“Here?” Griffin was trying to picture that happening without him or Kevin knowing.
“Not here. At that bar we used to go to back in college.”
Kevin didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, right.”
“I have! I have great memories of storeroom sex. The smell of cardboard boxes can still get me hot. And it would work great in this setup, too. I’ve noticed that the storeroom isn’t off the kitchen, like in some places. It opens off the same hall as the bathrooms.”
As they sat at their usual table, Kevin shook his head in obvious disbelief. “If you’ve made it with a chick in a storeroom, then I’m Clarence Darrow.”
Miles stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Clarence.”
Their banter made little impression on Griffin. All his attention was focused on Lily. She stood behind the bar and leaned casually against the polished surface while she talked with the long-haired waiter. What was his name again? Sherman. Yeah, that was it.
Lily had glanced over at him when he’d first come in and given him a brief but dazzling smile. That smile coupled with the low-cut black tops she favored when she was tending bar had him salivating. He’d needed every last ounce of his self-control to keep from marching over to the bar, cupping his hand behind her head and French-kissing her blind. But this was her work environment and he wouldn’t compromise that.
Sherman was entirely too friendly for Griffin’s taste, though, and Lily seemed perfectly happy in Sherman’s company. The guy was a little young for Lily, but some women liked younger guys. Maybe he should wander over to the bar and give her their order.
“Earth to Griffin. Come in, Griffin.” Miles waved a hand in front of his face.
He turned to Miles. “What?”
“I asked you twice if you wanted to order a sandwich. There’s not a huge selection, but it’s better than my alternative, which is to go home and nuke a frozen pizza. We figured you’d go for that plan. Am I right?”
“Sure. Let’s do that.” Griffin swiveled back to continue watching Lily, who was busy mixing drinks. Sherman had left and was now on the far side of the room, taking orders. Griffin didn’t expect Sherman to take theirs, however.
Any minute now Lily would come over and take their order, the way she always did. Pretty soon he should figure out how he wanted the evening to go. He hadn’t thought about spending the whole night at the bar, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to go home until Lily was ready to leave.
He also had to decide what to do if he spent the night at her place again. Waking up with no change of clothes, no razor and no toothbrush wasn’t his idea of suave. Maybe he and Lily should go home, pick up Daisy and anything Lily would need, and then go to his place. If he was going to work the next day that would make it easier.
“You know, it’s like sitting here with a robot, a robot who looks like Griffin Taylor,” Miles remarked.
At the sound of his name, Griffin turned his attention back to his friends. “Excuse me?”
“Kevin and I were wondering if you were going to partake in any jovial guy talk tonight, or if we could expect you to spend the entire happy hour staring at Lily.”
Griffin didn’t like appearing to be a lovesick fool in front of his friends, so he leaned back in his chair and loosened his tie. “What sort of jovial guy talk did you have in mind?”
“Oh, the usual. Whether the Cubs are likely to move up in the standings this weekend. Whether Britney Spears is hotter than Jennifer Lopez. Whether you’re aware that your fly’s down.”
Instantly Griffin checked, and just as instantly knew he’d been had. “Funny. You guys are a real riot.”
“So are you,” Miles said. “Kev warned me about the state of your brain, or what’s left of it, and I thought he was exaggerating.”
“As you can see, I wasn’t,” Kevin said.
“Nope.” Miles folded his arms. “But I predict we’ll see the old Griff in another week or so. He’s been depriving himself, so this reaction is natural. Pretty soon sex won’t be this shiny new toy, and then we’ll have our buddy back.”
Griffin took comfort in Miles’s matter-of-fact evaluation. He was feeling a little out of control, but Miles was probably right. He hadn’t been indulging in sex recently, and then he’d repressed his attraction to Lily. Now that he’d turned those urges loose, he was feeling consumed by them.
But it wouldn’t last. Nothing this exciting ever lasted. That was the whole point. You didn’t build a life on the basis of a momentary infatuation. His buddies would keep him grounded so he wouldn’t do that.
Even so, when he caught Lily’s scent and knew she was on her way over to the table, his pulse leaped and his groin stirred. He thought about Miles’s joke about storeroom sex, and it wasn’t such a joke anymore. Griffin wondered if he could tempt her to go back there.
He hadn’t brought condoms, but every bar worth its salt and lime had a condom dispenser in the men’s bathroom. It was a thought. Not a particularly noble thought, considering that he’d recently vowed not to bother her on the job. But a thought nevertheless.
“So, gentlemen, what will it be tonight?”
Griffin looked up and his face was level with her cleavage. If he grabbed her around the waist he could bury his face there. He wouldn’t do that, of course. But the storeroom was looking like a better option every minute.
Chapter 9
Lily was good at her job, which allowed her to do it while only part of her brain was focused on tending bar. The other part was absorbed with watching Griffin. She could tell from the way his friends teased him that they knew about her. That was an encouraging development. If Griffin had told his friends, then he wasn’t ashamed of the connection.
Tonight she’d ask him to Anica and Jasper’s engagement party on Sunday. If nothing else, she’d have a cool date for that party, and she’d been worried about that ever since the plans were made. She should be past the point of competing with Anica, but when she was completely honest with herself, she admitted she wasn’t past it.
When her parents came, Anica would be introducing them to her fiancé, a really great guy even if he wasn’t magical. At the very least, Lily wanted to show up with a really great boyfriend. Her parents had always predicted she’d end up with a bad-boy type, and she would be delighted to present Griffin, who was everything her mom and dad could want for their daughter.
Well, except for the fact that Griffin wasn’t a wizard. But mixed marriages were becoming increasingly common in the magical world, and her parents would just have to get in step with the new millennium. Whoops. Had she just let herself think about the M word?
That was making quite a leap. She might have bound Griffin to her sexually, but marriage was a huge step beyond that. She must be influenced by Anica’s upcoming wedding.
Still, as she served hot pastrami sandwiches and beer to Griffin and his friends, she pictured Kevin and Miles as groomsmen. Kevin might be Griffin’s best man, because he seemed a little closer to him than Miles. But both of them would definitely be in the wedding.
She’d have Anica as her matron of honor, and Jasper might be a groomsman. That meant coming up with a couple more women, but Lily would have no trouble with that. She had two girlfriends from high school that had moved out of the Chicago area, but Lily still kept in touch with them. They’d expect to be in her wedding. Oh yeah, they’d be excited for her.
“Lily?” Sherman reached across the bar and touched her shoulder. “Are you about finished with those margs?”
Lily jerked out of her wedding daze and looked at the two margarita glasses in her hand. They had salt on the rims, and that was about the extent of her preparation on those two drinks. “Coming right up,” she said brightly, as if she hadn’t been standing there daydreaming about a wedding that might never take place.
When Lily was a little girl, she’d loved pretending to be a bride. Then puberty had hit with a vengeance, and she’d differentiated herself from her sane, responsible sister by being a wild child. She
hadn’t stopped to figure out that men don’t usually propose to the wild child.
After Kevin, Miles and Griffin finished their food, Lily expected them all to leave as they usually did. Kevin and Miles did leave, giving her a wave as they went out the door into the spring night. Griffin, however, moved his base of operations over to the bar and perched on a stool.
Lily glanced at her watch. She had another four hours before she could go home. Surely Griffin wasn’t planning to sit at the bar for four hours?
But she was the consummate bartender, so after he sat down, she placed a napkin in front of him. “What can I get for you, stranger?”
He gave her a heart-melting smile. “I don’t really need another drink, but I guess if I’m going to sit here I need to order something.”
“The management likes that, yeah.”
“Then get me another beer. I’ll nurse it.”
She kept her voice low. “Griffin, aren’t you going home?”
“I thought I’d stick around until you got off work.”
“But that’s four hours away.” She considered this scenario stretching on, night after night. “Your liver can’t take it.”
“I realize it’s not the brightest plan in the universe, but I . . .” He reached out and traced a finger along her arm. “I can’t seem to leave.”
She knew why, too. She’d given him an adoration elixir, and he wasn’t happy unless he was breathing the same air she was. That made her think of Daisy, and how much Griffin had loved taking her out.
She had an idea, one that might benefit them all. “You know, whenever I’m here at the bar, I worry about Daisy and wonder if she needs to go out.”
“She’s probably fine. I’m sure you took her out before you left for work.”
“I did, but it was quick, and then I fed her. You know how that can jump-start things.” She reached under the counter and unzipped her backpack. “Take my key. You can let her out, go down to the dog park and then wait for me at the apartment.”
“I was thinking maybe we’d pick up Daisy and take her to my place.”
Lily thought about her commitment to ride to O’Hare with Anica first thing in the morning. “That won’t work. I’m doing an airport run with Anica in the morning, and I need to be at home so I can get ready for that.” She paused, wondering how much to say. “My parents have been on a yearlong research trip to Peru, and they’re making a special trip home for the engagement party and wedding. Anica and I need to be on time.”
He looked worried. “When your parents arrive, will that mean we can’t spend as much time together?”
“Unfortunately, that’s likely. Of course, I’d love for you to go to the engagement party with me on Sunday.”
“I’ll be happy to go wherever you go.”
She gulped. That sounded good on the surface, but it might not work so well in practice. “Actually, I’ll be down here most of the day, decorating with Anica, so if you could hang out with Daisy part of Sunday, I’d really appreciate it.”
He didn’t seem overjoyed to be substituting Daisy for her, but he nodded. “I can do that.”
“And if you take care of Daisy for me tonight, then you and I will have more time to . . .” Instead of spelling it out, she gave him a heated look and let him fill in the blanks.
He sucked in a breath. “Got it. Tell you what. I’ll head to my place, pick up a few things, go to your apartment and take care of Daisy, and have the bed warm by the time you get there.”
That scenario wasn’t half bad. If only he weren’t being driven by the spell she’d cast, she could look forward to having a man waiting in her bed for her when she got home. Zeus’s balls, she could still look forward to it. She’d created this situation, and she might as well enjoy herself.
Griffin took time to change into jeans and a sweatshirt. Then he picked up clean clothes, his toiletry kit and the condoms he preferred before leaving his apartment. As he stood in the living room with a garment bag over his shoulder and a small duffel in one hand, he wondered what Lily would think of the place. He hadn’t so much decorated as he had simply moved in and bought some necessary furniture.
Unlike Lily’s apartment, which glowed with color, Griffin’s apartment was filled with shades of beige. He’d never felt comfortable with the whole decorating concept, so he’d stuck with neutrals because they were safe.
His whole damned life had been safe, now that he thought about it. He’d been so desperate to avoid the chaos of his parents’ impulsive choices that he’d avoided taking any personal risks at all. Until Lily.
The more he thought about it, the more pleased he was that he’d taken that risk, followed that impulse that had made him run all the way to the Bubbling Cauldron last night. His life had been colorless until then, but he’d taken steps to pump the color back in.
He didn’t kid himself that he and Lily had a future. They were still very different people, set on very different paths. But for some crazy reason she wanted him. And for obvious reasons, he needed her. He’d walked the straight and narrow for too long.
Thinking about what they’d share later tonight, he set down his garment bag and duffel so he could rummage through a kitchen cupboard. Ah, there they were. A former girlfriend, one who hadn’t inspired him half as much as Lily had already, had given him a box full of various sizes of candles.
The relationship had ended before he’d used any of the candles. He tucked the box into his duffel, along with a book of matches. He’d never been much of a romantic, but Lily was the kind of woman who seemed to invite the romantic approach.
He was almost out the door when he remembered the bottle of red wine he’d bought months ago and tucked in a cupboard, thinking he needed to have some on hand. Because he’d been so damned picky about his dates, he’d never brought anyone home to sample that wine.
Lily would appreciate it. And he knew instinctively that she’d have wineglasses and an opener. Lily knew how to enjoy herself, and it was high time he learned how to do that, too.
Fortified with his supplies, he caught a cab over to her apartment. The place was already starting to feel familiar, and Daisy greeted him, wiggling and panting with joy. Maybe she really did need to go out.
Setting down his duffel and garment bag, he located the leash and clipped it on. Once he was out the door, he discovered that he looked forward to romping with Daisy. He truly needed to get a dog.
Out on the sidewalk, Daisy found a patch of gravel and took a quick pee. Then Griffin pointed her toward the dog park, but Daisy tugged him in the opposite direction.
“Daisy, it’s this way.” He pulled on her collar, but she wouldn’t budge, and she was stronger than he’d realized. Short of carrying her to the dog park, which seemed idiotic, he would have to go along with her new plan.
God, this was getting more like a Lassie episode every time he interacted with this dog. She definitely had a mind of her own. “Look, I don’t want to go see your friend at the coffee shop, okay? He’s way too interested in Lily.”
Daisy whined and gazed down the street.
“Oh, what the hell. I suppose it doesn’t matter. I have the inside track. I can take this opportunity to inform what’s-his-name that he can look elsewhere. Let’s go.”
The retriever’s tail lifted like a banner as she trotted down the sidewalk. Once again, she seemed to be smiling.
“You are some kind of dog, Daisy. I doubt there’s another golden at the animal shelter quite like you, but one of these days I’ll have to go down and take a look.”
Daisy gave a short yip, as if she approved of that plan.
Warning himself not to turn her normal doggie responses into more than they actually were, he continued to talk to her. “Just think, if I hadn’t gone home with Lily last night, I never would have met you. There were plenty of obvious benefits to going home with Lily, but I hadn’t thought I’d find a new friend in the process.”
Daisy whined and wagged her tail.
“Sa
me here, Daisy. Same here.”
The neon sign for Harvey’s Hangout glowed at the end of the block. Griffin wondered if he should buy a cup of coffee. Probably. It would be rude to bring Daisy for a visit and not buy any coffee.
As they approached, he noticed that tonight’s crowd was different, mostly teenagers hanging out. Then again, he was here a couple of hours earlier, so maybe that made sense. He paused, thinking he’d tie Daisy to the leg of one of the wrought-iron chairs.
Daisy didn’t pause. She kept right on walking.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Puzzled, Griffin followed her to the corner. When he stopped to wait for the light to change, she sat down beside him.
He glanced across the street toward a neighborhood grocery store that was still open. He wouldn’t have noticed it the night before because they’d been here much later. Maybe Daisy had a friend over there, too. He’d have to ask Lily about Daisy’s habits so he’d be forewarned about the places she liked to go and the people she liked to see.
The light changed, and Daisy pranced across the street, towing Griffin. Her tail waved in delight the closer they came to the corner store. On this spring night the double doors stood open and the owner had displayed colorful fruit and vegetables in tiered bins.
The array almost made Griffin wish he could cook. Besides the produce, the display included one section of bouquets in a riot of color. Griffin considered the flowers and decided that would be a nice addition to the candles and wine.
“Thanks, Daisy. This was a great idea.” As he stood by the door, wondering whether to tie Daisy to a nearby bike rack, the owner came out wearing a green bib apron.
The small Asian man of indeterminate age was grinning so widely that the rest of his face almost disappeared. “Daisy!” He stooped down and scratched the dog behind both ears. “So good to see you, honored friend.”
Daisy whined in delight and gave his face a lick.
“She must make friends fast,” Griffin said. “Lily hasn’t had her long.”
“Oh yes, she makes friends very fast.” The small man gave Daisy one last pat before standing. “She’s a great dog.”
Chick with a Charm Page 9