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Kai’s brows lifted a fraction, and I realized I’d been so focused on his voice that I hadn’t responded to his request yet. Meanwhile Tessa, the little traitor, had disappeared into the back room, leaving me to fend for myself.She’s never getting a condom out of me again.
“Of course.” I cleared my throat, attempting to lighten the cloud of thickening tension. “But I’m afraid we don’t serve glow-in-the-dark gin and tonics.”Not without a black light to make the tonic glow, anyway.
He gave me a blank look.
“Because of the last time you overheard me talking about con—er, protective products,” I said.Nothing.I might as well be babbling about rush hour traffic patterns, for all the reaction he showed. “You ordered a strawberry gin and tonic because I was talking about strawberry-flavored…”
I was digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole. I didn’t want to remind Kai about the time he overheard me discussing strawberry condoms at the club’s fall gala, but I had to saysomethingto divert his attention away from, well, my current condom predicament.
I should really stop talking about sex at work.
“Never mind,” I said quickly. “Do you want your usual?”
His one-off strawberry gin and tonic aside, Kai ordered a scotch, neat every time. He was more predictable than a Mariah Carey song during the holidays.
“Not today,” he said easily. “I’ll have a Death in the Afternoon instead.” He lifted his book so I could see the title scrawled across the worn cover.For Whom the Bell Tollsby Ernest Hemingway. “Seems fitting.”
Invented by Hemingway himself, Death in the Afternoon was a simple cocktail consisting of champagne and absinthe. Its iridescent green color was also as close to glow-in-the-dark as a regular drink could get.
I narrowed my eyes, unsure whether that was a coincidence or if he was fucking with me.
He stared back, his expression inscrutable.
Dark hair. Crisp lines. Thin black frames and a suit so perfectly tailored it had to have been custom made. Kai was the epitome of aristocratic sophistication, and he’d nailed the British stoicism that went with it.
I was usually pretty good at reading people, but I’d known him for a year and I had yet to crack his mask. It irritated me more than I cared to admit.
“One Death in the Afternoon, coming right up,” I finally said.
I busied myself with his drink while he took his customary seat at the end of the bar and retrieved a notebook from his coat pocket. My hands went through the motions, but my attention was split between the glass and the man quietly reading. Every once in a while, he would pause and write something down.
That in and of itself wasn’t unusual. Kai often showed up to read and drink by himself before the evening rush. Whatwasunusual was the timing.
It was Monday afternoon, three days and two hours before his weekly, precision-timed arrival on Thursday evenings. He was breaking pattern.
Kai Youngneverbroke pattern.
Curiosity and a strange breathlessness slowed my pace as I brought him his drink. Tessa was still in the supply room, and the silence weighed heavier with each step.
“Are you taking notes?” I placed the cocktail on a napkin and glanced at his notebook. It lay open next to Kai’s novel, its pages filled with neat, precise black writing.
“I’m translating the book into Latin.” He flipped the page and scribbled another sentence without looking up or touching his drink.
“Why?”
“It’s relaxing.”
I blinked, certain I’d heard him wrong. “You think translating a five-hundred-page novel into Latin by hand isrelaxing?”
“Yes. If I wanted a mental challenge, I’d translate an economics textbook. Translating fiction is reserved for my downtime.”
He tossed out the explanation casually, like it was a habit as common and ingrained as throwing a coat over the back of his couch.
I gaped at him. “Wow. That’s…” I was at a loss for words.
I knew rich people indulged in strange hobbies, but at least they were usually fun eccentricities like throwing lavish weddings for their pets or bathing in champagne. Kai’s hobby was justboring.
The corners of his mouth twitched, and realization dawned alongside embarrassment.Seems to be the theme of the day.“You’re messing with me.”
