I want her whimpering my name and telling me her entire childhood after.
“Nick!”
Hearing the name I chose for the season makes my feet move. I see Jasmine heading toward me from the corner of my eye, though I don’t lose my stare with Juniper. She swallows and smirks at me as she pours a couple of drinks, her gaze shifting in my direction every time her lashes lift. I swear there’s a twinge of pink on her cheeks, but I can’t be sure if that’s her blushing or if it’s from the heater.
“Back so soon?” Jasmine asks. “And with presents.”
I tear my eyes from Juniper. “How’s it going today, Jasmine?” I ask, stepping inside.
“Holiday regulars are making their way in,” she says as she peers around the establishment. “How’s the project coming along?”
“Should be done Thursday.”
“Just in time.” She glances at Juniper, who’s back to assessing me, and I revel in that stare. “You know, there’s a small table I like to keep open in the corner up front if you’d like it. That way you don’t have to stare from across the room or take up a seat at my bar.”
I chuckle under my breath. “Deal.”
There aren’t that many tables in Hudson’s—ten, in fact, with a few booths on the sides and five picnic tables outside. It’s small. No servers. From what I’ve observed, it’s just the two bartenders and two alternating cooks, with Danielle and Jasmine stepping in wherever they’re needed at the time.
Jasmine leads me through the bar, stopping at a few tables to make sure they have what they need and taking requests from a couple. Juniper smirks at me as I near, though she never loses sight of her customers or spills a single drink. She’s multi-tasking like the pro she is, and looking sexy as fuck doing it.
When we reach the table, Jasmine pushes her laptop and a few notebooks to the side so they’re out of the way. I set thecoffee and pastry bag down, slumping off my coat to sling over the back of the chair.
“I would bring you a drink, but I’m sure that’ll be covered. Let me know if you need anything,” Jasmine says.
“Thanks, Jasmine,” I say as she leaves me to myself.
I settle into the seat and take my phone out to see if there’s any word from my brother since leaving my house.
Nothing yet.
I’m half-expecting him to show up behind me at any moment. He’s here…somewhere.
Wherever he is, I’m not going to let him detour me from my fixation on Juniper.
I glance her way again and nearly chuckle. She has her hip leaned against the ice cooler and shaking a drink as she chats with the two young women who have just sat down.
“Doll, I can get you some eggnog out of the carton or a BJ shot without the whip, but that’s it,” she’s telling one of them.
“You can’t make a martini either?”
Juniper turns to Marge. “Marge, we have any vermouth?”
“Honey, I haven’t seen that since July,” Marge answers.
“Then no,” Juniper says to the women. “It’s a small bar, ladies. The holiday weekend order comes in tomorrow. We might have vermouth then, but it depends on what the numbers looked like last year, and honestly, I don’t remember making many martinis last Christmas. We can’t keep shit that’s going to go bad around here. Let’s keep it simple. I can do basics like gin or vodka tonics, sours, some fruity drinks, or even a mule or old-fashioned. What about something along those lines?”
“7&7?” one of them asks.
“Deal. For you?” Juniper asks the other.
“Vodka tonic,” she says with a sigh.
Juniper sets the shaker down and grabs their two drinks in a flash. She does it so automatically, that she barely looks atthe labels or button on the drink line. Once they’re served, she glances at me, holds up a finger, and picks back up the cocktail shaker again. She strains the drink into two short, ice-filled glasses, then takes a ginger beer from the fridge to pour on top.
“Hey, Dani, can you cover me a minute?” she asks Danielle, who’s coming out of the kitchen.
Danielle smiles my way and nods. “I got you.”
