Alec
This wasn’thow I’d seen my weekend going when I woke up yesterday morning. Then Keli called last night to ask if she could have Evanne for the weekend so the two of them could do some back-to-school shopping and girls’ day things.
I assumed that meant a spa, manicure, pedicure, that sort of thing. When I heard Evanne chattering excitedly in the background, I agreed. Keli had always been good at working with my schedule when I needed her to. I’d take Evanne for the three-day weekend over Labor Day, and we’d do our own special stuff then. She’d been begging me to take her rock climbing, so maybe we’d do that.
The downside to Keli taking Evanne at the last minute was that I hadn’t planned on having nothing to do for the weekend, and I needed to stay busy to keep from thinking about Lumen. I’d been on my way home when I’d gotten a text from Duncan MacLean, an old friend of mine from Edinburgh, inviting me to stop in for a tasting of his new scotch.
Duncan and I weren’t the sort of friends who felt the need to socialize. We could go months, even a year, without talking, but it was never awkward when we saw each other again. And it never stopped us from dropping everything when the other one needed something. When I’d needed to talk to someone after Keli told me she was pregnant, he’d been a listening ear. When he’d needed a sponsor here in America to get a work VISA, he’d called me.
I’d invested in his bar and distillery, and he’d named his first Scotch after me. The time I’d been a hundred miles out of the city and hit a deer, he’d come, no questions asked. It had been a little over a year since we’d last spoken, and I’d already been thinking that a talk with Duncan might clear my head of Lumen, so I took his call as a bit of divine providence and headed over.
As soon as I came in, Duncan saw me and flashed a grin. He had a gap between his front teeth and a short growth of reddish hair on his face that stood out compared to the thinning brown hair on his head. He’d spent much of his teens and twenties as a merchant fisherman in Scotland and Newfoundland, finally coming here to open a pub and distillery. If our lives hadn’t taken us in such different directions, we might’ve been inseparable, but as it was, our friendship went beyond socioeconomic class, geography, and everything else that said the two of us never should have hit it off in the first place.
“Haw, Alec, ya right numpty,” he called.
“Duncan, ya wee bastard,” I shot back as I reached the bar. As it always did when I was around someone from back home, my accent and speech came back like I’d never left.
Sometimes, I wished I never had.
He laughed, showing a lot of crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes. He was only a couple years older than me, but his time at sea had aged him harshly. Even so, he had a friendly face, and he’d never complained about how hard his life had been, especially compared to mine. “Here for a hauf o’ whiskey?”
“I’ll have a nip,” I said, sliding onto a free barstool. The place was packed tonight, and I loved seeing it.
“Ah got just the thing. Just let me help this laddie first.” He nodded to the man beside me, a twenty-something guy with light brown skin and a definite hipster aesthetic. The guy seemed to be well on his way to being drunk but wasn’t quite at a cut-off point yet. Duncan was good at knowing when that was. He took that responsibility seriously. His nan had been injured by a drunk driver a decade ago, and the first thing he’d done when he’d gotten his liquor license here was post a giant sign saying that he had the right to refuse drinks and confiscate keys. He didn’t mess around.
As Duncan mixed the hipster’s drinks, I let my gaze roam around the bar. I’d always thought the dance floor a silly idea since he hated the kind of music people danced to, but it seemed to be drawing a good crowd. A woman with honey blonde hair like Lumen’s was having a good time out there. The flash of false recognition bothered me, but as soon as the woman turned, my heart leaped.
It was Lumen.
She was dancing with a petite Asian girl, both of them laughing as they moved in sync. It was funny how much of our recognition came from context. I’d almost completely passed her over because I’d dismissed what I’d seen as a resemblance. And then I’d almost missed how different she looked because, in my head, she had her hair pulled back and wore simple scrubs.
She sure as hell didn’t look like that now.
She wore a blue top that accentuated her trim waist and high breasts, skin-tight pants that looked like leather, and heeled ankle boots that accentuated her legs. She was moving her hips hypnotically, her hair swinging freely around her shoulders. And as her smile widened, I realized she had dimples.
Damn.
No wonder I hadn’t been able to get her out of my mind.
“Cheers!” The hipster guy beside me flashed us both a smile as Duncan handed him his drinks.
“Aye, cheers,” said Duncan with little enthusiasm. He never liked mixing cocktails. The hipster wandered off.
“You should’ve made it a scotch-only bar,” I joked.
Duncan gave me a grin. “And get a bunch o’ wankers like you? Look at these burds and tell me ye wouldn’t put up with making mingin drinks and listenin to jobby music if it meant ye owned a bar full o’ bonnie lasses, many o’ them willin’ ta fill my bed.”
I instinctively glanced over at Lumen, only to find her looking at me. Her eyes widened and then she turned, grabbing her friend’s arm. Desire clenched my stomach.
“See something ye like?” Duncan went on, grabbing a bottle from underneath the bar and an empty glass. “Guess my point is made.”
“Someone,” I clarified. “Not something.”
Duncan followed my line of sight and shook his head. “Chinese burd? She and the poofter I just served come in all the time. Think she’s spoken for, mate.”
“Not her.”
He splashed the amber liquid into the glass and looked at the dance floor again, this time nodding his head in appreciation. “Blonde? Ye ken who she is?” I didn’t answer, but the look on my face must’ve given him something. “Gonna have a go?”
