I was mesmerized, watching his lips. He had a tiny crumb at the corner of his mouth.
I swiped it away, and his pupils dilated.
“Dang. Sorry, I didn’t mean to touch you.” I finished off my third Bloody Mary to distract myself from the slight scrape of stubble I’d felt. Did his whiskers defy the razor every day?
He chose the combination I’d first selected and held it up to my mouth. Was he feeding me? He gave me an expectant look.
Carefully, I snatched the compilation from him and popped it into my mouth. I might get stuck with the bill. The thought helped dull the thrill. I was not Gideon’s type. I swallowed hard.
He hated my family. Remember?
My memory seemed to be a sieve where he was concerned tonight.
“I saw you storm out,” I blurted as if to remind himhe didn’t like me. In case he’d forgotten. “When you were at Copper Summit last spring.”
His eyes flickered. The pupils that had dilated when I fed him were now smaller, more intent. “You caught that.”
“I was working in the bar.”
He didn’t look at me as he pieced together more meat and cheese. He put the combo on a cracker this time. “I didn’t realize the bar was open that early.”
“We are, but I was doing the books.”
He slid his gaze toward me, then back to the food as he compiled another stack. Then he offered me one and made a second for himself.
I popped an olive off drink number four and gave it to him. “I bet this will taste amazing with the softer cheese.”
“Olives are your favorite.”
“How’d you know?”
A slight arch of his brow brought a sweep of embarrassment. I’d gobbled the olives off my first two drinks. I’d maybe moaned once or twice. If I could’ve dived headfirst into the Bloody Mary, I would’ve.
I put the olive on the plate. “They are, but I can share what I like.”
“Is that what you teach the kids?”
I nodded. “I think it’s important to teach them when to share. Otherwise, it’s like a free-for-all.”
He paused with the stack of food close to his mouth. “Very true. My class could’ve used that lesson.”
“Yeah, it’s much more complicated than we give it credit for. But my students are also older too. It’s mostly learning to respect others’ property and knowing thatyou don’t have a claim to it just because it’s within the school’s walls.”
He chewed and propped an elbow close to my shoulder. When had we gotten closer?
“How do you have time to do the books when you teach full-time?”
The books for the bar were fairly simple compared to the rest of the distillery. What my brother Tenor did was more like conducting an orchestra with all the moving parts involved in the distillery. The bar was a teeny-tiny part, and I kind of resented that I only got so much say over it. When Wynter worked the bar more, the guys would defer to her. When I brought it up, they’d tell me I wasn’t around. I had a full-time job.
I wasn’t going to confess any of that to Gideon. “I have summers off. Other teachers can use the money from teaching summer school, and I have an easy second income. Besides, I like working in the bar and creating drinks.”
“You like mixology.”
I liked control. The patrons didn’t knock over their drinks nearly as often as kids spilled leaky water bottles. And when a tipsy customer spilled a drink, I didn’t have twenty other students commentating the event and the cleanup. Drunk patrons didn’t throw blame around quite as much as eight-year-olds, usually. Plus, tending bar didn’t require parent-teacher conferences.
I loved teaching, but I liked my breaks. Some days were exhausting. And just when I was sick of dealing with my brothers, I could go back to school and feel like I had some authority.
“I like creating fun drinks. Wynter and I got into it, but then she moved around. Now she’s back, but she’sworking in—” I was going to say the offices, but that made it sound like the C-suite, which would imply I was just another part-time staff. I sort of was. “She works from home a lot with the new baby.”
