Page 4 of Mourner for Hire

“Isn’t that taking advantage of grieving people?”

“No,” I answer simply. “I’m honoring their loved ones’ wishes.

And if it were anything that I felt would cause actual harm to their friends and family, I don’t agree to it.

Unless they absolutely deserve it. It’s a business transaction.

Every part is laid out in writing. I keep meticulous tabs on my clients.

Some contact me when they know they’re going to die.

Others are young and have no clue when the day will come. ”

“And you find out about their deaths how?”

“Google Alerts.” I shrug. “My schedule is very unpredictable.”

“And what does the husband think of this job?” he asks.

I toss up my left hand and wiggle my fingers. “No husband.”

“Boyfriend? Girlfriend?” His curious expression seems more amused than as if he’s prying for information.

“No,” I laugh out. “I’m done in the dating world. ”

“Really? Why’s that?”

Again, normally, a man in a bar asking me why I’m single would come off as a cheap pickup line, but he just seems genuinely curious.

A conversationalist. A man trying to get to know the woman on the other side of the bar, simply because that’s the polite thing to do and not because his mind has already drifted into how he can get in her pants.

“Well, because in my experience, it’s always dudes saying, ‘You didn’t deserve to be hurt like that,’ only for three years, two months, and twenty-six days to pass for him to be like, ‘You deserve to be hurt like this .’” I smile coyly, and he barks out a laugh—a crimson flush sweeps up his neck into his cheeks. My own face warms in response.

“Hey, Dunner. Can I cash out? We’re just going to walk home,” the man down the bar says.

I’m thankful for the distraction so I can cool the blush in my cheeks.

“You got it, Bernie,” he calls back, pulls his tab from under the bar, and slips it in a black leather case.

I should get my check, too. I have a meeting in the morning, but I stay put, mindlessly sipping my beer and munching on jalapeno poppers.

“So, three years, two months, and twenty-six days? That’s a very specific timeline.”

A laugh tumbles out of me. “It was a very specific type of asylum.”

Surprise dances across his face.

“I’m kidding. Kind of.”

He turns back to me. “I find you interesting.”

I swallow hard, heat sweeping through my insides. He could mean interesting as in weird, or he could mean interesting as in a subject he wants to study until he knows all of me. I don’t play into it, though. I don’t play where I work. Rule number one.

His tongue strokes the inside of his cheek as he leans back on the bar behind him and tosses the rag over his shoulder .

I throw back the rest of my beer, and he replaces it with another.

“Are you trying to get me drunk? Because I don’t get drunk alone. And I have to drive.”

“Trust me. Traffic isn’t moving.”

I consider this a moment and realize my bladder feels like it might burst. I drank a lot of coffee on the way down here. “I need to use the restroom again.”

I move to grab my purse and my beer to take with me.

“It’s okay. You can leave it.”

I eye him with so much skepticism, I hope he feels it deep in his bones.

He takes a coaster and places it on top of the glass. “You’re good. I’ve got you.”

His words ooze over me like honey—comforting and safe.

But I couldn’t care less.

I slide the camera on my phone open and snap a picture of him. “Well, I hope so. I’ll be right back.”

Quickly, I text my best friend, Morgan, the picture of him and write:

Me

If I disappear tonight. He killed me.

I wait for no response, pee, wash my hands, and return to my seat.

He places two shot glasses between us and pours two shots of brown liquor. “It’s the good bourbon.”

I take the shot in my hands as I say, “I don’t know if I like you very much.”

It’s a very untrue statement. I like him very much even though I’ve only known him for an hour, tops.

“So tell me who you’re here for because I don’t know of any funerals happening, and like I said earlier?—”

“You know everybody,” I mock and throw back the bourbon .

My phone buzzes, and I slide open the screen to a response from Morgan.

Morgan

Oh my! I feel like you might enjoy being killed by him.

I suppress a laugh and look back at him with an indignant expression.

The right side of his mouth curls into a smile. “You think I’m an asshole.”

“No, I just know your type.”

He raises his eyebrows. “And that is?”

I let go of a dramatic exhale. “You’re tall, dark, and handsome.

You probably have slept with a good amount of the adult females in Shellport, but you keep going back to your high school sweetheart because it’s comfortable.

You had everything going for you in high school and traded all your potential in for the town bar because it’s family-owned.

Either that, or there’s some unfulfilled dream that failed for some reason buried inside you, but you’re too scared to go back to it.

You drive a pickup truck from the nineties because your dad taught you how to fix cars and drive them until the wheels fall off.

You have Sunday dinners with your parents.

And this is just a hunch, but you probably did a few years in the military.

I want to say Army, but the way you just snickered tells me you were in the Air Force.

You love podcasts but hate reading. You volunteer at the soup kitchen on Saturday mornings and coach pee-wee football to give back.

You’re wholesome but rugged. You get the town drunk on Saturday nights and show up to church on Sunday morning in a clean suit and all your convictions on your sleeve.

You think you can get any girl you want because no one has ever proved you wrong.

” I pause. “And I’m willing to bet you live in an apartment above the bar. ”

He listens intently as I roll out my presumptive resume for him, the hard lines of his face curving into a charming smile, telling me I have him clocked .

People are easy to read—in life and in death. Men, in particular, deep down are miserable, bitter, or both. Something I’ve learned from my very own father and, subsequently, every man I’ve ever dated since.

I watch him rub his lips together and nod slowly as he reaches over the bar, grabs the bourbon, and throws it back. “You think I’m handsome?”

“Irritatingly,” I emphasize, and he smiles.

“I’m impressed, Vada. But you got two things wrong.”

I tilt my chin toward his face, waiting for which two things I got wrong.

“I don’t volunteer at the soup kitchen. I volunteer at the humane society.

” He sets his glass down with a rough clink, and he smiles this cocky, unhinged smile I’ve only ever dreamed of.

He’s clearly a man who knows he can take me for everything I’m worth and make all my walls of steel shatter like glass. “And I’d never go back to my ex.”

I can’t help it. I smile.

“What about you?”

“What about me?” I ask in response.

“Do I get to tell you how much I know your type?”

I swallow and nod, hoping he doesn’t know my heart is rotating in my chest.

He drags his teeth over his bottom lip as he stares at me.

I raise my eyebrows and lean forward as if saying, well, go ahead.

“You’re pretty which makes people think you aren’t smart but you are absolutely brilliant. You could trivia-night anyone under the table because you’re the type of person that remembers the Pythagorean theorem and who won best new artist at the VMAs in 2014?—”

“Fifth Harmony,” I cut in.

He snorts out a laugh. “You have a lot of childhood trauma, but you don’t carry it on your sleeve because you believe in experiencing life firsthand.

That doesn’t mean you don’t use it to analyze the important relationships in your life.

It just means you don’t let it interfere with being present in every moment.

You clearly have an asshole ex, and you examine every person against him, wondering if he could ever morph into the same monster you dated.

You have deep reasoning for attending funerals for a job, but you won’t ever let it out because you’re cold. ”

“Cold?”

He nods once with a small smile. “You don’t give a fuck if you don’t have to.

” He seems to consider. “And you drink a lot of coffee and pee every hour because of it. You’re funnier than people assume because they don’t listen.

You probably have daddy issues, but you don’t let it affect you.

You ask your best friend’s opinion on everything.

You’re a serial first dater. And that scar on your hand needed stitches, but you were probably too stubborn to get them. ”

I jerk my left hand closer to me and cover it with my right, and defend my actions quickly. “I didn’t have health insurance.”

His mouth turns down in a smug expression, clearly realizing he’s right. “I’m not judging. Just observing.”

I run my fingers over the raised skin on my left hand. It was a stupid home renovation accident that just didn’t heal properly.

I smirk and lean forward. “You got two things wrong.”

“That right?”

He leans over the bar, and I stop breathing so I don’t inhale his scent.

“My daddy issues absolutely affect me, and I’m not as cold as you want me to be.”

He wipes the bar with a rag and laughs—the warm sound lighting me up from the inside out.

“I want to make you something.”

Considering he’s already made me a burger and jalapeno poppers, I can’t imagine what he’s going to make next.

He muddles mint with rum and brown sugar at the bottom of a glass. He mixes and pours and garnishes before dipping a straw into the now purplish liquid and pulling it out with his thumb on the tip, and putting it in his mouth.

He thinks a moment before he swallows. I’ve seen bartenders taste many drinks before, and maybe it’s the way he licks his bottom lip or the all too consuming eye contact he’s making, but I feel my jaw unhinge just enough that I clear my throat to snap myself out of it.