Page 23 of The Bar Next Door
“You didn’t. I’m sorry.” She uncrosses her arms and stares down at her hands as she rubs them together to warm herself. “I...I had a nice evening too.”
“Let’s have another one.”
I say the words before I even think them. She squints at me.
“A drink?”
“A date.” Apparently my mouth has a mind of its own. “Go on a date with me—a real one. I want to see you again.”
She starts to stutter, and I don’t know who’s more startled by my directness: her or me.
“I don’t, um, I don’t know if I have time. My job keeps me so busy...”
“Of course.” She agreed to join me for a simple thank you drink; of course she’s not going to say yes to an actual date. At least she’s doing the courtesy of letting me down easy. “I own three restaurants and a club. I’m the last person you have to explain about being busy to.”
A beat passes.
“I just sounded like a douchebag, didn’t I?”
She grins. “Just a little.”
The Uber pulls up, and she lifts her purse strap higher up on her shoulder.
“Thank you for the drink. I haven’t been to the Old Port at night in forever.” She glances up at the aged facade and ornate columns of the building beside us, yellow streetlights carving shadows into the stone. “I forgot how pretty it is.”
I watch her face soften as she says the words, and I know she’s talking about the city, but all I see is her. She issopretty. So disarmingly, distractingly pretty.
I can’t help but keep staring as she walks away, every foot of the growing distance between us marking the end of a night I wish could last so much longer. She’s almost at the car when she whirls around, marching toward me with determination in her steps.
“Give me your phone.”
I hand it over without a word.
“There,” she says after a few seconds of typing. “You have my number now.Iget to pick the next bar, and you have to drink something other than wine.”
“Why can’t I have wine?” I ask as I take the phone back, doing my best to sound collected.
I’m anything but.
She puts her hands on her hips. “Do you want to go on this date or not?”
“I’ll drink whatever you tell me to.”
She hitches her purse up again. “That’s what I like to hear, Bordeaux boy.”
I wave at the car as she leaves before I’m left standing there wondering what kind of idiot waves at a car. Then I start wondering what kind of idiot asks a woman on a date when he’s in no position to start dating anyone.
If I concentrate enough, I can still hear Fleur shouting at me, her words bouncing off the walls of the condo as she threw things over her shoulder at a suitcase, not caring that most of them just landed on the floor.
“Tu n’es qu’une machine, Julien! Ta tête est trop grosse et ton coeur trop petit.”
You’re nothing but a machine. Your head is too big, and your heart is too small.
I didn’t even reach for her as she hauled the suitcase out the door.
The streets seems a little more dim as I make my way to the condo, the shadows a little more dark.
Six
