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“Sure.” I pulled out a stool and settled on it. The place just opened so there weren’t any customers yet for lunch. Servers were putting condiments on the tables and setting out rolled silverware in preparation for the rush I knew was to come.
He set a mug in front of me, just like the one that Daniel had the night before.
“How’s your grandmother?”
He knew I lived with her, that we were close, if having a video call with her once a week was close. While she was seventy-five, she was the adventurous one. “Leading a class across Europe studying the clerestory window usage in late medieval cathedrals.”
He laughed. “I don’t even know what that means.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Neither did I. I had to look it up.”
“You okay after last night? I was near the front door and saw Pearson carrying you. He said you got sick.”
I had no idea why men called each other by their last names.
“Yeah, I hope I didn’t make too much of a mess,” I said somewhat sheepishly. “I don’t usually drink that–”
He held up a hand. “No worries. I think you got yourself and Pearson. Didn’t even get any on the floor by your table.” His dark eyes held humor as he continued. “You’re tidy even when you hurl.”
Inwardly, I cringed. He thought I got sick and passed out sitting at the high top. He didn’t know we’d fooled around in his storage room. God, I hope I hadn’t made a mess in there.
“Well, I’m still sorry.”
“You doing okay?” he asked, setting his hands on the bar and leaning forward. His smile slipped away, and he looked at me now with seriousness.
“I didn’t know you and Pearson had a thing.”
My eyes flared. Thing? Me and Daniel? “There’s no thing,” I assured him. Other than him fingering me to my first guy-given orgasm.
He cocked his head. “You sure? You two looked pretty cozy last night. He’s not taking advantage, is he?”
That was the second time someone asked me that. I laughed because I’d taken advantage. I’d had an orgasm and Daniel hadn’t. “I threw up on him. No advantage taking was being had.”
He nodded once, then studied me some more. “Look, I’m a bartender. People tell bartenders stuff they don’t tell anyone else. You can talk to me if you want. About him. You. Whether you want him to take advantage. I mean, we don’t know each other that well, but–”
He didn’t finish and ran a hand over the back of his neck as if he felt uncomfortable, as if he overstepped.
Mallory hadn’t called me yet this morning, but I knew she would. She’d want to know everything that happened after she and Bridget left. She was a great friend and she would give me a pep talk. Tell me something about how protective and caring Daniel had been. Something to make me feel better.
No matter what she or anyone else said, vomit on a guy couldn’t be sugar coated.
I needed advice. Man tips. From a man.
“I can’t sit here and do nothing while we talk,” I said. “Give me some silverware to roll.”
His eyes widened as if he thought I was joking, but only shook his head and hefted a plastic tray with divided silverware. He sat a pile of white paper napkins beside it. “Have at it.”
I grabbed a fork, knife, and spoon from the bucket and then set them in the center of a napkin, then rolled it like an open ended burrito. A crepe, perhaps? Then I did another.
While I got to work, he pulled out a jar of maraschino cherries from beneath the counter and twisted the lid open. Snagging a spoon, he started scooping them out and dropping them into a section of a condiment caddy.
“How do you know a guy likes you?” I blurted.
He froze, mid-tip and stared at me. “Um, we going all the way back to fifth grade with this boy talk? Didn’t your mom cover back then?”
I frowned. My mother. She had told me about self-love when I was thirteen, that it was natural. Healthy. Yes, when other mothers were sharing how to use a tampon, she gave me a vibrator. Perhaps it was better than giving me a box of condoms. She held off until I was sixteen for that.
To say that she was casual about sex was an understatement. I had a completely dysfunctional view of men and women.
