“Good, good, everything’s great. Good to see you, man. I saw Ingrid the other day. She told me you were here. So… here I am!”
“That right?” said Freddie with a grin. “Wow! Ingrid, huh? Erda and Thor.” He laughed.
“Yep! Except I go by Troy Overbrook now.” He swung his bangs out of his face.
Freddie shook his head with a smile. “Troy Overbrook, Freddie Beauchamp at your service. What can I get you?”
Troy eyed the bottles on the shelves behind the bar. “How about we have ourselves a little reunion celebration?” He squinted at Freddie and gave a nod. “Tequila?”
“Perfecto!” Freddie got an unopened bottle of Sauza Gold along with shot glasses and dewy cold Coronas. He had already finished his own beer. He set the tequila and beers down between them. They licked salt off their fists, slammed down their shots, bit into limes, and took deep swigs of the chasers.
Troy flashed his glowing white teeth.
Freddie saluted Troy with his beer bottle. “What the hell have you been up to?” He didn’t usually drink on the job, but this reunion was a special occasion.
As they downed more tequila shots and beers, Troy proceeded to tell Freddie about his life in Midgard. He told him about his more recent fiasco: the after-hours club he had owned in the city, and how he finally had to give up the ghost. He had sold it and made a modest but decent chunk of change. He believed the club’s lack of success was somehow related to their magic waning. Then, on a last minute whim, Troy had decided to spend the winter in North Hampton and enjoy the quiet. He had some business here.
Freddie lifted his eyebrows inquisitively at Troy as he poured two more shots that spilled over the glasses.
“Well, I kind of just wanted to see Erda, to tell you the truth.” Troy shook his head. “I mean Ingrid. You know, give it the old college try.” The Sauza had loosened his tongue.
“Oh,” said Freddie. “Right, well, good luck with that!” He grinned.
“Help me out here, Freddie! A guy needs all the help he can get. Can’t you do something? I mean, she’s your sister! She really serious about that mortal?”
Freddie hiccupped. He took a long swig of beer, which seemed to help. “Sure looks like it. Sorry, bud.”
They laughed good-naturedly. Freddie replenished their beers, and they drained two more shots and bit into lime quarters, making puckered-up faces. Freddie quickly served the new customers who had wandered in, disappointed to find Freya and her pop-up drinks were gone, but Freddie made them forget his sister soon enough with his own brand of magic: being an energetic, good-looking guy at the bar. He refilled a few drinks, and returned to Troy, all ears, but not before pouring himself and Troy two additional shots.
Troy regaled him with tales from his immortal life—in Roman times, he had been a senator (tons of gold, bacchanalia, and debauchery); in sixteenth-century France, he had lived in the courts of kings (more gold and oh-so-many lovely br**sts heaving up from tight corsets); then in the nineteenth century, he was with Jefferson in Paris (excellent cash flow and not stodgy at all—in fact, the libertines were total babes). And on it went with raves about gold and women, then eventually cars and motorcycles.
Freddie had started to feel a little edgy—or, rather, envious of Troy. His friend had lived all these amazing lives. What had Freddie done since he’d arrived in Midgard? Since he had made his way back from Limbo, he had fallen for this chick, Hilly, who had totally bamboozled him and he ended up forced to marry her sister, and just when he had completely fallen for Gert, she had left him. Most of his time in mid-world had, in fact, been spent playing video games, if he really thought about it. He had put out a few little house fires, but big deal.
He felt miserable, unaccomplished, drowsy, and punchy. A total loser. Tequila had a way of doing that. At first you felt wickedly on top of the world, then you were ready to sock the first person who looked at you askew. Vodka would have been better. And where was that bleached blonde at the end of the bar? It was looking a little blurry down there. Had she fallen off her stool? He had forgotten to call her a cab. He’d take care of it later. It was her own damn fault if she’d gotten too wasted. Someone came over and asked him for a drink, and he mixed it hastily, making a mess on the bar, which he didn’t bother to wipe, then he slapped the cash in the register.
“So what’s been going on with you? Tell me all about your lives!” Troy said enthusiastically, giving Freddie his big, dimpled grin.
Freddie stared blankly back. Why had Troy just asked him that? Of course Troy knew what had gone down, that Freddie had spent the last five thousand years whiling his time away in friggin’ Limbo because he had been wrongfully accused of destroying the Bofrir. WTF?
Troy’s smile went slack, and his broad shoulders deflated. He realized the faux pas. “Oh, I’m so sorry, dude… yeah… about that… At least you’re out, right? I heard the Valkyries found the real guy who did it.”
Freddie didn’t answer. It was his fault, what had happened to Killian. There were so many things he wished he could have done differently. Freya back in the past, Killian in Limbo, and here he was, stuck in this little town, getting drunk on tequila. He was useless. His life had been a waste.
“Hey!” said Troy, reaching over the bar to grab Freddie’s arm. “Did I say something wrong?”
Freddie smiled. “It’s cool, man. It’s totally cool! We’re good!” Freddie poured the rest of the Sauza into their shot glasses.
He couldn’t do anything for anyone. Not for his sister or his best friend. There was nothing to do but drink. Might as well finish the bottle.
chapter thirty-two
Shower the People
Guests sat on the carpet in a half circle around Tabitha. It was reminiscent of her reading hour at the library, only she was unwrapping baby-shower gifts in her living room. Hudson gathered the ribbons from the discarded wrappings and stuck them onto a paper plate, which then would be turned into a hat to place on Tabitha’s head. “A delightful and hilarious tradition,” he had remarked.
Ingrid was making a list of the gifts for thank-you notes. She had to admit there was something adorable about tiny, tiny socks and shoes and ever-so-soft miniature T-shirts and swaddling cloths, something that gave her a vague stirring. A baby. None of her siblings had ever had children. They were stuck, somehow; Freya and Freddie were perpetual adolescents, while Ingrid had been a spinster all her life, an unripened fruit, withering on the vine. But love had changed her, and she could finally understand what all the fuss was about.