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That dark brow arched again. “Is there a particular type of food you’d like, or should I just guess?”
I let out a thin laugh. “Sorry. It’s been a long night. Ah. A burger would be great. Medium rare. And a shot of your best bourbon.”
She stuck her pad back in the apron tied around her waist and looked at Aidan. “By the way, it’s dead as a doornail.”
“Huh?” Aidan said.
“You said your phone was dead as a doorknob. But the saying is dead as a doornail. I’ve never had the chance to correct a Harvard grad and it sort of just fell into my lap, so I had to take the opportunity.”
Aidan shook his head and pulled his phone up again as if to google it and then dropped it to the table when memory dawned. She turned on her heel and walked away. I watched her hips sway as she walked away. My God.
“She’s misinformed, of course,” Aidan said. “But she sure is one gorgeous piece of—”
“Applesauce.” At the one word that released on a growl, I felt three pairs of eyes turn my way.
Aidan laughed. “Oh shit, Gage has got a thing for the hot bar wench.” He raised his hands as if in surrender and then flashed his wedding band. “Well, lucky for you, I’m already taken, and these two losers couldn’t compete with you on their best day.”
Bar wench. Why did the slight make me want to punch Aidan in the face? Grant and Trent did some mild grumbling in response to Aidan’s comment but neither challenged it. I took a deep breath. I hadn’t even meant to spit out that word, the one we’d agreed to use in college if we were calling dibs on a woman. The one I’d never used even once…until now. It’d just sort of…made its way up my throat of its own accord. Which was completely stupid for a couple of reasons, one being that she didn’t seem to have any interest in me whatsoever. “Listen, we’re eating a meal here and leaving,” I told them. “There’s no competition for anything.” Speaking of which…I caught the woman’s eye as she turned away from the bar with a tray full of drinks and gave her a short wave.
If she thought her eye roll had been discreet, she wasn’t very good at discreet. “Yes?” she asked with contrived sweetness when she arrived back at our table and began setting the cocktails in front of each of us in turn.
“Apparently none of our phones are in working order,” I said. “Do you have one we can use to call this Jim you mentioned who has a tow company?”
“Oh, Jim doesn’t have a tow company, just a personal truck with a hitch on the back.”
I stared. “Okay, well, can I use your phone to call Jim with the truck?”
She shook her head. “Jim’s sleeping by now.” She set the tray down and put her palms on the table, leaning toward me. I caught a whiff of her and without even meaning to, I drew in more of her scent, my gaze drooping as the fragrances separated and drew back together. Orchid. Jasmine. Saltwater. And beneath all that, a delicate understated musk that I couldn’t put my finger on but was the thing that made me woozy. I inched forward, trying to inhale more of it while also maintaining some form of public decorum. “But I’ll tell you what, Ivy League,” she said, breaking me from my fragrance trance, “if you buy the bar a round, I’ll call his wife, Patrice, who’s almost certainly up watching one of her Netflix shows right now, and she’ll rouse him for me.”
Patrice? Who is Patrice? My brain scrambled, quickly putting together what she’d said. Jim. Truck. Patrice. Right. So she was playing games with me. An odd thrill whirled through my blood. I leaned closer until our faces were only inches apart. I narrowed my eyes and in response, she narrowed hers and we engaged in a short stare down, invisible sparks igniting my blood, that delicious smell washing over me, through me. “Are you blackmailing me, Cakes?”
She raised her eyes and put her tongue on her top teeth as though considering my word choice. I almost groaned at the sight of the pink tip of her tongue so close to me but swallowed it down. She pushed up off the table and crossed her arms. “That’s a big word, Ivy League. I demand nothing. The choice is yours.” She sighed as she raised her hands to study her nails. “I just hope Patrice didn’t decide to turn in early on this one. Particular. Night.”
I chuckled. What an act. “Fine. I’ll buy a round for the bar.” I held eye contact as I took my credit card from my damp wallet and handed it to her. “If you could kindly have Patrice rouse Jim with the hitch on his truck, we would greatly appreciate it.”
She flashed me a smile, plucking the card from my hand and turning away. Little schemer.
“I don’t think she likes you,” Trent noted before tipping his beer back and taking a long swallow.
“Everyone likes me,” I murmured. It was true. I never gave anyone reason to dislike me. Sure, there’d been a few people over the years who’d misinterpreted my drive as dismissal, but those people were few and far between. I strived for peace over strife and I didn’t enjoy hurting people’s feelings.
And I hadn’t been rude to the beautiful server. I’d made sure to only allow my gaze to wander down her shirt when she was looking the other way, and she hadn’t been able to see me checking out her ass, unless she had eyes in the back of her head.
So the only possible reason for her disdainful reaction was that she’d misjudged me due to some personal bias.
Ivy League.
The nickname made me suspect she thought I was a stuck-up rich boy who considered himself better than the working-class people in this bar. Calling this place a dive bar by the docks upon entering had probably not helped.
“How about a game of pool?” Aidan asked.
“Sure. Why not?” Grant answered. I sighed and then threw back the shot of bourbon. I’d expected it to burn, but the smooth flavor glided down my throat, the nutty, vanilla aftertaste a welcome surprise. My false assumptions took another hit and I was happy to be proven an ass. This bar knew good liquor.
“I play winner,” Trent said.
I turned slightly in my chair and watched Aidan rack the balls. Thirty minutes later, the woman came out of a hallway on the other side of the room and headed in our direction. Took you long enough. “You’re in luck,” she said. “Patrice was up, and she’s woken Jim.”
Imagine that. “Thank you,” I said as kindly as possible. “We really appreciate your help.”
