Behind The Bar Quotes & Sayings

The five rings of marriage: there's the engagement ring and the wedding ring, but there are three others, too: the boring, the suffering and the lawyering. I watched it for 20 years from behind a bar in Ft. Lauderdale. I prefer to stay single. — Steve Trotter

When you're asked to stay out of a bar you don't just punch the owner
you come back with your army and tear the place down, destroy the whole edifice and everything it stands for. No compromise. If a man gets wise, mash his face. If a woman snubs you, rape her. This is the thinking, if not the reality, behind the whole Hell's Angels act. — Hunter S. Thompson

The door of the bar opened, showing him a momentary oblong of true daylight, blankly white. A woman entered. He couldn't see her face as she crossed to the bar in front of the window, but he could see, drawn with exactitude by the light behind her, her legs within a summery white dress. When young he had supposed, without giving it much thought, that women didn't realize that sun behind them revealed them in this way; now he supposes that of course they must, and thinks about it. ("Novelty") — John Crowley

I've always had an irrational fear - it's really not an irrational fear, I think - whenever I've been standing at a urinal at a bar, or Giants Stadium or Yankee Stadium. You've got a bunch of drunks behind you, often in a hostile, adrenalized environment like a football game. What's to prevent the guy behind me from slamming my head into the porcelain wall in front of me? — Steve Rushin

I cannot understand the principle at all,' said Stephen. 'I should very much like to show it to Captain Aubrey, who is so very well versed in the mathematics and dynamics of sailing. Landlord, pray ask him whether he is willing to part with the instrument.'
Not on your fucking life,' said the Aboriginal, snatching the boomerang and clasping it to his bosom.
He says he does not choose to dispose of it, your honour,' said the landlord. 'But never fret. I have a dozen behind the bar that I sell to ingenious travelers for half a guinea. Choose any one that takes your fancy, sit, and Bennelong will throw it to prove it comes back, a true homing pigeon, as we say. Won't you?' This much louder, in the black man's ear.
Won't I what?'
Throw it for the gentleman.'
Give um dram.'
Sir, he says he will be happy to throw it for you; and hopes you will encourage him with a tot of rum. (pp. 353-354) — Patrick O'Brian

Here, however, you made art because it was the only thing you've ever been good at, the only thing, really, you thought about between shorter bursts of thinking about the things everyone thought about: sex and food and sleep and friends and money and fame. But somewhere inside you, whether you were making out with someone in a bar or having dinner with your friends, was always your canvas, its shapes and possibilities floating embryonically behind your pupils. — Hanya Yanagihara

park across from the bar; dressed in black slacks, loafers and a guayabera, he cautiously and constantly looked behind him. I — Alfredo Corchado

I saw the most frightening, most depressing sight I had ever seen - a row of stores with Stars of David and the word 'Jude' painted on them, and inside, behind half-empty counters, people in a daze, cringing like they didn't know what hit them and didn't know where the next blow would come from. Hitler had been in power only six months, and his boycott was already in full effect. I hadn't been so wholly conscious of being a Jew since my bar mitzvah, and it was the first time since I'd had the measles that I was too sick to eat. — Harpo Marx

Jesus, you're a wet blanket." Pigpen walks up behind Eli and grins like he just escaped prison. "Why are you giving the girl hell for wanting to go to an army bar at midnight? It's not like she told you she was going to kick puppies."
Pigpen winks at me. "You ready to roll? Or should I say hop? — Katie McGarry

I worship her, Bertie! I worship the very ground she treads on! continued the patient, in a loud, penetrating voice. Fred thompson and one or two fellows had come in, and McGarry, the chappie behind the bar, was listening with his ears flapping. But there's no reticence about Bingo. He always reminds me of the hero of a musical comedy who takes the centre of the stage, gathers the boys round him in a circle, and tells them all about his love at the top of his voice. — P.G. Wodehouse

I barely heard someone behind me at the bar say, "Are they fighting or having a book club?" And a different person answered, "I'm unclear. Looks like foreplay to me." We both ignored them. — Mia Sheridan

Halfway through my steak I caught sight of myself in the mirror behind the bar. I looked like someone who ought to eat alone. I didn't look in the mirror again. — Robert B. Parker

I was not a great bartender, but I did OK. I wasn't great at being efficient behind the bar, but I was pretty great at talking to people. I was a pretty good waiter. It was painstaking to get me to care about the clientele of some of these places I was working at. — Jack Falahee

She nodded a greeting and took a muffin and a cup of coffee. Then she left again. I took two muffins and an empty cup and a whole box of coffee. I figured I could prop it on the edge of the conference table with the spigot facing toward me. Refills as and when required. Like an alcoholic behind a bar. — Lee Child

Pigpen slips in between a group of guys and waves two fingers at the prospect behind the bar. The prospect slides two longnecks to him, and with them in hand, Pigpen motions with his chin for me to follow. — Katie McGarry

When I'm writing in long hand, it just goes on and on and on. When I was in the saloon business, I would just greet people and talk to them and avoid taxes, and getting behind the bar. What else. — Malachy McCourt

The whiskey warmed his tongue and the back of his throat, but it did not change his ideas any, and suddenly, looking at himself in the mirror behind the bar, he knew that drinking was never going to do any good to him now. Whatever he had now he had, and it was from now on, and if he drank himself unconscious when he woke up it would be there. — Ernest Hemingway,

When I pass the bar, you'll be barred from bars but put behind them. — Natalya Vorobyova

Hell," he finished absurdly. "Because - " He produced a twenty-peso note and laid it on the table. "I like it," he called to them, through the open window, from outside. Cervantes stood behind the bar, with scared eyes, holding the cockerel. "I love hell. I can't wait to get back there. In fact I'm running, I'm almost back there already. — Malcolm Lowry

All the great braggarts, victimizing the world, but the end is waiting for them also. Morality and immorality, love, hate, terror, and all that talk of courage and honor--all rhetorical skirts we hide behind to deny our own mortality . It all ends. The greatest gift of all is that it ends. If you realize and accept that, nothing has power over you, good or evil. — Ian Bar

Before long, Maxine finds herself wandering around clicking on everything, faces, litter on the floor, labels on bottles behind the bar, after a while interested not so much in where she might get to than the texture of the search itself. — Thomas Pynchon

Sheh walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes. Another bit of bread and cheese, he said to the lad behind the bar. — P.G. Wodehouse

You fucking put those dick suckers anywhere near my woman again, and you'll be tasting your own arsehole, you got that?" Oliver snarled. "Now, fucking take your fruity arse behind the bar, and get me a fucking beer. — Kelli Jean

It is idle to complain that a society is infringing a moral code intended to make people behave like St. Francis of Assisi if the society retorts that it does not wish to behave like St. Francis, and considers it more natural and right to behave like the Emperor Caligula. When there is a genuine conflict of opinion, it is necessary to go behind the moral code and appeal to the natural law - to prove, that is, at the bar of experience, that St. Francis does in fact enjoy a freer truth to essential human nature than Caligula, and that a society of Caligulas is more likely to end in catastrophe than a society of Franciscans. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Marcus stepped behind the bar, saying, "Dan sent me over to assist you and learn how to tend the bar."
Doms could be pain-in-the-ass mother hens. — Cherise Sinclair

A dingy emblem on the door depicted a little boy peeing into a pot. The rest of the bar was equally drab and tasteless. Dim bulbs behind red-tasseled lamp shades barely illuminated each of a dozen maroon vinyl booths, which marched along one wall toward the murky front windows. Chipped Formica tables anchored the booths in place. Opposite the row of booths was a long, scarred wooden bar with uncomfortable-looking stools. Behind the bar, sitting on glass shelves in front of a cloudy mirror, were endless rows of bottles, each looking as forlorn as the folks for whom they waited.
He caught the strong odors of liquor and tobacco smoke, and the weaker scents of cleaning chemicals and vomit. In one of the booths , two heads bobbed with the movement of mug-clenching fists. A scrawny bartender with droopy eyelids picked his teeth with a swizzle stick and chatted quietly with a woman seated at the bar. Otherwise the bar was empty. — Robert Liparulo

But it's Atlanta that can lay claim to the best of the best (which is to say worst) chef-friendly dives in America: the legendary Clermont Lounge, a sort of lost-luggage department for strippers, who perform - perfunctorily - on a stage behind the bar. — Anthony Bourdain

But after reading a chapter or two a shadow seemed to lie across the page. It was a straight dark bar, a shadow shaped something like the letter 'I.' One began dodging this way and that to catch a glimpse of the landscape behind it. Whether that was indeed a tree or a woman walking I was not quite sure. Back one was always hailed to the letter 'I. — Virginia Woolf

Soy milk and two sugars." Just this past week, Rachel had become convinced that how people took their coffee gave some secret insight into their characters. Were people who took their coffee black unyielding? Did people who liked their coffee with milk and no sugar have mother issues? She had a notebook behind the coffee counter in which she wrote her findings. Willa decided to keep her on her toes by making up a different request every day.
Rachel walked back to the coffee bar to write that down in her notebook. "Hmm, interesting," she said seriously, as if it made all the sense in the world, as if she'd finally figured Willa out.
"You don't believe in ghosts, but you do believe that how I take my coffee says something about my personality?"
"That's superstition. This is science. — Sarah Addison Allen

For awhile, staring at my paper bag of clothes, my freaked-out eyes in the mirror behind the bar, I convinced myself I would go back to Bell. He was the only man that ever made me feel in life instead of just a spectator, and if he did that by fear and pain, it was still better then when I looked numbly at some man on the couch thinking, I will leave you soon. — Darcey Steinke

At Fantasy's Bar & Grill we're serving up things behind closed doors that are hotter than anything you'll order from the menu! — Michelle Hughes

Don't worry, we're not letting her out of our sight ... and after the Nick incident, we're not letting her out from behind this bar. (Aimee)
Yeah, Prisoners R Us. (Tory) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

A bar, as any good dictionary will tell you, is a rod of wood or iron that can be used to fasten a gate. From this came the idea of a bar as any let or hindrance that can stop you going where you want to; specifically the bar in a pub or tavern is the bar-rier behind which is stored all the lovely intoxicating liquors that only the bar-man is allowed to lay is hands on without forking out. — Mark Forsyth

Dear Complete and Utter Stranger,
The first thing that I have to say is that I hate oatmeal. I really hate it. And you know what? If you like oatmeal at all? I mean even the tiniest bit? I mean, say you were lost in the Himalayas, right, and you hadn't eaten anything except a Mars Bar for about seven years, right, and you're really cold and your fingers are all dropping off, right, and you look behind this rock, and there's this bowl of oatmeal?
Say you would even think about eating the oatmeal?
Well, JUST DON'T BOTHER WRITING TO ME, OKAY? — Jaclyn Moriarty

The bar was pulsating with rock music and packed with partiers, all set to leave their inhibitions, and their sobriety, behind. — Kenneth Eade

Cheerios
One bright morning in a restaurant in Chicago
as I waited for my eggs and toast,
I opened the Tribune only to discover
that I was the same age as Cheerios.
Indeed, I was a few months older than Cheerios
for today, the newspaper announced,
was the seventieth birthday of Cheerios
whereas mine had occurred earlier in the year.
Already I could hear them whispering
behind my stooped and threadbare back,
Why that dude's older than Cheerios
the way they used to say
Why that's as old as the hills,
only the hills are much older than Cheerios
or any American breakfast cereal,
and more noble and enduring are the hills,
I surmised as a bar of sunlight illuminated my orange juice. — Billy Collins

Hey," Shane said from the other side of the bars. "Trade you cigarettes for a chocolate bar."
Funny," Eve said. She was almost back to her old unGothed self again, though there were still red splotches on her cheeks and around her eyes. "How come you're always behind bars, troublemaker?"
Look who's talking. I didn't try to outrun the cops in a hearse."
That hearse had horsepower." Eve got that moony look in her eyes again. "I love that hearse. — Rachel Caine

What... what are you doing here?"
He's shaking his head as he walks my way; a steaming coffee mug is in his hand.
"What am I doing here? I live here."
"Y-you do? How did I get here?"
He starts to laugh. "You don't remember?"
"No... I really don't."
He places the mug in front of me. "You called me on your cell. I found you spaced out of your mind in an alley behind the bar. You were talking to a cat. You claimed it was your mother. — Greg Logsted

I don't think I'm making myself very clear Low," he'd lowered his voice and the effect made goose bumps break out over my body. "I was only interested in one person at that bar last night. I only came to see one person," he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and softly caressed my earlobe before tracing the line of my jaw. "I was there for you. — Abbi Glines

The Luxembourg is within five minutes' walk of the rue Notre Dame des Champs, and there he sat under the shadow of a winged god, and there he had sat for an hour, poking holes in the dust and watching the steps which lead from the northern terrace to the fountain. The sun hung, a purple globe, above the misty hills of Meudon. Long streamers of clouds touched with rose swept low on the western sky, and the dome of the distant Invalides burned like an opal through the haze. Behind the Palace the smoke from a high chimney mounted straight into the air, purple until it crossed the sun, where it changed to a bar of smouldering fire. High above the darkening foliage of the chestnuts the twin towers of St. Sulpice rose, an ever-deepening silhouette. — Robert W. Chambers

I don't think that there's a guy behind the desk at every newspaper saying "No, woman" and sending her on her way, but that's what's systemic about it, right, like that people don't quite realize that maybe they're attracted to a male op-ed more than a female op-ed, or because of networking they know this person from going out to a bar with them. — Jessica Valenti

Behind the semi-elliptical bar four cowboys who had never been near a cow sang western songs which sounded as if they had originated in the far east. — Ross Macdonald

My favorite works are the ones where I get to expose what is really behind the "brands." — Noma Bar

Fuuuuuuuuuuck." Kynan scrubbed his face. "I could use a double shot of whiskey right now."
"I'm sure Flicka keeps hard liquor behind the bar."
"Flicka?"
"I don't want to say her name."
"So you're calling her horse names?" Ky coked a dark eyebrow. "I can't wait to see how she reacts to Mr. Ed. — Larissa Ione

It was down in Jake's old barroom Behind the Patsies' park; Jake was settin' 'em up as usual And the night was agittin' dark. At the bar stood ole Verne Mackenzie, And his eyes was bloodshot red — Robert Coover

Her green eyes meet mine in the Guinness mirror behind the bar and it feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room. I've never slept with this girl, but she was the first I remember wanting.
Harper Gray. — Trish Doller

A witch, a vampire, and a pixy walk into a bar, I thought as I led the way into the Squirrel's End. It was early, and the sun had yet to set when the door swung shut behind Jenks, sealing us in the warm air smelling faintly of smoke. Immediately Nick yanked it open to come in behind us. And there's the punch line. — Kim Harrison

This sludge oozes like a dying sea snake, though it tastes like it's already dead. Some evil force made up this concoction, intending to release it to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world. But the creator made the mistake of tasting his creation and passed on. The world was saved for a moment. Still, like the black plague, this thing refused to fade out forever. I'm sad to report that our good friend Cliff behind the bar rediscovered it. Now it's spreading around the world as if carried by rats. — Ace Boggess

Bilbo's Last Song

Day is ended, dim my eyes,
But journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship's beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
Beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the Sea.

Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
The wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
Beneath the ever-bending sky,
But islands lie behind the Sun
That I shall raise ere all is done;
Lands there are to west of West,
Where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
Beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I'll find the heavens fair and free,
And beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
And fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the Star above my mast! — J.R.R. Tolkien

I do jump behind the bar when we're really busy, but by that point I've usually drunk too much to work. — Jason Flemyng

So he stopped at the first of them, a frigid hothouse whose front tipped forward over the street in defiance of gravity, taste, and ordinance; inside, the tender daytime flowers could be seen huddling in family groups beneath a constant, unseen sun, and behind them was the hermetic door to the dark Cactus Room where the shy nocturnal plants, genus cereus, could bloom in privacy at any hour. Vivien, once out of the car, appeared less constrained. She did not have that stiffness so many have on first entering bars, that air of waiting stubbornly for alcohol to loosen them, which so often presages their manner when it comes' time for bed. She was already excited when the martinis came. — Douglas Woolf

I nearly swallow my tongue when Cash pops up from behind the bar. "You must be Olivia."
"Holy mother of hell!" I say, grabbing my chest to still my racing heart.
He laughs. "With a mouth like that, you'll fit right in here."
If I weren't so surprised, I'd probably take exception to that comment. Instead, I laugh.
"You bring out the worst in me. What can I say? — M. Leighton

The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was very quiet there. At night sometimes the roll of drums behind the curtain of trees would run up the river and remain sustained faintly, as if hovering in the air high over our heads, till the first break of day. Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell. The dawns were heralded by the descent of a chill stillness; the wood-cutters slept, their fires burned low; the snapping of a twig would make you start. We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. — Joseph Conrad

It was nearing 9 O'clock, and the fist duck was drawing down. Behind the trees, the first star pricked out, low and brilliant. The light breeze of the day had dropped, and the evening was very still. The stream sounded loud. I walked down to the gate and stood leaning on the top bar, enjoying the scent of the roses, and straining to listen for any sound from the lane or the road beyond. — Mary Stewart

Who the hell would attack the Steel Horse anyway? What was the thinking behind that? Here is a bar full of psychotic killers who grow giant claws and people who pilot the undead for a living. I think I'll go wreck the place. — Ilona Andrews

AFTER GERMAN we caught a bus to Shinjuku and went to an underground bar called DUG behind the Kinokuniya bookstore. We each started with two vodka and tonics. "I come here once in a while," she said. "They don't embarrass you about drinking in the afternoon." "Do you drink in the afternoon a lot?" "Sometimes," she said, rattling the ice in her glass. "Sometimes, when the world gets hard to live in, I come here for a vodka and tonic." "Does the world get hard to live in?" "Sometimes," said Midori. "I've got my own special little problems." "Like what?" "Like family, like boyfriends, like irregular periods. Stuff." "So have another drink." "I will." I waved the waiter over and ordered two more vodka and tonics. — Haruki Murakami

Are we going to get killed?"
Cam scoped out the dingy room. No doubt there was at least one shotgun behind the bar and a few armed patrons, but no one struck him as particularly dangerous. "Not likely."
She kept her palm on the table and covertly pointed to a guy in a biker jacket with a large skull smoking a blunt. "But possible?"
He shrugged. "It is Friday night. — Avery Flynn

Behind the bar hung a photo of Roni Loveless, the boxer who, ordered to throw a fight, burst through an inner struggle to beat not only his opponent but everyone in the arena and its locality in an outward-blooming explosion of violence against suppressive mediocrity. — Steve Aylett

...Andrew Feldman put £2,000 behind the bar, and [David] Cameron told a joke about a farmer inviting a new neighbour to come to his house for a party where there might be dancing, drinking and 'rough sex'. When the neighbour asks what to wear, the farmer says, 'It doesn't matter, it's only going to be you and me. — Tim Shipman

He turned and reached behind him for the chocolate bar, then he turned back again and handed it to Charlie. Charlie grabbed it and quickly tore off the wrapper and took an enormous bite. Then he took another ... and another ... and oh, the joy of being able to cram large pieces of something sweet and solid into one's mouth! The sheer blissful joy of being able to fill one's mouth with rich solid food!
'You look like you wanted that one, sonny,' the shopkeeper said pleasantly.
Charlie nodded, his mouth bulging with chocolate. — Roald Dahl

The kid poured him another straight rye and I think he doctored it with water down behind the bar because when he came up with it he looked as guilty as if he'd kicked his grandmother. — Raymond Chandler

It's a phone call in the morning to pray about our day, a text-message to say I'm thinking of her, a handwritten note, a postcard when I'm out of town on business, remembering what drink she likes when we're at a bar, asking follow-up questions about her friends, and not hiding behind humor when it's time for a serious conversation. — Donald Miller

Before he had time to figure it out, his walkie-talkie crackled and a voice came on. He punched a button. "Sheriff here. What's up?"
"Someone called about a public disturbance behind schmitty's bar," a woman's voice reported. "Cathy use the proper code number," Billy growled. "There ain't no number for a guy acting like a cockroach!" the woman yelled. "he climbed into their Dumpster and he's wallowing in the trash. — Kerrelyn Sparks

Corrigan crept up to the bar, cautiously moving around it. It looked like he was copying all the moves he'd seen in old cop movies and westerns, and doing it rather badly. He lowered the pistol. There was no one behind the bar. There was however, an open trapdoor. And that would mean the bounty hunter was - .
"Don't move!" Came Beck's distant, slightly muffled, barked order. "My turn, I think! — Christina Engela

My father stood behind a bar in the back of the room all those years, so one day I could stand behind a podium in the front of a room. That journey, from behind that bar to behind this podium, goes to the essence of the American miracle - that we're exceptional not because we have more rich people here. We're special because dreams that are impossible anywhere else, come true here. — Marco Rubio

I promise not to step on you - I only look like a clodhopper," he was saying when Jo reached them. He winked at Ella, who glanced away and blinked, as if surprised that he'd come so close to guessing what she thought.
Jo slid up to the bar behind her sister, planted a stiff arm on the ledge, and raised an eyebrow at him.
He glanced up and saw her.
She expected him to blanche, or bristle, or pretend he'd just forgotten someplace else he had to be. A lot of men did that, when they realized that the girl they thought was alone had brought friends to look out for her.
But instead he only said, "Oh," softly, his smile so wide and earnest that crows'-feet appeared at the edges of his eyes; he smiled as though she was an old friend, as though he had been waiting for Jo a long time and was delighted to see her at last. — Genevieve Valentine

He leaned back in his seat throwing his hands behind his head; sort of an open offer for the entire bar to get a good look at what he was working with and it was quite impressive. God why did he have to have tattoos? Or the killer smile he was so blatantly using as foreplay. And since when did smiling at a girl count as foreplay? I wasn't sure but I guess Carter was the one living man capable of this. — Maven West

Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.
Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked -- and where are they?
Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery. — W.B.Yeats

'The Lucky One' features a young concentration camp survivor named Peter Rashkin - who's about the age my dad was when he started at CBS - working at the Oyster Bar, trying to acclimate to his new country and outrun the memories of the daily he left behind. — Jenna Blum

Life is truly a ride. We're all strapped in and no one can stop it. When the doctor slaps your behind, he's ripping your ticket and away you go. As you make each passage from youth to adulthood to maturity, sometimes you put your arms up and scream, sometimes you just hang on to that bar in front of you. But the ride is the thing. I think the most you can hope for at the end of life is that your hair's messed, you're out of breath, and you didn't throw up. — Jerry Seinfeld

My chair rolls to a stop. his voice cut short, followed by a thump and sliding sound. My wheelchair rolls forward again. I look back and see Ragnar pushing it innocently along. Sevro isn't in the hallway behind us. I frown, wondering where he went, till he bursts out of a side passage.
"You! Troll!" Sevro shouts. "I'm a terrorist warlord! Stop throwing me. You made me drop my candy!" Sevro looks at the floor of the hallway. "Wait. Where is it? Dammit, Ragnar. Where is my peanut bar? You know how many people I had to kill to get that? Six! Six!"
Ragnar chews quietly above me, and though I'm probably mistaken, I think I see him smile. — Pierce Brown

Dropped in from a possible future via a Timeslip, and was currently trying to mend his left leg with a pair of pliers and a sonic screwdriver someone had left behind in the bar. I — Simon R. Green

He was sitting in the back of the booth, and Lila on the outside edge, as far from him as possible. She couldn't shake the feeling he was watching her beneath that brimmed cap, even though every time she checked, his attention was leveled on the tavern behind her head. His fingers traced absent pattern in a pool of spilled ale, but his green eye twitched in concentration. It took her several long seconds to realize he was counting bodies in the room.

"Nineteen," she said coolly, and Alucard and Kell both looked at her as if she'd spoken out of turn, but Holland simply answered, "Twenty," and despite herself, Lila swiveled in her seat. She did a swift count. He was right. She'd missed on e of the men behind the bar. Dammit.

"If you have to use your eyes," he added, "you're doing it wrong. — V.E Schwab