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Nick appeared in the doorway at that moment, three coffee cups in his hands He studied the trio in the gallery through the lenses of his dark glasses and appeared to make an executive decision

"Maybe I should come back later" He started to step back out onto the sidewalk

Octavia rounded on hiht now Do you hear me, Nick Harte?"

"Oh, yeah" Nick went to the counter and set down the three cups "I definitely hear you"

She crossed her aret solasses with obvious reluctance and dropped them into his pocket "Do we have to do clarity? I hate the clarity thing" He looked at the cup Gail held and the one that sat on the counter "You've already got coffee"

"I brought it," Jerelanced at him "You look like hell"

"Which is extreiven that I was just an innocent bystander"

"Innocent bystanders have a very high accident rate," Nick informed him with an air of authority "Look it up"

"I'll reratitude here, Harte I'm the one who took that cue stick away from Dickhead before he could ram it where the sun don't shine"

Nick nodded "I arateful for that By the way, that reht Do you read my books?"

"What can I say? A divorced man has a lot of spare tiot the black eye?" Gail asked Jeremy "Did Dickhead hit you with the pool cue?"

"Actually, it was a little more complicated than that," Jeremy said

"Excuse me," Octavia said very loudly

They all looked at her with polite expectation

"As I was about to say before I was so rudely interrupted," she went on, not even trying to lower her voice, "I want to knohy everyone in town believes that I was the cause of that stupid bar fight last night"

"Probably because, as I just told you, it's true" Jeremy took a s of coffee

"It is not true," she shot back

"According to the ladies down at the beauty parlor, it is," Gail offered "That's all anyone could talk about That and the fact that Nick spent the night at your place, of course"