8 - Sophie
8
Sophie
“Shot to shot,” Johnny confirmed. “Although it’s hardly fair. I must weigh twice as much as you.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” I said, “but I wouldn’t bet against my liver.”
“What happens if he can’t go shot to shot with you?” Eli asked.
“He pays for all the whiskey, plus a very generous tip.”
“I like my chances,” Johnny replied. “What are we drinking?”
“TX Whiskey,” I said, grabbing a bottle from the shelf behind me. “Local distillery. Best whiskey in Texas.”
It was one of the best whiskeys in Texas, in my opinion. But that wasn’t why I chose it. Johnny didn’t know that I had a secret plan that allowed me to out-drink anyone at the bar, a plan that had worked a hundred times before.
“I trust your taste,” Johnny replied.
Eli leaned forward eagerly. “Let me get in on that bet.”
“You didn’t get the biggest cheer tonight,” I replied, clicking my tongue in disappointment.
“More shots means more money, and a bigger tip,” he pointed out.
“You make a good point,” I admitted, adding a third shot glass to the bar. “Welcome to the party, Elijah. “
He gave me his best smile. “I thought I told you my friends all call me Eli.”
I grinned wickedly at him. “I don’t think you’ll be too friendly with me after I drink you under the table.”
He barked a laugh and raised the shot glass. “You’re feistier than an unbroken bronco. Cheers, y’all.”
“To the rodeo,” Johnny toasted.
“To the generous tip you’re going to give me tonight,” I said, throwing back the shot and savoring the way it burned down my throat.
“Forget the tip,” Eli said, already grinning at the upcoming joke. “You let me know when you want the whole thing.”
I put down the shot glass and squinted at him. “That’s only the tenth time I’ve heard a variation of that joke tonight.”
Eli put down his glass and held out his palms. “Had to try. That’s the only cheesy line I’ll give you tonight, I promise.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Johnny said.
I hefted the bottle of whiskey again, pouring three more shots. Except when I poured my shot, I pressed my thumb into the nozzle. It was too loud in the bar for them to hear the CLICK in the trick bottle, and an identical—but different—brown liquid flowed into my shot glass.
“Another already?” Johnny asked.
“If you challenge the queen, you better keep up,” I taunted.
Eli chuckled again. “Like I said. She’s feisty.”
I smiled at him. “You have no idea .”
Unlike all the other customers I interacted with, I actually enjoyed flirting with these two. It was a little more genuine, a little more fun. I told myself it was because I was bored, and needed a way to break up the monotony of my shift.
“So, how long have you lived in Fort Worth?” Johnny asked while staring at the second shot of whiskey in front of him.
I wagged my finger at him. “Sorry. I don’t talk about myself at work.”
“Ah, come on,” Eli prodded. “It’s bad luck to drink with someone and not make polite small talk.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Who says it’s bad luck?”
“Me.” Eli shrugged. “It’s a rule I made up five seconds ago, but it feels true, doesn’t it? Eh?” He gave me his best smile.
Damn. These guys were good. I was actually enjoying this.
I threw back my shot, which didn’t burn like the first one. Groaning, Johnny did the same—followed by Eli.
Another customer was waving in my direction, so I moved a few feet down the bar and took his order. After a few minutes, I wandered back over to the area where Eli and Johnny were sitting.
“I’m a superstitious woman,” I admitted, “and I don’t want to incur any bad luck. Even from a rule you just made up.”
Eli pumped a fist.
“I’ll answer one personal question for every shot you guys take with me,” I said. “Deal?”
“Deal,” both of them said at once.
“And since we’ve already had two shots,” Eli clarified, “we get two questions. Right?”
“That’s fine,” I agreed. “But I already told you one personal thing: I’m superstitious. Which means you get one question now.”
“I already asked it,” Johnny said, cocking his head to the side. “How long have you lived in Fort Worth?”
“My whole life,” I admitted truthfully. “My dad moved here in the eighties to work at Lockheed Martin.”
“I dated a woman who used to work at Lockheed,” Johnny admitted. “She worked on the F-35 project.”
“Yeah, whatever, nobody cares about you,” Eli said, clamping a hand over Johnny’s mouth. “But I like that line of questioning. Are you dating anyone, Sophie?”
I smiled sweetly and poured three shots, once again pressing my thumb into the nozzle to change the flow. Wordlessly, I gestured at the shots.
Johnny groaned, but Eli downed his shot without hesitation. Looking sideways at his brunette frenemy, Johnny then followed suit. “You were right. It’s good whiskey.”
“I didn’t say it was good. I said it was the best.” I threw back my own shot of flavorless liquid. “And the answer to your question: I am not dating anyone right now.”
“Yes, okay, interesting,” Eli said. Johnny only nodded thoughtfully at his empty shot glass.
A man old enough to be my grandpa leaned across the bar. “Did I just hear you’re single, sweetheart?”
“You did,” I replied, looking him up and down, “but I’m not that single.”
The man’s buddies all roared with laughter, and he grimaced and shrugged, red-faced from the barb.
“Feisty,” Eli muttered to himself while giving me an appraising look.
“Next question,” Johnny said. “What’s your type?”
“My type?”
“Your type. Like, who you usually date.”
I poured three more shots, the same as before. We clinked our glasses together and drank at the same time, Johnny making a face as the fourth shot in ten minutes settled in his stomach.
“I don’t have a type,” I replied cheerfully.
Johnny scowled. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Surely you have some kind of preference,” he insisted, raising an eyebrow. “Blond? Redhead? Buff? Lean?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t have a type when it comes to physical appearance. But I do prefer men with a sense of humor. Men who don’t take themselves too seriously, and can laugh at themselves.”
Eli clapped his hands together and said, “Hot damn! I’m her type!”
“I also don’t like arrogance,” I added. “Confidence, sure. But not too much.”
Johnny turned and laughed at his friend. Eli shoved his middle finger into the blond’s face.
“I guess that tracks, since you hate Chris Appleton,” Eli said, changing subjects.
“Not hate,” I clarified. “Strongly dislike. But yes.” The last thing I wanted to think about was him , so I raised the bottle toward them. “Any more questions?”
Eli looked at the bottle like it was a rattlesnake. “I think I’ve bit off more than I can chew. You two go on without me.”
“If you’re not drinking,” I said, “then you need to make room for someone who is. It’s a busy night.”
He sighed, pulled out a hundred dollar bill, and slid it across the bar. “To cover my shots.”
I nodded toward Johnny. “He’s buying all the shots when I’m done with him.”
Eli flashed me a smile, his eyes already swimming from the alcohol. “Then it’s just the tip. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.” He winked at me, clapped Johnny on the back, and walked away, shouting, “Good luck!” over his shoulder.
“I’m surprised he didn’t last longer,” I admitted to Johnny.
He gave me half a grin. “That’s what all the women say about Eli.”
Both of us laughed at the stupid joke. I wasn’t buzzed since only my first shot was real, but Johnny was clearly already feeling the liquor.
“Any more questions?” I asked again.
Johnny looked at the bottle for several seconds, then his blue gaze swung up to me. “I don’t want to get you drunk in the middle of your shift.”
“If you can’t keep up with me,” I taunted, “then I’ll give you the bill right now.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, then tapped one finger on the bar. “Pour the shot. How long was your last relationship?”
“Ohh, that’s a good one,” I said while pouring. The answer wasn’t a very happy one, so I filled my shot with actual whiskey. I welcomed the way it burned down my throat.
“Well?” Johnny asked.
“My last relationship was three years,” I admitted. “My last real relationship. I had a fling a few months ago, but I don’t count that.” The memory of that fling was like a white-hot knife twisting into my gut, but I ignored it. I wasn’t going to think about him tonight.
Johnny blinked. “Oh.”
Two other customers were waving at me, so I took their orders and spent a few minutes making their drinks. When I returned to Johnny’s side of the bar, he looked like he was sorry he asked.
“I didn’t mean to ask—” he began.
“It ended six months ago,” I told him. “It ended badly.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Johnny said, his expression serious. “I wasn’t trying to pry.”
I stared at him. “Ask me why we broke up.”
“If you don’t want to talk about it…”
“Ask me,” I said more firmly, “why we broke up.”
He sighed and said, “Why did you break up?”
I refilled the shots, switching back to the fake liquor for mine. Both of us drank simultaneously.
“We broke up,” I said bitterly, “because he cheated on me.”
His eyes widened in alarm.
“It was a Wednesday night. I was supposed to work until close, but we weren’t busy, so my boss sent me home early. I could smell her slutty perfume the moment I walked into our apartment.” I shook my head. “They were naked on the couch together. The couch I purchased. That pissed me off the most. It was the first adult purchase I had made, that goddamn couch. And her bare ass was sitting on it like it was hers. I don’t know what I said, but I started screaming at them. I remember being so devastated, so angry , that I was glad I didn’t own a gun. Because if I did, I would have shot them both.”
Johnny was looking at me with pity in his eyes. The expression I hated the most. That’s why I didn’t share this story, yet something had made me want to open up to him. And despite the pitying way he was looking at me, I didn’t regret sharing.
“That fucking sucks,” Johnny said, swaying gently on the stool.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It did. But I’ll never make that mistake again.”
Johnny blinked, then frowned at me. Behind his almost-drunk eyes was a moment of clarity. Of understanding.
“What did he do for a living?” he asked softly.
I glanced at the bottle of whiskey, then back at Johnny. “Sorry, cowboy. I don’t think you can handle another shot.”
“What did he do for a living?” he asked again.
I sighed. “Lets get some water in you first.”
I started to turn away to get him that water. But with quicker reflexes than I expected, he snatched the bottle out of my hand and poured himself another shot. He handed the bottle back to me, threw back the shot of whiskey, and slammed the shot glass onto the wooden bar.
“Sky eyes,” he said, holding my gaze. “What did he do?”
Sighing, I poured myself another shot to match his. A real shot. The brown liquid was like fire down my throat, warming my stomach as I put the shot glass back down on the bar.
“He was a bull rider,” I said, biting off the words. “He competed in the rodeo.”
Johnny sighed, mirroring my own emotion. Admitting it out loud felt like one long exhale. But I was glad to have said it, like the admission lessened the weight of the pain.
“So that’s why you…” Johnny began, then blinked a few times. “Ugh.”
Yeah. That last shot was a mistake.
I stood up on the stool that was behind the bar and used it to look across the room. Eli was easy to find; he was taller than most men, currently line-dancing with about twenty other people over on the dance floor. I waved at him, and he immediately saw me and came over to the bar, pushing through the other patrons who were waiting to order drinks.
“I think your buddy needs help,” I said, gesturing at Johnny, who was now resting his forehead on the bar.
“He’s not my buddy,” Eli replied
“I know. He’s your frenemy. Can you take care of him?”
Eli let out a drunken giggle. “Frenemy. I like that. We’re totally frenemies. Like, a combination of friend and enemy. ”
I snapped my fingers at him impatiently. “Eli. Focus. Can you make sure he gets home okay? He hasn’t had enough to get alcohol poisoning, but he’s definitely drunk.”
Eli tipped his brown cowboy hat at me. “Yes ma’am, Eli is on the job. Come on, frenemy . Let’s get you back to that rust bucket you call a trailer.”
He slung an arm around Johnny and helped the man to his feet. At least he was able to stand on his own, though he was definitely drunk.
“Sorry about the bad cowboy,” Johnny slurred to me. “I’m a good cowboy. Promise.” He stabbed a finger into Eli’s chest. “He’s a good cowboy too. A pain in the ass, but good.”
Eli looked at me. “I don’t know what bad cowboy he’s talking about, but I want to hear about it later. And color me impressed, darlin’. You can hold your liquor with the best of us.”
He tipped his hat to me again, then helped Johnny through the crowd. I felt a little guilty for drinking fake liquor while their shots were all real, but then again, they were the ones who wanted to buy me a drink.
I watched them until they disappeared out of this area. But before I turned back to my bar, I caught sight of someone in the crowd. He wasn’t wearing his black hat, but once again I immediately recognized Sawyer Easton’s scowl. From across the packed room, he was staring right at me.
And as soon as I met his gaze, he turned and disappeared into the other room.
Hmm.