“We’re all good,” Riley cut him off. “Go check on those tables.” She shooed away the younger woman with her free hand.
After Ceilidh had scampered off, Riley nudged the pile of caramelized onion on her plate, wielding her fork awkwardly with her left hand. Damn. They weren’t just on top. They had been mixed into the salad. She might have managed to pick around them if she could use her dominant hand, but alas . . .
“It’s fine,” she told Clark, who had made a far wiser choice for his meal in a sandwich he could hold in one hand, though, she noticed, he’d yet to reach for it. “I’ll just eat the fries.”
He frowned. “Do you want me to call her back?”
“Oh no. I would rather die,” Riley said sincerely.
The frown, impossibly, deepened. “Are you allergic to onions?”
“No.” She just hated the texture. Leave it to onions to ruin her attempt to feed herself something green.
Clark beckoned the offending plate forward. “Give it here.”
“What are you gonna do?” Riley swore if he draped his napkin over it like a shroud or something she would drag his snooty ass right out of here.
He raised his fork as if there was no doubt his order would be followed. “I’m going to pick them out, obviously.”
“You’re gonna pick out my onions,” she said, disbelieving.
“I am if you’ll push the bloody plate toward me.” He glared at the manacle chain between them. “Afraid my reach’s a bit hampered at the moment.”
“That’s okay.” Riley pushed the plate to the side instead. “You don’t have to.”
She didn’t want him putting himself out just because she’d told him a sad story.
“Riley,” he said dangerously. “I’m going to pick out those onions whether you like it or not, so I suggest you hand me your plate before I have to stand up and make a scene.” He put his free hand on the edge of the table like he was threatening to scoot his chair back.
She didn’t smile, but it was a near thing.
Clark picked out her onions with the same steely-eyed diligence he applied to every other activity, placing them on his own napkin, as far away from her as the table would allow.
“There.” Job done and her plate returned to her, he sat back in his chair and finally reached for his burger.
It was probably cold by now.
Only when he raised his eyebrows at her did Riley realize he was waiting for her to try the salad. She did, quickly.
“It’s good.” She would have said so either way after that, but it was true. The acid in the dressing cut nicely through the richness of the goat cheese. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, and finally satisfied, took a bite of his own food.
Riley couldn’t help the strangest rush of . . . she didn’t even know the word for this feeling. It was what happened when she saw a picture of a puppy. A kind of squeezing sigh.
Which was ridiculous. Girl. It was a pile of onions.
He’d even been surly while completing the task. Did his lips fold down naturally, or had they gotten stuck that way after thirty-odd years of repeated use?
A few minutes later, Clark raised his chin toward the bottle beside her elbow. “May I borrow the malt vinegar?”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” She moved to grab the condiment as Ceilidh sped toward their table, gushing an apology about onions, her eyes immense and panicky.
“Please don’t worry about it,” Riley rushed to assure her.
“Oh my god.” Ceilidh bent her knees and opened her arms for a quick hug. “Thank you for not being the third person tonight to scream at me.”
The angle of the embrace was wonky, considering Riley only had one arm available and was currently holding the vinegar, but she’d been there, the middle of a shift when nothing was going right and someone, anyone, was generous about it. Riley raised her arm and hugged back, trying to position her hand so that she didn’t boink the poor waitress in the head with the bottle. “It happens to everyone, seriously—”
Ceilidh bumped the vinegar with her shoulder as she pulled back. The next thing Riley knew, insanely pungent liquid was pouring over her neck, down her chest, seeping into her shirt.
She tried to stop it, but her other arm couldn’t reach, and now Ceilidh was trying to help and getting it all over herself too. Clark jumped to his feet, yanking Riley around in his effort to grab the bottle, all three of them slip-sliding on the wet wooden floor.
By the time they finally set it to rights, the entire bar was staring.
Riley winced, for both herself and for Ceilidh, who was having a truly terrible night.
Only when she’d sent her friend back to the kitchen to change—one of them had to stay and work, after all—did Riley, belly full of dread, make herself look at Clark, mentally preparing for his scorn, but instead . . . he had his face in his hand, his shoulders shaking.
What the hell? Was he so mortified of the spectacle he was crying? Sheesh, he wasn’t even the one who’d gotten wet.
But no, wait, he was making little undignified hiccuping sounds.
“I’m sorry,” he said, gasping for breath. “Not laughing at you—” His speech died off in another bout of helpless laughter. “You don’t look that bad, really.”
Riley rolled her eyes. It was nice, unexpected, to hear him laugh.
“I’d offer you my napkin,” he said as she wiped ineffectually at her shirt with her own, which was so wet it was crumbling, “but you see”—he tried and failed to smother another helpless giggle— “it’s got onions in it.”
“You’re such a jerk.” But brightness cracked between her ribs. And then she was laughing too. “God, Clark, I stink.”
That set them both off in a new bout. Clark was going to fall out of his chair.
“I’m just glad,” he said, and swiped at a tear that had appeared in a corner of his eye, “that we already agreed to sleep in your bed.”
Chapter Seventeen
The first thing Clark noticed upon entering Riley’s room at the inn was that her murder board had expanded significantly. The second thing he noticed was that it now had his face on it.
“Uh, so . . .” She tried to place herself in a way that obstructed his view, an act that was complicated by the fact that he was taller than her and they were chained together. “I normally work alone, right? Like totally solo. But since the curse has sort of aggressively insisted you and I are linked . . .” She gave him a weak smile. “Linked,” she repeated as she held up her manacled arm, “get it?”
When Clark simply tried to sidestep her, she rushed to continue, “I guess I better fill you in on my working theories, or, in light of recent developments, lack thereof.”
“Where did you even get that picture?” It looked to have been taken at some kind of event. He was wearing a tux, but it wasn’t a posed step-and-repeat kind of thing. He wasn’t even looking at the camera.
“Google. Obviously.”
“Oh, obviously,” he repeated, mimicking the flat way she said the word in her accent. “Why am I up there? And is that—My face is circled.” He pointed.