Life Lines

9: Denial And Seeing Things Clearly

Chapter Nine

"Last coffee of the night." Julie put a very simple decaf café mocha in front of one of our regulars. "Thank you, Simon, and have a good night."

"And thank you, ladies." He tipped his fedora and Julie followed him to the door to lock it.

After she flipped the open sign off, she sank down in the nearest chair and propped her feet up.

"Thank god that is over."

I chuckled and started wiping down the counter. "Got to love the end of a tournament. Everyone wants to drive straight through so they need their caffeine fix."

"Can't they get it from Starbucks?"

"If they did we wouldn't have this." I picked up the overflowing tip jar and shook it.

She smiled at me and jumped up, jogging over to look at it.

"The usual bet?"

"Sure. I have nowhere to be."

"You mean you're not going anywhere with your guard dog later?"

I frowned as we wrote our guesses on slips of paper. "What do you mean?"

"He sat in the corner booth for a good portion of the night. Don't tell me you didn't notice."

I folded the slip and looked up at her. "Nope. Who was it?"

"Don't know. Never seen him before but I refreshed his drink every hour. And he was Elite."

I started taking the bills out of the jar. Julie knew what Cecil looked like, knew what all the Elite in town looked like. She'd even seen Union when he waited for me to get off the day before but he wasn't Elite. I wondered who it could be.

"Huh. What'd he look like?"

"Mid to late twenties. Brown hair with a gray streak by his left temple. I thought he looked a little young to have gray hair but these days you never know. His eyes were dark, like most Elites but I couldn't really get a lock on the specific color." I nodded. "I figured he was a long lost friend or something. Especially when Cyrus sat down with him."

I looked up at her sharply, the money between us forgotten.

"What?"

She didn't seem to notice the change in my tone or demeanor. She was counting out the coins she'd poured onto the counter. She was always better at counting the coins than I was. I had a tendency to get distracted or lose count. But not her. Math whiz.

"He was here for a couple of minutes. Geeze, Nat, you're not very observant today."

"I'm a little distracted."

She smiled and fished two more pennies out of the jar. "Boys, school, or the game?"

"Golf is off for a week since school's starting tomorrow."

"So that leaves boys." The pile of pennies she was compiling was shoved to the side and she started on dimes. When we were done counting, we'd roll them and Amanda would change them out for cash. "Come on, tell me. I know it has to be good if it involves you. Everyone knows you don't date."

"I do too date."

"Owen was a perv and Shane was just trying to get laid." She looked up at me, her eyebrows raised. "They don't count. Besides if you mush them together you only have a total of one month worth of dating time."

"Whatever."

"So, who's caught your interest? Or is it still Cyrus?"

"The new kid, Union Davidson."