He wanted to keep his tab open.Ĭharlie poured a shot of Four Roses for a tweedy guy in dirty glasses who looked like he’d been sleeping in his clothes and told her he didn’t like his bourbon too sweet.
#The world at night book Patch#
She checked on another table, a guy who was nursing a beer, trembling fingers applying a third nicotine patch to his inner arm. Topped it with a tiny pellet of dry ice that sent smoke wafting up, as though from a potion. Made a cosmopolitan that spilled ruby red out of the shaker. “Hey,” one of the regulars called, and Charlie turned away to take his order. Or that she’d had a few drinks before she arrived. It’s on me.”ĭoreen’s wet, red-rimmed eyes suggested that she’d have a hard time waiting. “Order something to keep my boss off my back. “Can I get you a drink?” she asked Doreen.ĭoreen shook her head. Like a strategy for success that’s only the word “profit” with a lot of exclamation points. It’d been arranged by Balthazar, who ran a shadow parlor out of the basement, speakeasy-style, and had good reasons to keep an eye on her-not the least of which was that he wanted her to come back to work for him.Īnd as Charlie looked over at Doreen and that familiar excitement stirred in her, she felt the precariousness of her commitment to the straight and narrow. Bartending at Rapture was a lucky break, given her track record. She’d notice if Charlie chatted to one person for too long, and Charlie couldn’t afford to lose this gig. It’d been a slow night at the lounge, but Odette, the ancient, semiretired dominatrix who owned the place, was sitting at a table out front, gossiping with her cronies. “I need to talk to you,” Doreen said loudly, reaching for Charlie as she passed. Every hustle an opportunity to let her worst impulses out to play. Drawn to a bad idea like a moth to a wool sweater. In the world of shadow magic, Charlie was a successful thief, but to the locals, she would always be a useful amateur, willing to palm a wedding ring or retrieve a dognapped pit bull.Ĭharlie Hall. And if the buttercream was a little grainy or one of the layers was a bit overbaked, well, it was still sweet and just as tall as a cake in a magazine, and it cost only the price of supplies. Silva from three blocks over to make their wedding cake, because she loved to bake and had fancy pastry piping doodads. When Charlie’s friend’s cousin got married, they asked Mrs.
#The world at night book skin#
When Charlie’s dad got what the doctor told him was a skin cancer, he drank a fifth of Maker’s Mark and asked a butcher friend to cut a divot out of his shoulder, because there was no way he could afford a surgeon. One is this: without the means to pay experts, it’s necessary to evolve a complex ecosystem of useful amateurs. There are countless differences between the lives of people with money and people without. Back in high school, she wouldn’t have given Charlie the time of day, and she probably didn’t want to tonight either. It was on that thought that Charlie looked up to see a test of her resolve walk through the double doors of Rapture Bar & Lounge.ĭoreen Kowalski’s face looked hot and blotchy with crying-she’d obviously tried to fix her makeup, but had wiped her mascara so hard that it winged out to one side. Little successes, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t proud of them. She had a job-with a timesheet, even-and a stolid brick of a boyfriend who paid his share of the rent. Sure, it had been hard to keep her worst impulses in check these past ten months, but it was better than being a lit match in a town she’d already doused in gasoline. If her shadow had been one of those magic ones, she was pretty sure even that thing would have run away.īut that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to be different. Had fingers made for picking pockets, a tongue for lying, and a shriveled cherry pit for a heart. Never met a bad decision she wasn’t willing to double down on. There’d always been something wrong with Charlie Hall.
Keeping busy meant keeping out of trouble. This was her second shift today the afternoon guy quit abruptly to follow his boyfriend to Los Angeles and she was stuck with his hours until Odette hired a replacement.īut as tired as Charlie was, she needed the cash. Sweat slicked the skin under her arms, at the hollow of her throat, and between her thighs.
Charlie’s ugly Crocs stuck to the mats on the floor behind the bar, making a sticky, squelching sound.
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