But he didn’t go alone. He went with Alma. She was always by his side now.
She raced behind the bar and grabbed two glasses. It was still early afternoon, and they were doing prep work before she opened for the night, cutting limes and preparing the spice mixtures for the glass rims. So she only poured a small sip in each.
“Salud!”
Jaime clinked his glass with hers.
They inhaled the spirit and then drank.
Wow. This tequila was actually good. Great even. Pride beamed in his chest.
A big smile took over Alma’s face. “It’s wonderful, Jaime! That’s my professional opinion. And think of what we’re doing. We’re helping a full community out. And I love that we have only female jimadoras.”
Yes, they did. Jaime and Alma had asked Gabriela to be their first. They had returned shortly after they had gotten back together last year and created a contract with her. She had been the main jimadora and they’d encouraged her to find and train other women to work with her in this traditionally male-dominated industry.
Alma unpacked all the bottles and placed them behind the bar amongst their new friends. They lined up like little toy soldiers on the shelves.
Jaime couldn’t believe it. A little more than a year ago, he had been asked to be a tequila influencer and had hatched this crazy, half-baked idea after a couple of bad tequila shots in his La Jolla home. It had been a stupid idea to use his ex for his benefit.
And here he was, with a committed girlfriend whom he loved, living five hundred miles away from his family, and the owner of a top tequila brand and a soccer academy. Granted, Jaime was stilltaking modeling jobs but only for companies he believed in. And he was proud to rep his own.
He planted a soft kiss on Alma’s lips—he could taste the shot of tequila she had just taken. “Babe, we did it!”
She kissed him back. “Yes, we did. Butyoudid it. I only had a bar. I had a desire to start my own line but it seemed impossible. I didn’t have the capital for it.”
“Well, I couldn’t have done it without you. I knew nothing about tequila.”
She playfully punched his shoulder. “True, you didn’t know your joven from your reposado.”
“I didn’t have a clue. But I had a great teacher.”
They kissed again. He cupped her face and slowly, gently took her lips in his.
“I didn’t just teach you about tequila. You could’ve learned that from any book. I taught you to believe in yourself.”
Jaime exhaled. It was true. She had taught him so much. About love. About not being scared of the future.
“I don’t know if I ever believed in myself. I was more afraid of never seeing you again.”
“But Jaime, don’t you see? You’re such a wonderful man. You’ve always been such a wonderful man. You were so codependent on your family. You just needed some space. They are all great people, but you had to make your own way.”
Jaime looked at his beautiful woman, his heart swelling with devotion. Their path to this point had not been easy at all. From callously dumping her in college, to him showing up to pump her for information, pushing her away, then to their grueling breakup. And then starting a business in a foreign country. Even though they were both Mexican-American, they were not Mexican nationals and had to gain the trust of the people of Jalisco who were suspicious of yet another American-owned company. But everychallenge they had, they met head-on, and they’d worked through the issues together. The ultimate outcome of their own liquor brand tasted doubly sweet.
Or maybe that was the vanilla notes.
Damn, he was sounding like Alma now.
Alma stroked the bar. “Remember the first time we shared a shot here?”
Jaime grinned. “Don’t tempt me, babe. I’ll have you spread eagle in a second.”
“No, we can’t. That was different. It was at night. It’s daytime now. We can’t just fuck on the counter. Plus I don’t have the time or energy to clean up after.”
Jaime scooped her up in his arms and took her into her office, where he positioned her on her sofa.
The first time they had sex in the bar, it had just been physical.
But now, everything was so different. Jaime wanted to show Alma how much he loved her, he cared for her, he worshipped her, he appreciated her.
