Broken Shadows Read Online Free PDF

over ice.
    Paulie was about two inches taller than me, slim, with a thick shock of blond hair. Right now, he looked as though he hadn’t slept in days. His always-unkempt hair was particularly unruly, and there were bluish circles under his eyes. He was attractive in the way your friend’s kid brother was attractive: sweet and safe.
    I followed him down the concrete steps to the second door. “You’re starting early,” I said, nodding toward his glass.
    He made a noncommittal noise and took another sip.
    “Rough day?”
    “My roommates are going through emotional crises.” Paulie was an empath. He couldn’t mindspeak, but he could pick up on people’s emotions, even experience them. It was a useful gift, but not necessarily a pleasant one. Extremely rare.
    “Shit. That can’t be easy.”
    “It’s like being forced to watch the Hallmark Channel,” he said. “Only it actually gets to me.” He pulled hard at the door at the end of the hall. It had been wedged open with a drink coaster. Empaths usually weren’t telekinetic
    “Awful.”
    “Yeah.” We went into the bar and took seats on the stools. The place was completely empty of patrons. Paulie polished off his drink just as Malik came in from the back holding a bar towel.
    “Hey, gorgeous.” He leaned across the reddish-brown steel slab to kiss me on the cheek, then looked down at Paulie’s already empty glass. “One more and I’m cutting you off.”
    “Screw you.” Paulie poured himself another from the bottle on the bar.
    Malik rolled his eyes and turned back to me. “So. What’s this about you not having a job? I thought you were working at that music center for kids.”
    “It went under. Took my apartment with it.”
    “Honey, you are having a bad week.”
    Paulie gave me a glum smile. “Sorry, Mina.”
    Malik poured me a drink—Glen-something, I didn’t know what—and I took it even though I didn’t usually drink hard liquor. Today was full of exceptions. It stung going down.
    “So what are you gonna do?” Malik asked.
    “I don’t know. It’s hell trying to find a job right now.” I took another sip and held the liquor in my mouth, letting it burn through my nasal passageways and clear out my head like a brushfire. When I swallowed the alcohol and took a breath, the air burned cold over my tongue.
    “You know...we did just lose a bartender. Asshole decided to move down the coast and work on an organic garlic farm. Means I’m running this place myself.” Malik rubbed his shaved, dark brown head. “You interested?”
    “Malik, I’m an accountant, not a bartender. I don’t know the first thing about mixing martinis.”
    “Yeah, well I’m getting a public policy masters, but I still gotta pay the bills. And I can show you how to mix a martini.”
    I tried to control the bubble of hope that bloomed in my chest. It was a job around shadowminds, but I wasn’t exactly high on options. “You think Simon would hire me?”
    Malik shrugged. “He leaves the staffing to me. If I want to hire you, I hire you. I’m trying to graduate in May. This is a shit time for me to be shorthanded.”
    I tried not to let hope get the best of me. “How much?” I said.
    “He pays the bartenders double the minimum wage, all cash, plus tips.” He pulled a beer from a cooler under the bar. “And free drinks if you want them.”
    I was way more interested in the pay than the free drinks. “How many hours a week?”
    “I work thirty. You could do the same. And if you want to put in some extra time cleaning up the disaster that man calls the accounting, I’m sure he won’t mind.”
    I did the math in my head. Even if I could make forty hours, it would be less than what I’d made at the Center, and I’d have the added expense of higher rent. But it was all under the table. And maybe I could find a room in a house instead of a place to myself. Assuming going rates for security deposits, I’d have enough in about two weeks. Less if I ate nothing