His Dancer To Claim

Chapter 2

He came back four days later.

Lena was putting bottles back on the shelf behind the counter when the door opened. The room did what it had done the last time, everyone took a quiet breath, shifted their posture slightly, and the bar seemed to adjust itself to make space for something it hadn’t expected. She didn't need to look because she already knew.

She put back the last bottle she was holding, set it straight, then turned around.

Damien Voss. Alone this time.

He looked around the room quickly, checking the doors, the people's faces, and how the space was laid out, then spotted her, and the scanning stopped. He went to her part of the bar she had privately decided was the worst seat in the bar. Too near the kitchen door, got caught in a breeze, made a lot of noise, and had a strange view of the room. She intentionally placed him there the first time.

He sat in it as if it were the head of a very long table.

She went over.

"You're back," she said.

"I am."

"Velmoor Reserve?"

"Please."

She wrote it down even though she wasn’t required to. She turned to go.

"Whenever you have a moment," he said. "No rush."

She paused. He was looking at the menu; one page, plastic-coated, with the same twelve dishes it had always had. He looked at it with the calm patience of someone who had the whole evening to spare.

"It's a busy night," she said.

"It's a Tuesday."

"Tuesdays are busy."

"All right," he said, still looking at the menu.

She got his drink, brought it back, and placed it down without saying anything. He said, "Thank you, Lena" the same way he had before; as if he was pressing her name into something, keeping track of where it was for later.

She went back to work.

By nine o'clock, Clara got a headache and went to the back, so Lena was left to handle four tables by herself. By ten o'clock she had gotten it down to two, and her feet had strong opinions about everything she'd asked them to do that day.

She walked by Damien's table to check on him.

"Still good?"

"Still good." He was on his second glass. He looked just as comfortable as he had two hours before. "You look tired."

She stopped.

"I'm fine."

"I know you are." He turned the glass in his hand. "I didn't say you were not.

“Most people don't notice their waitress.”

"Most people aren't paying attention." Said simply. Like a fact. "I'll let you get back to it."

She didn't think about the word attention. She kept thinking about it for the rest of her shift.

At eleven the bar was nearly empty. Lena was stacking chairs and Damien was the last one at the table, standing there. She had been working around him for twenty minutes because his glass still had something in it, and she wasn’t going to be the person who rushed a wolf out of a bar.

She put the last chair in his line of sight and checked the clock.

"Thirty minutes," she said to the room.

"I know."

She took the cloth and cleaned the empty tables. In her peripheral vision he hadn't moved.

"Is there something you need?" she asked, without meeting his eyes.

"No."

"Then I'll need that table soon."

"You'll have it."

She looked at him properly. He was looking at her with that calm, focused look; taking his time, being patient, like she was something he was willing to take his time with. She had worked a long shift being very careful with her face, and she was starting to run out of that carefulness.

"Why do you keep coming here?" she asked.

He was quiet for a moment.

"The whiskey is good," he said.

"There are better bars in Velmoor."

"There are."

"Better seats too."

The corner of his mouth moved just slightly. Just enough to be annoying. "I've noticed the seats."

"And yet here you are."

"And yet," he finished the glass, set it down, and looked at her in a way that was different from how he had been looking at her all evening. More direct. He seemed like he had made up his mind. "You're the only one in this bar who has talked to me the same way three times in a row."

She kept her face expressionless. "I talk to everyone the same way."

"You talk to everyone in a professional way," he said. "Professional is like putting on a performance." What you do is something else."

She had no answer for that. She hated not having an answer.

"I need the table," she said.

He stood. Taller than she expected. He put on his coat; a dark, well cut coat, the kind that cost more than several of her rent payments combined. He then reached into his pocket.

"I can bring your bill," she said.

"It's taken care of." He placed something on the table. Not money this time, but a card. Dark paper, small, just a name and a number. "In case something comes to mind."

"In case something comes to mind."

"A complaint, a question," he said. He buttoned his coat. "Opinions on the seating." Whatever you like."

He walked to the door.

He put his hand on the frame and stopped.

He did not turn around.

"Rosie was really something on Friday night," he said. "Especially that last part." I've been thinking about it."

The whole room tilted.

Lena was in the middle of the empty bar, holding a cloth, and every hair on her body was standing straight up. Her face was doing nothing. She had spent many years teaching her face to stay still, and right now that practice was the only part of her body that was working correctly.

He knew.

He knew all along and he stayed in her section for two hours. He said thank you, told her she looked tired, and talked about the seats. He knew every moment of it.

The door opened and closed.

He was gone.

She stood exactly where she was.

Then she slowly placed the cloth on the closest table. She picked up his card, looked at the name and put it in her apron pocket. She counted the till, turned off the lights, and locked the door. She did all of this correctly, with her pulse sitting in her throat and the word Friday repeating in her head like a song that wouldn't stop playing.

He had been there Friday. He had watched her. He had linked the waitress with the flat eyes and the dancer behind the mask, and he had returned to her bar without saying a word about it for weeks.

Not a threat. He hadn't made it into a threat.

Which meant the threat was still coming.

Which meant this was worse.

She was four blocks away from her house when she realized her hands were clenched into fists inside her coat pockets. She loosened her grip and kept walking, telling herself the only thing making her tremble was the cold.

The card stayed on her kitchen table all through the night.

She made a cup of tea that she didn't drink and sat by the window, thinking about what it meant that he had been at The Red Curtain on a Friday. Mr. Holt held meetings in the private rooms, business she had learned not to ask about. You walked in, did your work, and kept looking straight ahead. That was the agreement.

He had come for a meeting.

He had found Rosie anyway.

She tried to remember Friday. The crowd, the lights, the specific way she focused when the music began. She tried to recall if anything felt different but couldn't. She was so deep in the performance that she couldn't sense anything happening outside of it.

That was the whole point of the mask.

Now the mask had been seen through by the one person she needed most to stay hidden from.

She stood up and flipped the card over so she couldn't see his name anymore.

She went to bed.

She lay in the dark and thought about how he had said it in a careful and easy way. Rosie was something else on Friday night. Conversational…like a compliment.

Not: I know what you're hiding. Not: I own you now.

Just — something else.

Outside, somewhere in the city, something let out a single howl and then went quiet.

Lena closed her eyes.

She was not afraid.

She was just not sleeping either.