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“You want a drink or not?”
She mimed zipping her lips and nodded. Hey, if it’d get her more booze…
Pity party, table of me.
“Del!” Charlie leaned over the bar, tossing her stick straight locks back over her shoulder as she shouted to her brother. “We need refills.”
“Make them yourself.” The muffled voice carried through the thin walls separating the front of Jack’s from the distillery in back.
“Delta Morgan Jackson you get your ass out here and make us some drinks or I will tell Ace about the blonde last week!”
The door to the back swung open and a very pissed off Del strode through, arms crossing over his chest as he came to stand behind the bar. “First you want me gone, now you want me back. Make up your freaking mind, Charlie. And don’t even think about telling Ace about the blonde or I’ll tell him and BJ about that jackass with the hipster beard you went home with last week.”
“For the last time, I can date who I want, and I’m not scared of any of you.”
She stuck her tongue out at her brother. He threw his hands up in the air, turning to grab the ingredients for their drinks.
“What did he do with the blonde?” Cassie asked in a hushed voice. She only wanted to know because she was curious as to what would have Del running to do his sister’s bidding, not because of that odd feeling she got in the pit of her stomach whenever she thought of Del involved with a woman.
“Some blonde bimbo came in last week and flirted with Del all night. Far be it from me to disparage our gender, but the chick was oozing desperation.”
“She was not. She was nice,” Del commented as he poured olive juice into the shaker with the vodka.
“How could you tell how nice she was when all your focus was on her rack?”
He gave his sister the middle finger which she returned, adding a clever music box motion and sound effect as she lifted her own finger.
“Anyway,” Charlie continued, “after a whole night of batting her eyelashes and pushing her cleavage up higher than God, she managed to get idiot over here to comp her entire bill. One-hundred dollars’ worth.”
Cassie cocked a brow. “Wow, that’s a lot of booze.”
“Not really.” Del glared at his sister. “She’s a distributor for a restaurant chain in Denver and I sent her home with a bottle of our gin and vodka. I was making a business connection. And I plan on telling Ace and BJ about it when she puts in an order. Which she will.”
That made sense. Their bottles were over thirty dollars a pop. Worth every penny, too. The Jacksons knew their distilling.
“You were making a connection alright,” Charlie muttered under her breath.
“Here.” Del slid the gin and tonic to his sister. “I hope you choke on it. Not you Cassie,” he added, sliding her dirty martini over. “Enjoy it. In fact, I’m such a nice guyto everyoneI won’t even make you honor our bet this time.”
Grateful she didn’t have to repeat the stupid mixer-god phrase—why had she bet on a pair of aces?—she smiled. “Thanks, Del.”
“At least someone around here appreciates me.”
“Oh, cry me a river baby brother. You’ve got customers.”
A group of people entered the bar. Del shook his head at his sister, giving Cassie a wink as he turned and headed down to the other end of the bar where the customers waited. As much as they bickered, she knew the Jackson siblings loved each other. Often, over the years, she’d envied her friend. Having three brothers could be overwhelming at times, she knew, but she would have given anything for a sister or brother. Even now, she wished for some familial connection. The only living relative she had was her cousin, and well…it wasn’t exactly the Hallmark kind of relationship she craved.
Cassie took a sip of her martini. The alcohol hit her system, soothing her ragged nerves. “Oh yes, this is what I needed.”
“And so is this.” Charlie pulled her laptop from her bag. Opening it, she started typing away.
Not trusting the gleeful smile on her best friend’s face, she peeked at the screen. Her jaw fell open in horror. “Whoa, what are you doing? A dating site? I’m not that desperate.”
“Yes, you are,” her friend answered without pausing her furious clicking. “And it’s the twenty-first century. Everyone has an online dating profile now.”
Not her. She preferred to meet men the old-fashioned way. At a bar or the library or work. Seeing as how she worked from home, that made things a little difficult, which explained why she hadn’t had a relationship in… Oh jeez, had it been over a year? Perhaps shedidneed to get online.
“Okay, I got you set up at Meet My Match,” Charlie said. “There’s also More in the Sea and Farmers Only.”
