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“So that’s why you stalked me all the way out in Greenpoint? To talk? Because you know, they have these things now … phones?”
“Would you have picked up if I’d called?”
His expression went abruptly serious—almost offended. “Of course. Didn’t I pick you up that time you got drunk in Williamsburg and couldn’t find your keys? Or the time you decided you wanted to rent a car and go upstate only to belatedly remember you needed a little refresher on how to drive? Or then there was the time you forgot your wallet and were too embarrassed to tell your family, so I had to come bail you out—”
She put up her hand. “I get it. You save my ass when I mess up. But that’s not what I’m getting at. I mean we’re talking. We don’t talk much anymore.”
He lifted a shoulder.
“How long have you lived here?” she asked, wanting to save this easy flow between them. “In the back of the distillery I mean.”
“Six months? Maybe a little longer? My lease went up, and the place was already wired for a kitchen and a bathroom, so I thought, why not?”
“Don’t you get sick of it? Working and living in the same place? Doesn’t it smell like … whisky?”
He looked around the enormous space. “It does smell. But I love it. And sure, I guess I get a little restless sometimes. But it doesn’t feel like work when you love it, you know?”
“I guess.”
He drained the rest of his cocktail and began the process of mixing another one. “You don’t feel that way about Stiletto? And you’re not exactly one to talk about work/life separation. You get paid to write about your life.”
She couldn’t have asked for a more perfect opening. Actually, funny you mention that … I may have kind of sort of been fudging my credibility on that front …
But she couldn’t. Not yet. “Can I have another?” she asked, even though her first drink was still half full. A little more liquid courage couldn’t hurt.
“How come you never talk about your whisky?” she asked.
Sam didn’t answer for several seconds. “I’ll tell you what … I’ll answer that, if you tell me what you’re doing here. And don’t BS me about just wanting to chat and be all buddy-buddy. Despite your claims the other night, I do know you. And I know when you want something.”
Sure. But do you know when I want someone?
“You first,” she said, taking a large swallow of her drink and pushing it toward him for a refill.
“Well,” he said, giving the shaker one last rattle before straining it over her glass. “I guess you could say that it’s too important.”
“Not following.”
“ROON’s everything to me. It’s my savings, my livelihood, my passion. But the McKennas are everything to me too. You were my family when mine was crappy, and you’re even more my family now that mine’s mostly out of the picture.”
Riley resisted the urge to put her hand over his. Sam was an only child, raised by the most indifferent mother on the planet. Riley had only met Helena Compton once or twice, and although she’d passed along good looks to her son, she hadn’t been a mom. Not in the ways that mattered.
“I don’t get it,” she said softly. “Because both are important to you, they can’t overlap?”
“Let’s just say that my whisky’s my baby and your parents are my parents. I don’t think I can bear Erin and Josh not liking their grandchild.”
He gave her a boyish grin, but Riley heard the truth behind his casual tone. He was scared to death of disappointing the McKennas.
“But you’re letting me drink it.”
“Only because you batter-rammed your way into my home and I wanted—needed—a drink to deal with you.”
“Why do you think that is?”
His eyes locked on hers. She hadn’t meant for her voice to come out so husky, but her coy question sounded very much like a dangerous proposition.
“Because you’re dangerous to me,” he replied very simply. “Particularly when I don’t know what you’re after, and I confess—I’m completely stumped right now. It’s Friday night. Shouldn’t you be at some swanky hot spot with some suit in the city?”
She reached across the bar and helped herself to the cherry in his drink. “Maybe I’m in the mood for a casual home bar with a jeans-and-T-shirt guy in Brooklyn.”
