Death and Relaxation (Ordinary Magic #1)(26)

“It all sounds good,” Myra added.

“New cook, new experiences,” Jean said. “We should all try something we’ve never done before. It might make us much less bitchy.”

I kicked her.

“Had,” she corrected. “Try something we’ve never had before. The bitchy comment stands,” she muttered.

I checked out Ryder’s reaction through my lowered lashes. Other than a crooked smile, he was studiously ignoring my stupid sister, poring over the selections.

“I know what I’m getting,” he said.

“Something fancy?” Jean asked.

“No.” He placed the menu down in front of him, and when I glanced up, he tipped his head just a bit to hold my gaze. “Burger, double cheese, double onion, side of fries.”

The same thing he said he’d had last night.

“I thought you were an adventurous man, Mr. Bailey,” I said.

“Naw. A small-town boy like me? I know when to savor a good thing that’s right in front of me before it slips away.”

My lungs stopped working.

He was flirting with me. He was really, right here, in public and everything, flirting with me.

What happened to the friend thing we had going?

Was he just acting? Was this a joke to him? Something Myra and Jean had talked him into? If he saw me tongue-tied and flustered, would he laugh because I had mistakenly thought he was really flirting?

We were just friends. We both knew that.

Or did we?

“Burgers and fries are great,” I said, my voice too high. Stupid. Nervous. Jean covered her laugh with a cough.

Ryder might be messing with my concentration, but Jean was an easy, clear target. “What are you having, Jean?” I swung a boot her way, but she shifted sideways, easily avoiding the under-table war.

“Well, I hear the burgers are great. But you know I always go for the hot, dark, and delicious.”

Ryder’s eyebrows tucked down, but just the corner of his mouth slid up as he glanced over at her.

“Dark?”

“Chocolate,” she said with an innocence she hadn’t had a right to claim since she was sixteen. “Unlike Delaney, who is compelled to plan out every little thing in her life and then boss us around about doing the same, I’m more of a jump-in-all-the-way, dessert-first person.”

“I boss you around because I’m your boss. Order food that isn’t sugar,” I bossed.

Myra sighed and placed her menu down, her eyes scanning the room for the waitress just as a mortal named Molly walked over with our drinks.

Molly was a college student staying with her grandmother this term and saving up money for next term by working at Jump Off Jack’s.

“Hi, officers. Hi, Ryder,” she said with a quick smile as she set out our drinks. “Everyone ready to order?”

“Hey, Molly,” Myra said. “I’ll take the chef salad, blue cheese on the side.”

Jean pointed to the back of her menu. “Can I get the chocolate lava cake with a side of vanilla ice cream?”

I scowled at her. She rolled her eyes.

“And carrots?”

“Uh…steamed carrots?” Molly asked.

Jean made a face. “Do you have raw?”

“Sure. Do you want those on the side?”

“Yes, please.” Jean handed her menu over and took a nice long drink of her beer, daring me with her eyes to nag her about her food choices.

“Chief?” Molly asked.

“How’s the fish?”

“We’re out tonight. We’ve been having some trouble getting shipments in.”

Getting fresh fish around here didn’t seem like much of a challenge. We lived next to the ocean, the brewery abutted the bay, and there was more than one fisherman who would be happy to supply a restaurant that did this much business on an off night.

“Sorry to hear that,” I said. “I’ll go with the blue cheese maple bacon burger, fries.”

“Excellent,” she said. “Ryder?”

“Burger, double cheese, double onion with fries,” Ryder said.

She nodded and tucked all the menus under her arm. “Anyone want to try the Barberry Butte beer? On the house.”

“Is that Chris’s rhubarb-cranberry beer?” Jean asked.

“Yep.”

“No thanks,” Ryder and I said at the same time Jean and Myra said, “Sure.”

“Two yes, two no, got it.” Molly was off at a quick clip.

“I didn’t know you liked cranberries,” I said to Jean.

“You know I like free beer.”

Ryder chuckled.

I took a drink of my beer, watched Ryder drink his, spending a little too much attention to how his lips moved against his glass. Maybe our wait would be best spent going over business, not my fantasies of his lips on my skin.

“Which of my sisters conned you into volunteering for the department?” I asked. Jean might think I planned everything out before jumping in, but she was wrong. Look at me—spontaneous.

He shook his head. “Neither. I volunteered.”

“When?”

“This morning, after you came by and mentioned you were short-handed.”

“I didn’t bring that up so you would offer your time.”