Page 20 of Books and Hookups

“What’s new, honey?” Barb rolled closer.

Tad leaned on the bar rail and told her about his kids. He had three: a five-year-old, a two-year-old, and a brand-new one who couldn’t be more than a month old. What the fuck was he doing at a bar when his wife had to be exhausted at home? I smashed the mint.

Then he shifted into telling his aunt about work. I’ll admit it, I eavesdropped. He worked with Lucie, whom I hadn’t seen in a while. But he didn’t mention her. Instead, he talked about the celebrity divorce he was covering. What a yawn. Lucie wrote about things that mattered. I wondered if Tad was jealous of the article she’d written about the migrants in Sacramento.

I peered into the glass and found I’d muddled the mint into an unrecognizable slurry. I dumped it into the trash and rinsed the glass. I grabbed another sprig and started again.

I set the drink in front of Tad as he said, “So, I was thinking, what if I took the bar off your hands when you retire?”

“Tad, we talked about this when I offered it to you last summer.” Barb shot me an apologetic glance and shrugged. “He’s family.” Looking back at Tad, she said, “You told me you didn’t have the cash to buy me out.”

“I’m sure I can beat whatever profit-sharing agreement he offered,” Tad said.

I pushed out my chest. “It’s a cash offer.”

“Cash? Where the hell did you come up with six figures?”

“Hard work. Living cheap.” I looked down as I wiped the bar to hide my smug smile. I may have won, but I couldn’t act like a douche about it. Not in front of Barb.

His straw gurgled in his empty drink. “Another,” he said.

I didn’t mind making the next one as much.

An hour later, after I’d put Tad’s drunk ass in a cab, I screwed the bottle pourer into a bottle of Bombay and turned back toward the bar only to findherthere. Lucie. Sitting right in front of me. Wearing…lipstick?

I sucked in a breath. Was she some kind of apparition? Or one of those too-fast vampires from the movies I’d watched when I was in middle school?

“Hey, Danny,” she said. Her eyelids drooped, and her skin looked pale. Was she drunk? Couldn’t be. It wasn’t eight yet, and she’d just gotten here. Was she sick?

“You okay?” I leaned my hands on the bar.

“Yeah.” She chuckled. “Just tired. I, um… Could I have a burger and some red wine?”

“Sure.” I took in the circles under her eyes as I reached into my back pocket for my order pad. Her gaze landed on the center of my black T-shirt and stuck there as I snagged the pencil tucked into my bun. “You want everything on that?”

“Everything on what?” she said.

“On your burger?”

She blinked her gaze to my face. “Right. No onions, please.”

“You got it.” I wrote,HB 86 onionson the ticket, clipped it to the old-fashioned order wheel in the pass-through, and twirled it to Norm in the kitchen. I grabbed a bottle of Lucie’s favorite red and poured it into a glass, then set it in front of her.

She laid her hand on the foot of the glass and swirled it gently.

“You sure you’re okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. I…” She cleared her throat. “I haven’t been sleeping much lately.”

I grunted. I already knew that. I’d heard her marching around again last night. I’d resisted the urge to go up and check on her. She didn’t want me. She’d made that clear last month, the morning after Valentine’s Day, when she’d booted me from her bed. Besides—I shoved a pint glass into the glass washer with more force than necessary—I couldn’t afford to spend my energy mooning over her. My commitments to Barb and Leo were the most important things in my life.

I nodded at Frank, two stools over from Lucie, and pulled another IPA for him. I set his empty into the rack and carried it back to the dishwasher even though it wasn’t full yet. Hefting the rack of clean glasses, I returned to the front and started replacing them on the shelves. When I glanced up, Lucie stared at me, her wine seemingly untouched.

“Don’t like the wine?”

Blinking, she took a sip and grimaced. “It tastes weird. Is it a different kind?”

“No, it’s your usual.” I lifted the bottle, uncorked it, and took a sniff. Nothing smelled off. I splashed some into a lowball and sipped it. “Tastes fine to me, but want me to open a fresh bottle?”

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