if I had to pick a moment to share with someone else that said 'these two people are deeply the hell in love'...

I couldn't pick a better one than that. I don't know how to react to that, or even if I should. But it makes me think of the bar I should have been at, the way I was hoping to watch Bill make horrible jokes about his work and the pictures Susan would inevitably show us. She and her wife are adopting and damnit, there were supposed to be pictures. I'd kind of forgotten just because I was pissy about my stupid fucking car breaking down.