Country shrugged. "A guy on my hockey team told me about it. When I saw it was close to the studio, I thought we should try it out."
Jenna followed him inside noting the hours on the glass door. They didn’t close till four in the morning on the weekends. Given that tidbit, she was not expecting what greeted her as they passed through the airlock. Most places open that late touted tight shirts behind the bar, heavy bass, and a cover charge. Instead, she was met with brick walls, round tables, and a wall of wine on tap. It smelled of warm spices and smoked meat.
Jenna’s stomach grumbled. "Is the guy on your hockey team a literature professor? Or part of an improv troupe?"
Country laughed. "More like he does internet security and restores historic buildings on the side."
"Ah. See, there it is."
Country spoke with the hostess, and she gathered two menus then scooted between the mostly full tables and led them to a two-top along the side wall. Jenna groaned inwardly. She hated tall seats like this. Her feet almost never reached the rail that was supposed to be one-size-fits-all.
"Actually, could we take that one there?" Country pointed to a table on the opposite side of the pub set with two low wing-back chairs. The hostess nodded and led them in the opposite direction.
Jenna’s chest warmed as she hung her coat and bag on the hook next to her seat. "You didn't have to do that."
Country smiled. "Maybe I noticed this table didn't have a vent over it. I'm very particular about my drinking temperature." Jenna looked up. No vent, but there wasn't one over the previous table either.
The corner of her mouth curled, and it didn’t escape Country’s notice. He looked a little smug as he sat. "Maybe we still do know some things about each other?"
"Fine. You still know that my legs are short, but that's?—"
"A fundamental personality trait?"
"Let's hope not." Jenna scooted her chair closer to the table. Industry was the epitome of cozy with soft music, laughter, and clinking glasses. It was exactly what she wanted after a chaotic night in the studio. Maybe Country knew that already, too. "I might fall asleep here. You realize that, right?"
"I promise, I won't take advantage of you."
"The fact that that was the first thing to come out of your mouth?" Jenna picked up the drink menu and clicked her tongue. "Damn. They have Black Hills."
"Is that good?"
She laughed. "I guess I still know you're not a wine drinker." She dropped the menu and eyed him curiously. "Actually, what do you drink these days? In one of your videos, you had a Molson, and I could've sworn you used to be a Labatt guy." Her voice lost steam by the end of that sentence. Saying the words out loud—actually talking about the memories she had with him—felt like she was cracking herself open like a soft-boiled egg.
But Country didn't know that. All he'd heard were the words, not the way they'd wrung her out. After thirteen years, shouldn't she be able to talk about these things without having some emotional reaction? Even if it wasn't close to reality, she could pretend it was.
"I'm not as picky now. I'll drink whatever Polk has in the fridge."
"So you traded picky for cheap."
"Exactly." Country laughed, scanning the drink list.
"Which means I shouldn't order Black Hills?" she teased.
Country looked up, his smile fading at the edges. "Order whatever the hell you want, Jenna. I haven't been saving money drinking Polk's beer for nothing."
Her heart stuttered, and she quickly lowered her gaze back to the wine list. She ran the strings of rich titles and descriptions through her head to keep the intrusive thoughts of how gentle his fingers looked running up and down the edge of his menu at bay. Jenna stared intensely at the listing for Vintner’s Secret Reserve. "So you play hockey. You work on the ranch. What else should I know now about you?"
"That pretty much sums it up."
"Yeah?" Jenna's heart sped as she realized that even sitting there in a chair that looked like she should be wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches and leaning back to light up a cigar, she was tiptoeing through a minefield. She didn't want to touch anything relating to their breakup, and that left very few topics to construct a conversation with.
She agreed with her friends that she needed to talk with Gentry about what happened, and she was working up the courage to broach the subject. But that wasn't a "Hey, we're out for a drink for the first time in a decade" type of conversation, was it?
She opted to start with questions that led away from their time together, not toward, and set her menu down on the table. "Why didn't you play in the NHL?"
"The coach for the Admirals didn't like me. He didn't give me playing time, which meant other players looked better than I did on the stat sheets."
"That’s insane."
