Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Ledger
“I never really drink whiskey,” she admits. “Although, I went to a friend’s bachelorette party in Nashville last year. She was obsessed with pickles.”
Random, but okay. I cock an eyebrow as I pour about half a shot into each glass, listening to her continue.
“Anyway, she ordered picklebacks for everyone. At every single bar we went to.” Her hand covers one of her cheeks, and she laughs at the memory.
“The fuck is a pickleback?”
“It’s a shot of whiskey and a pickle juice chaser. I didn’t like them at first, but they really grew on me, if you can believe it.”
This girl talks a lot. I almost don’t respond because I want her to keep going but quickly change my mind.
“Can’t say I keep pickle juice around, sorry.”
She curls her hand around her glass, lifting it to her nose. I chuckle when she grimaces at first. It’s strong. Intense, some might even say. But if you sip it slow and get used to the bold flavor, it’s pretty smooth.
“Don’t be. I want the full whiskey experience.”
I think she and I have two different definitions of what that “full whiskey experience” would be. If she were here under different circumstances, I’d have already taken her shirt off and poured it down her bare chest, licking up every drop with my tongue.
She’s beautiful, this I already knew. But imagining her with no clothes on . . . It makes my mouth water just picturing it. I wouldn’t know whether to stare or touch first.
And suddenly I need this drink more than I thought I did.
I feel bad ogling and thinking about her like that. My self-control is entirely intact, and I’d never pounce on her or make her uncomfortable. But my brain is a different story.
She’s so . . . fascinating. She doesn’t push me, yet our conversations feel exciting, and that’s entirely new for me. It’s like the ground I stand on loses its gravity every time she asks me something and then holds my gaze like she can’t wait to hear my answer.
It doesn’t help that she’s a damn knockout. I’m hard-pressed to come up with a picture of a girl in my mind that I’ve met in the past that could even hold a candle to how pretty she is. It’s jarring how curious I am about her. That’s the opposite of how I usually feel when I meet someone.
And I hate the little crease in the middle of her lower lip. It’s so cute, it should be illegal. It’s been taunting me. Begging me to smother it with my own mouth.
After that string of thoughts, I shake my head and take another damn drink, watching her over the rim of my glass. She’s biting the corner of her lip, staring a hole into her tumbler of whiskey that she hasn’t chanced tasting yet.
It burns down my throat, but settles my nerves like I’d hoped it would.
“Is this the proper way? No ice, no mixer?”
I nod, and she moves the glass in a small circle, swirling the liquid around.
“It’ll warm you up. Just try it, Iz.”
Both of our eyes widen. I didn’t mean to throw a nickname out there, it just slipped out.
Leave it to me to make things fucking weird.
This is why I don’t like talking to people.
The part of my brain that’s supposed to have a filter is missing, and most of the time, people don’t always want to hear exactly what I’m thinking if it isn’t a watered down version of the truth.
They only want to hear it if it’s sugar-coated.
I don’t get that vibe from her, and it does make me feel more comfortable around her than most. But if I told her exactly what I was thinking, she’d still probably slap me.
I down the rest of my glass and move to pour another few fingers’ worth. She’ll forget I called her by anything other than her full name.
A few moments pass before she works up the courage, but she finally takes a drink. A tiny sip, more like. Still, it’s enough to make her slap her hand over her chest and cough a few times. I laugh instantly, rubbing my thumb and forefinger over my temples.
“That good?” I tease.
“Oh, yeah,” she wheezes. “Big fan.”
I grab one of the bottles of water in the fridge and unscrew the cap. She doesn’t hesitate accepting it, setting her whiskey glass down in the process.
“I feel like a badass now, drinking whiskey neat.”
I’ve lost count of how many times this girl has made me want to laugh. More times than I have in the last few months combined, honestly.
I splash another shot into her glass in case she wants it, then put the bottle back where I found it. I probably shouldn’t even be finishing what I already poured in mine. A few more sips, and I’ll be telling her I have a crush on her.
“Now we bring these,” she says, taking both whiskey glasses into her hands and walking back toward the living room, “back to the couch. Because my feet are freezing.”
I follow her like a pathetic puppy.
There’s a side table on both ends of the couch. She sets my glass down on my side, and the other on hers.
“What page are you on?” she asks.
“Does that count as one of your questions?”
“Sure,” she laughs.
I plop down on the couch and reach for my book to check where I left off. “Ninety.”
“Did anyone get shot or robbed yet?”
“No follow-up questions.”
With a scoff, she cuddles up in her spot, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Fine. Your turn, then.”
“You got a boyfriend?”
Her mouth opens, then closes just as quickly. I might not know all of her tells, but the look on her face is pretty obvious. It’s not a simple answer.
“Never mind. We can skip that ques—”
“We broke up,” she blurts out. “Yesterday, on my way out here, as a matter of fact.”
You’re fucking kidding me.
“Shit. Was it . . . bad?”
She reaches for her drink and takes a sip with no coughing this time. “Not at all, really. I wasn’t planning on staying with him anyway. I’m happy about it.”
Now would be a great time to drop the no follow-up questions joke. Without pushing her for more, she elaborates on her own.
“It’s silly that we even started up anything remotely serious or exclusive.
I mean, we never saw each other, and he didn’t really put in much effort.
” She changes her tone for a moment, pulling me out of the story to add context.
“I travel pretty much all the time for different photographer gigs, by the way. I don’t know if I told you that.
Anyway . . . Other than him hating what I do for a living, I guess the first real hole in the boat was realizing I just didn’t miss him.
At all. Time spent away from each other isn’t bad, right?
But if I’m not excited to see him again soon, and I’m the one being forced to make sacrifices to save the relationship, he starts looking less like a boyfriend and more like a jumbo red flag flapping in my face. ”
I think for a minute, pulling my drink from the side table and holding it in my lap.
It’s a little unsettling how much I relate to everything she said.
I cross one ankle over my knee and lean back, studying her to see if she’s actually heartbroken but trying to cover it up.
She said a lot in just a few sentences, but I’m stuck on the part about him not liking her job.
“He told you he hated what you did for a living?”
Her lips purse and she nods sharply. “Yup.”
I bite down on my molars, looking her right in the eye and shaking my head. “Insecure.”
“Exactly.” She waves a hand in front of her like she’s adding an imaginary exclamation point to my observation. “Thank you.”
The approval in her smile shouldn’t feel this good. Warm satisfaction mixes with another drink of whiskey, spreading like flames through my chest.
“And let me just say—” She pauses, holding a finger up and taking another drink. “The sex was bad too.”
I lean forward, placing my elbows on my knees. As she leans over to set her drink back down, one side of her sweater falls over her shoulder, giving me a glimpse of a thin white tan line on her skin. I wonder how soft it is.
“Fuck. Sorry, I’m rambling.”
I ignore her apology because I don’t think I’d hate it if she kept rambling at all.
“I can’t remember if it’s my turn, but you’re giving me some question ideas that are a whole lot more interesting than small talk.
” She whips her head away from the side table and back toward me after hearing that little admission.
I don’t look away or backtrack, holding her gaze as I take another small sip of my drink.
She probably won’t be answering any of the new ones I have in mind now, but I’ll chance it anyway.
Fuck it. It’s not like we’ll ever see each other again.
We have nothing better to do than sit here and talk.
Might as well make it a little more fun.
“Why was the sex bad?”
I wait for her nose to scrunch or turn up. Maybe she’ll fake a yawn or offer a polite refusal to speaking with a stranger about such things. But she does none of that. . . and smirks instead.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”