Skylar-Katherine appeared at the end of the row. “Empty box?”
Mallory nodded as Skylar-Katherine checked her clipboard. I guess the inventory had been useful after all. “Not at the moment. Hey, Curt!”
“Yeah?”
“Wolfsbane?”
He appeared on the other end of the row, a stack of boxes in hand. “What about it?”
“You got any restock in the back? They need some.”
Curt looked at Mallory appraisingly. “That’s dangerous stuff. Could make someone sick.”
“I’m all but licensed,” she said. “And it won’t be for humans, if you catch my drift.”
“Okay. Just so you know. There’s a shipment from our herbalist coming in day after tomorrow. It should be on that truck.” He adjusted his boxes, scratched his cheek. “We can hold it for you.”
“Might be after hours before I can get over here.”
Skylar-Katherine tapped the clipboard, walked toward the back of the store. “We’ll be here. Inventory.”
* * *
“When was the last time you ate?” Mallory asked as the bell rang us out and Curt locked the door again.
“I had a bite of breakfast. And several madeleines. But I should probably get back to the House. I can grab something on the way.” I needed to process what we’d learned, update Luc and Jonah, find out whether we’d heard anything else about Darius.
“You probably should get back to the House,” she agreed as we walked back down Division. “But right now you’re with me, and I’m starving, and you have to eat anyway, and I’m jealous.”
That stopped me in the middle of the sidewalk. “Jealous? Of what?”
“Of Ethan. Of Jonah.” She cleared her throat self-consciously. “Of Lindsey. We’re getting our shit back together—I’m getting my shit back together—and I miss you.”
“You do recall that I had to move into Cadogan House in the first place because you invited Catcher in?”
“Young love,” she blandly said. “It had been a really long time since I’d been with someone who got me the way that he gets me. I kind of dived headfirst into it.”
“You did,” I agreed. “And I don’t fault you for that. But I didn’t pick teams. I just needed a place to live. Furniture that Catcher hadn’t been bare-ass naked on.”
“He and Ethan were friends,” Mallory pointed out. “There’s no telling how bare that ass has been in Cadogan House.”
“Don’t want to think about it.”
“I just—I miss you. And I’d like us to spend more time together. Maybe I can’t make up for that lost time, for choosing dicks over chicks, so to speak, but I’d like to see you more often.”
She said it so shyly, so meekly, that I nearly got teary-eyed. But I’d had enough near-tear moments in the last few days, so I sucked it up.
“You’re right—I have to eat, and you’ll definitely be better company than Darth Sullivan. I can check in with the House while we eat. And speaking of”—I glanced around the darkened streets—“there’s not much open around here.”
“Oh, but there is,” she said, turning around so she walked backward in front of me. “Do you remember what we’ve always talked about? Our dream restaurant?”
“The All You Can Eat Bacon Hut?”
“The other one.”
I searched my memory, stopped still. “No.”
Mallory stopped in front of me, grinned. “Yes.”
“No freaking way.”
She nodded briskly. “Uh-huh. Some restaurateurs are doing a ‘beta test’ or something, and it’s only two blocks away.”
This time, I tucked my arm in hers. “In that case, let’s eat.”
* * *
It was the concept of our dreams, born after one too many nights at restaurants that offered rice bowls of the Choose Your Own Adventure variety.
But what if the bowl wasn’t just rice? What if it wasn’t just faux Chinese or Tex-Mex?
What if the bowl could hold anything?
We’d spent one warm spring night on her stingy back porch with cheap blush wine and her current incarnation of a boyfriend, and we’d set out a plan: a restaurant in which you could assemble the bowl of your dreams. The bowl of your deepest longings. From shepherd’s pie to a barbecue sundae, seven-layer dip or a trifle of cakes and berries if that floated your boat. There’d be cold stations, hot stations, and plenty of snacks.
We’d called it “Baller Bowl.” And it was going to be legendary.
The restaurateurs called it “Layers,” and they’d built it in a long, narrow space with exposed-brick walls and small tables in front of an equally long oak banquette.
A man with black disks in his earlobes and wearing a snug plaid shirt brought cups of water and two sturdy white bowls to our table.
“Welcome to Layers, ladies.” He reached for silverware in the black apron around his neck. “Spoon, fork, or spork?”
Mallory and I looked at each other, eyes wide. “Sporks,” we simultaneously said as our dreams came true.
The waiter put two silver sporks on the table. “Hot bars on the right, cold bars on the left. One trip per bowl, and each bowl’s ten dollars. Fill it ’til you spill it,” he added, pointing at the motto on the wall behind us, and left us to work our magic.
* * *
I walked Mallory back to the town house with a belly full of layers—heavy on the mashed potatoes, lardons, peas, and grilled chicken.
We reached the front porch, turned to face each other like teenagers at the end of an evening. “Now that you’ve fed me, I should get back to the House. Do me a favor? Don’t tell anyone about the proposal thing. Especially not Catcher. I don’t think I’m up for that kind of teasing.”
“Like he would tease you about that.”
I gave her a flat look, and she waved away her argument.
“You’re right. He’d be unmerciful. We’ll wait until Darth Sullivan pops the question and plants a two-carat”—she paused to let me argue with the prediction, but I just shrugged—“or four-carat or whatever ring on your finger, and let Catcher torture him instead. That seems safest.”
“I appreciate it.”
She flapped her hands. “Come here,” she said. “Give me a hug before you leave.”
She squeezed so hard I coughed, vampire healing or not. At the sound, she pulled back, looked at me.