Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Zoie planted herself in front of me, sliding her legs apart in a wide V and propping her elbow on the bar and her chin on her fist, bringing us eye-level. “Sweet or sour?”
“Sour.”
“Juice or soda.”
I can’t help the face I make. “Not soda.”
“So, juice,” Zoie said, mimicking writing it down despite not having a pad. “Let me guess, don’t bother with the rocks, and pinky up while you sip.”
I pin her with my steeliest glare, and it only widens her smile. Leaving me to snag the hand with the imaginary pen and halt her scroll. “Amusing yourself, are you?”
“Not just myself. You’re getting drinks and a show—I’m about to blow you away, just you wait and see.”
I curl her hand in mine loosely. “Well, I’m certainly not planning on going anywhere.”
“Next question,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “For your cocktail base, do you usually go vodka, rum, tequila, or gin?”
She studies my face so intently, I stumble over my answer. “V—gin.”
Her eyebrows draw together, her bafflement clear. “You want a virgin cocktail? That sort of blows a hole through my whole guessing game.”
Bollocks, it had sounded like virgin .
My mouth fell open but wouldn’t form any words, and I was altogether too hot. I gave serious consideration to bolting, except her dog was around here somewhere. I’d committed to care for him for a few hours of her shift, and there’d be no coming back from that.
Besides, I’d just assured her I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Slip of the tongue, I’m afraid.” Great, now I was thinking of sliding my tongue between her pink, parted lips for a taste. I cleared my throat and swiped my thumb across the skin on the back of her hand. “Vodka sounds immeasurably cooler, yeah? Blokes like James Bond drink vodka. But if I’m selecting for my tastebud’s sake, it’s gin. The earthier the better.”
Zoie rolls her eyes toward the ceiling as if the answer’s up there, and I take advantage of the handful of seconds that pass to stare. Soft, pouty lips contrasted the slight rasp to her voice, her eyebrows telling a story of their own whenever she spoke. Long, loose waves framed her sun kissed, heart-shaped face, and the bracelets lining her arm did even more moving than her brow.
Not only was I highly entertained, I hung onto every nose crinkle and quirk of her lips.
“Okay, say you’re going to do shots. Do you choose tequila, whiskey, or vodka?” She lifted a finger. “While also remembering James Bond is a misogynistic tool and olives are gross and so are vodka martinis.”
Zoie stated most everything she said as facts, but I was fairly certain that last part was a matter of opinion. Although now that she’d pointed out a few of Bond’s major flaws, stealing my focus from his wicked gadgets and ability to kick arse, I allowed myself to be all right with my taste in drink and whether it was masculine or not.
“Why’d you leave out brandy?” I blurted. “That’s my go-to base. Bourbon for shots.”
She blinked at me, eventually losing the battle to tamp down her giggle. “What are you, sixty years old? Nobody under that age ever orders brandy, and I’ve only had one old timer order shots of bourbon.”
“Hey! I thought this was a safe space, where my alcohol needs would be respected and understood.”
“It’s not,” Zoie said with a snort. “Never once did I say that.” She squeezed my hand, conveying she was only having a laugh, and I got lost in the twinkle of her eyes and the curve of her lips again. “One more question, and I think I’ll be ready to appease the grumpy old soul in charge of holding your liquor.”
People didn’t tease me, save my mum and Harriet, and I never expected to enjoy it so much.
“Full disclosure, it’s typically my first, but you strike me as the type of guy who might roll his eyes. Even fuller disclosure, please refrain from doing so, as it’ll probably hurt my feelings. I’m not saying you have to believe in the stuff I do, or that it’s a perfect indicator of everything…”
She pulled a face. Half nose-crinkle, half grimace, and it was bloody adorable. “Now I’m realizing I should’ve just asked, because I’m building it up and making it weirder. Under normal circumstances, I only hesitate if I think the person might be a Virgo or a Capricorn.”
She winced. “If you happen to be one of those, I also just skewed the results. If you’re the former, however, we should probably call it now. The communication is a trainwreck, you’ll be appalled by most of my behavior, and we’ll run out of patience with each other. Plus, the intimacy thing. Mars and Saturn are karmic enemies, which means nothing but obstacles in the bedr?—”
“Just make the poor man his drink, Zo,” Zac said as he brushed past her to grab a bottle, and what were we calling off? Did she just reject the idea of dating before I’d even posed it?
Not that I was going to.
Or not going to.
“Mind your own business, or I’ll sic your lawyer on you.” For such a cheery soul, the woman certainly made a lot of threats. Given the head thwacking from earlier, she followed through, too. “I don’t get in the way of your process when you’re lost in your flair, juggling and pouring, so don’t get in the way of mine.”
“If this was solely about drinks, I wouldn’t bother. But when it comes to helping you with”—he gritted his teeth and spoke through them—“other stuff, which you also asked me to do, this is me helping.”
Zoie bolted upright, putting way too many centimeters of space between us. “Oh, right. Good point. Carry on, then. Or I’ll…stop carrying on.” With a tiny shake of her head, she returned her full attention to me. “Where was I again?”
Seriously, she was asking me for clarification? I could hardly keep up with the skip in subjects, particularly when I kept getting lost in her features and her laugh and how fast she could move those sexy lips. “On Saturn, I believe.”
“Not me, I’m a Mars girl. In a few months Saturn will try to mess with me, but this year I’m prepared. You hear that, universe?” She rapped her knuckles on the counter between us, muttering about knocking on wood, and what the hell was happening? I came to show her I could at least teach a young dog new tricks, and somewhere along the way, ended up in space.
Okay, fine. I’d also visited because she was like a telly sitcom in and of herself. Over-the-top, with zany twists I didn’t fully get, with the sort of beauty and intrigue that kept you tuning in anyway. Now, where was the damn pause button so I could put on subtitles and try to catch up?
“So? Which one are you?”
“Earth, I guess,” I answered, and she frowned. “Technically, you never got around to the question.” As a technical guy, forever on the lookout for flaws in the code, I quickly revised. “Although, you did pose several, they were all in answer to your unasked question, and to be honest, I’m a bit lost.”
She knocked her palm to her forehead. “My bad. It happens to me more than you’d guess.”
Highly doubtful, as I’d need a roadmap to navigate, but I certainly wasn’t going to tell her that.
Zoie leaned across the bar, placed her hand on top of mine, and those killer blue eyes locked onto mine. My stomach lifted like I’d just climbed aboard a roller coaster, and it dipped way down low when she finally asked, “Your zodiac sign—what is it?”
Ah, the mention of the planets made a bit more sense now. In the way the alignment of stars and planets ever made sense when it came to people thinking it determined anyone’s destiny. Good thing she’d tacked on a warning in the torrential outpouring of words, or I might’ve rolled my eyes and balked. Ruining the gorgeous smile on her face would be a shame, too, and so I kept my answer simple and short, no inflection. “Taurus.”
Both her lips quirked to the right, as if she wasn’t sure how to take the news. Or perhaps that meant she was taking it badly—honestly, I couldn’t tell, and the woman had just become more of a mystery than ever. “Are you sure? When’s your birthday?”
A simple question, but personal enough my skin pricked up. A definite overreaction, and since I disliked emotions aimed my way, I did my best to temper my emotions and remain calm. Logical. A pinch calculating.
Something I hardly ever needed to be with people who were open books, and Zoie had basically cracked open her diary and dropped it in my lap. From the sounds of it, I hadn’t done a proper job conveying I wasn’t the settling down, relationship type, either.
I should’ve told her as much right then, and yet phrases like intimacy and nothing but obstacles in the bedroom created a conflicted blockage of their own.
“May 1 st ,” I forced myself to say, unable to stop fixating on how very much I wanted to test out how Zoie and I would be in the bedroom, but the whole open-book thing ruled out the possibility of going there without…complications.
“Hmm.” Her eyebrows completed another acrobatics routine, and she kept opening her mouth and then shutting it without saying anything.
“Okay, this is about cocktails.” She did a bit of jumping around like a boxer in the ring. Linking her fingers, she pushed her arms out in front of her, cracking her knuckles in the process. “No reason to go overthinking too much.”
With that, she grabbed a cocktail glass off the top of the stack, flipped it upright, and snagged a bottle of butterfly pea gin and a sleek, skinny bottle of elderberry liqueur. She added a splash of lemon, muddled blueberries with earl gray bitters, tossing, catching, and juggling the ingredients and bottles. I lost track of the recipe after she cracked an egg and separated out the yolk, unable to follow but content to watch her put on a show.
Some of the people seated on nearby high-top tables paused their conversations to watch, a few of them suddenly deciding they needed refills. They approached the bar, their eyes tracking Zoie in a way that made me hotter around the collar than I had any right to be.
Zac stepped in to take their orders, only to be sulked at when they discovered Zoie was pouring all her concentration into a drink especially for me.
She strained the ingredients, leaving the foamy white atop the pale purple liquid and garnished it with a sprinkle of loose-leaf tea and a sprig of lavender. “Now hopefully…” She bent at the waist, examining the glass before gently scooting it across to me. “See how it looks like it’s raining?”
Bright blue cornflower petals sat atop the frothy foam, but the dried black leaves fell through, drifting slowly through the purplish gray liquid to settle at the narrow bottom of the wide-rimmed glass. “London Bridges, just for you. Because it’s falling down, get it?”
“Oh good, I’ve missed the incessant drizzle,” I joked, warmed by Zoie’s giant grin and the fact that she’d created a drink with its own weather system—how ace was that?
“I figured that’d please the Brit in you. Since you’re a Taurus, I added a little extra love for Venus.”
While I wasn’t entirely sure what any of that meant, I lifted the glass to my lips for a sip, tempering my features so I wouldn’t make a face, as it wasn’t a drink I’d typically order.
I expected overly sweet, but the gin was like gulping dew off grass, the lemon, blueberry, and earl gray flavors creating a smooth burn that coated the back of my throat as I licked the meringue off my lips. It was unlike any drink I’d ever had, and I found myself instantly wanting more—of the drink and of Zoie.
Not so much the lavender stem that kept bumping into my lips, which was why I’d never understood or cared for decorative touches. That trick with the tea leaves was bloody brilliant, though, and I couldn’t get over the unique combination of flavors. “You’ve never made this before?”
She shook her head and cranked up the wattage on her smile. “You like it?”
“I do.” I twisted the stem in my fingers, tipping the bowl toward me to study the colorful contents. “The only problem is you’ve ruined me. How can I possibly go into the pub and order a regular pint again?”
“That’s when you’ll have to hop a flight to the Drunken Kraken.”
“I wasn’t aware they flew direct.”
“Only if you know the right people.” Zoie leaned in, bar lights reflecting in her eyes, to whisper in my ear. “That’s me, by the way.”
A shiver zipped down my spine, the zing so strong my pants grew tighter. I didn’t disagree that she’s somebody I was lucky to know, but that’d be one hell of a flight for a drink.
Then again, it was a damn delicious drink, and I didn’t even have words for the gal who made it.
I went to cover her hand right as she slid it away, straightening and waving extra wide toward the doorway. “Looks like Ethan’s back with Nova. I’m going to take him for a loop around the bar to schmooze with customers before handing him back over to you. I bet his cute mug will be good for tips and morale.”
Off she went around the far side of the bar, and I pivoted on my stool, gaze trailing after her. The blokes who’d approached the bar also watched on, giving stronger puppy dog looks than Nova.
“What can I get you?” Zac asked the next guy in line, and he cast one last longing glance in Zoie’s direction. I could practically read their thoughts. Wait for her return, or get alcohol sooner?
I’d wait, but he reluctantly ordered. Then he settled himself on the stool beside mine, eventually taking his drink to the table when Zoie and Nova reached it.
“How’s the drink?”
“It’s about the best cocktail I’ve ever had.”
He didn’t return the smile I cracked, studying me with narrowed eyes. I didn’t sense any jealousy, more of a protective vibe I could appreciate. It was also a good reminder of why I was keeping things friendly, no crossing lines that’d risk my time with her and Nova.
Ethan plunked himself on the empty seat to my right, preparing his side of the interrogation from the looks of it.
But a crash of glass and dragging of chair legs pulled our attention, along with Zoie calling Nova’s name in a tone that made it clear he was responsible.
“That’s my cue,” I said, pushing to my feet and rushing toward the melee, both Ethan and Zac only a couple of paces behind me, the latter with a plastic bin.
Zoie began explaining before I was close enough to hear very well, something about the leash getting caught on chair legs as she shoved her squirming, unrepentant puppy in my arms. “I was right about the tips but forgot about the destruction.”
“Aww, look at you two,” Ethan said. “Like a married couple passing off the naughty baby.”
“Ha-ha.” Zoie swayed closer, lips puckered. If I got a goodbye snog, I’d happily play couple for the evening.
A foot shy, she dipped her head and kissed her puppy on the forehead. “Goodbye, be good, and I don’t mean like at the table when you knocked over everyone’s drinks.”
She tipped up her chin, and our gazes caught and held. “See you later?”
“Definitely.” My pulse picked up speed as I wound the lead around my fist. “What do I owe you for the drink?”
“That’s on me,” she said, waving a hand through the air. “Least I could do, although I still owe you some amazing American cuisine.”
I almost left it at that. But here was my opening, and despite only moments ago, when I’d reminded myself of all the reasons I shouldn’t, I decided to fucking take it. “How about Sunday afternoon?”