text: Their server brought out the oysters and Johnny's second drink, which drew the hounds from the back lawn to sniff around the table.
  
  "Johnny, you got oysters?" Rex licked a small drop of lemon juice on the patio. "Get any extra for some hounds?"
  
  "No way, bro." Luther backed away from the table and sat, staring at the plate of shells. "You gotta be careful with those, Johnny. Remember that time we helped Ronnie haul in a bushel and I ate some?"
  
  Rex tittered. "Oh, yeah. The Wood Elf said he'd shoot you himself if you didn't stop humping his leg."
  
  "It hurt."
  
  "Your feelings?"
  
  Luther crouched and uttered a low whine. "No…"
  
  When their dinner arrived with Lisa's second drink and Johnny's third, they were both laughing at a story from one of Dwarf the Bounty Hunter's last few episodes.
  
  "I caught him right here under the arm." Johnny poked his armpit. "And he skipped along after that speedboat like he forgot the damn water skis. I took him to the pier like that and hauled him right in."
  
  She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and shook her head. "That's insane."
  
  "Naw, darlin'. It's only the show."
  
  He set the two plates of pork chops on the patio and whistled. Both hounds raced toward him from the far side of the lawn.
  
  "Hey, Johnny! I think there's—ooh. What is this?"
  
  "It's like bacon, bro." Rex sniffed his plate before tearing into his meal. "Very weird-shaped bacon. Keep talking, though."
  
  "Wait, what was I saying?"
  
  "I don't know, but this is delicious!"
  
  With a chuckle, Lisa picked her fork up and studied her dinner. "I'm surprised by how easy it was to get that out of you."
  
  "Get what out?" Johnny shoved a spoonful of grits into his mouth and closed his eyes. "Damn. They got this right."
  
  "That story." She looked at him with a coy smile, her fork poised over her shrimp. "I thought I would have to pry any of it out of you."
  
  "Well, you already looked through my record with the Department."
  
  "Yeah, but those were federal cases. I had no idea about all the extra jobs you took on the side."
  
  "It's a good thing those ain't in my Bureau file." He snorted and tossed a whole shrimp into his mouth, tail and all. "It makes a different kinda record for all the rest, but it's hard to believe those damn episodes are still floatin' around out there."
  
  "Part of me wants to go through and watch them."
  
  "Oh, sure. Invite our waiter and his wife over while you're at it. Y'all can have a big time of it."
  
  She laughed and took the first mouthful of her pasta. "Oh, wow. This is incredible."
  
  "Good." Johnny smirked at her and held his water glass down by his chair for the dogs.
  
  Rex looked up first and licked his muzzle. "Thanks, Johnny."
  
  "Hey, don't drink it all," Luther muttered. "You're not the only hound on the patio."
  
  "Still, it ain't nothin' like the grub Darlene makes back home or the kinda eatin' I can find just down the street on any given day."
  
  "You don't think this is better?" Lisa asked.
  
  "Naw, I ain't sayin' that. It's not better, but there is somethin' to be said for a new take on a good thing."
  
  "So you're enjoying yourself."
  
  "I might be." He drained the last of his second whiskey, picked up the third, and brought it to his mouth. "Are you?"
  
  The small smile playing on her lips made him narrow his eyes. "Are you asking as the bounty hunter, Johnny? Or as the guy who asked me out to dinner?"
  
  He cleared his throat. "Well, there ain't two of me, darlin'."
  
  "Yes, and both worlds are better because of it."
  
  "Aw, now come on." Johnny chuckled and leaned toward her. "You tryin' to tell me you wouldn't be happy to see two of me?"
  
  "No, one is more than enough." Lisa stared at him as she sipped at her cocktail. "Honestly, I like only the one."
  
  "Uh-huh." Shit. If it ain't the whiskey, it's the goddamn oysters. What the hell am I gettin' myself into? "Well, I'll tell you what, darlin'. Beneath that redheaded exterior of yours—"
  
  She laughed and batted her eyes.
  
  "—is a woman I'd be proud to call my partner."
  
  Lisa blinked in surprise. "That sounds conditional, though."
  
  "Naw, only me thinkin' out loud." You can stop talkin' anytime, Johnny. The last thing you need is to get tangled up even more in this. Right?
  
  "Well, I'm glad that's what you can see under this mask." Chuckling, she gestured at her Stephanie face.
  
  "There's more. Ain't just Agent Breyer I see, neither."
  
  "Oh, really?"
  
  "Um…Johnny?" Luther turned around to sniff the air behind his master. "Maybe you should—"
  
  The dwarf snapped his fingers and kept staring at Lisa.
  
  "But seriously, Johnny," Rex added. "You're not gonna—"
  
  "Hush." Johnny grabbed his rocks glass and held it on the table. "Bein' an agent is what you do, darlin'. It ain't who you are."
  
  "And you think you know who I am already, is that it?" She smiled, her eyes a little glassy after almost two tall cocktails.
  
  "Sure. Under all the rest of it, I see—" A flicker of movement reflected in the window beside their table caught his attention. "Those bastards."
  
  Her smile disappeared. "Excuse me?"
  
  Johnny's chair scraped loudly as he pushed it away and stood to whirl around. Cody was zeroing in on them with the camera and the man with the boom followed closely behind and tried to get a good angle with the mic.
  
  "Oh, jeez." Lisa sighed.
  
  "Tried to tell you, Johnny," Luther muttered.
  
  "You just couldn't hear past the goo-goo eyes, could you?" Rex added.
  
  "Private dinner, assholes." Johnny pointed at the camera. "Get lost."
  
  Phil popped his head up from behind a bush on the other side of the back lawn. "These are the kind of moments we need to see too, Johnny."
  
  "No, they ain't. Y'all weren't invited."
  
  "We don't have to be," Phil continued as he walked around the bush. "We're getting shots of your life. And viewers are going to love seeing Johnny Walker on a date with the beautiful Stephanie—"
  
  The dwarf grabbed his half-full water glass and chucked it at the guy. Phil dodged it with a yelp, and the glass shattered and sprayed all over the patio.
  
  "Johnny, please," Lisa protested.
  
  "Get lost, dipshit." He snarled, snatched his utility knife from his belt, and flicked it open.
  
  "Johnny!" Howie hobbled down the sidewalk at the side of the building. "Fuck. They told me they went back to the hotel."
  
  "I don't care where they go, but they need to get outta here real fast before there's a permanent director position for you to fill, Howie."
  
  "I know, I know." The old man leaned against the wall of the restaurant to catch his breath. "Phil, get the hell back here—"
  
  "Are you threatening me with a knife, Johnny?" Phil's hands raised despite the fact that he was trying to play it brave.
  
  The dwarf glanced at the camera still rolling while Cody stepped lightly toward him. "Last warning."
  
  "That's good, that's good." Phil nodded furiously. "Get some of that anger—"
  
  The bounty hunter kicked one of the hounds' plates off the patio and it thunked into Cody's shins.
  
  "Aw, shit, man!" The cameraman lowered his gear to glance at his legs. "What the hell?"
  
  "Yeah, Johnny, what gives?" Luther sniffed around the patio where his missing plate used to be. "I wasn't finished with that."
  
  "Get out!"
  
  Their server darted out of the restaurant and onto the patio. "Is…is there a problem here, Mr. Walker?"
  
  "There will be if these dumb shits don't get out."
  
  "I'm sorry, guys. Patio seating is for paying customers only."
  
  "We're with Johnny!" Phil shouted.
  
  "No, they ain't."
  
  The man nodded. "Then I'm going to have to ask you and your…friends to leave."
  
  "We got it, we got it," Howie muttered, waving the man away, and his cane clicked on the paving as he hurried toward Phil. "And this scheming idiot's about to get the fun side of my cane if he doesn't do what I say."
  
  The director glanced from Johnny to the old man and clapped his hands. "That's a wrap, people. It's time to go."
  
  "Yeah, and ice my damn shins." Cody rubbed his leg and grimaced at the dwarf. "We're only doing our jobs, man."
  
  "Move."
  
  Howie pulled the cameraman away with him and nodded at Johnny to assure him that everything was taken care of.
  
  Rex and Luther stalked after the retreating film crew and continued to utter low growls until the party crashers disappeared around the corner. Luther stopped at the shattered plate on the patio and sniffed. "Oh, look. Leftover mashed potatoes."
  
  The bounty hunter stalked to his chair and slumped into it. His elbows thumped onto the table, making silverware clatter and drinks slosh in their glasses. Without a word, he snatched his spoon up and shoveled the rest of his grits into his mouth.
  
  Lisa stared at him. "Are you okay?"
  
  "I'm eatin'."
  
  "Is there anything else I can get for you?" the server asked.
  
  "To-go boxes and the check, pal. That's it."
  
  "Johnny, we don't have to leave—"
  
  "Well, I ain't stayin' here." He downed the rest of his whiskey and growled. That's the closest I got to sayin' somethin' real, and those fuckers had to come in and ruin the whole thing.
  
  "I'll be right back with those." The server nodded and hurried inside.
  
  When they got their check and the boxes, Johnny added the leftovers furiously to the containers, eating pieces here and there as he did so.
  
  "Truly," Lisa said in an attempt to diffuse the suddenly tense situation. "It's okay."
  
  "No, it ain't, darlin'." A huge chunk of rockfish went into his mouth. "Now the whole world's gonna see me and Stephanie Wyndom sittin' at a fancy spot laughin' it up and gettin' cozy."
  
  "What's wrong with that?"
  
  He pulled his wallet out and placed enough hundred-dollar bills on the table to cover the tab and leave a thirty-percent tip. Then he smacked his hand down on the surface, picked up the to-go boxes, and stood. "'Cause it ain't no one else's damn business and it ain't you."
  
  The bounty hunter stalked around the corner, and the hounds whipped their heads up from more sniffing to follow him.
  
  Lisa sat in her chair for a moment longer and frowned in surprise as she drained the rest of her cocktail. I wonder if he even knows what he said.