For his part, Jonah didn’t seem to notice. He turned to Logan. “Want to join us?”
She bounced her narrowed gaze back and forth between us. “Oh, that’s okay,” she assured us. “I already ate, so I’m going to keep exploring. Maybe I’ll see you both later.”
“Sure,” Jonah said with the same smile he gave me. I deflated. Why was he being so generous with his nice smiles? Either give them to me only or stop using them completely forever.
In a softer voice, almost inaudible voice, I replied, “Yeah, maybe.” But nobody was paying attention to me anyway.
Logan walked away, and Jonah turned in the opposite direction and led me toward a wooden table that had just been vacated in a room adjacent to the food room. We shoved dirty plates to the side and mopped up spills with our napkins before settling in. One thing about owning a bar was that dirty tables were part of the day-to-day.
Just as I was taking my first bite of cold crab cakes, Jonah leveled me with a look and said, “You hate her.”
How did he know? But to him, I blinked innocently and said, “Hate who?”
He took a bite and stared me down. “She’s really nice,” he finally said.
Giving up all pretenses of not knowing who he was talking about, I shrugged and said, “I’m sure she is.”
“And she was nice to you.”
“She was.”
“So why do you hate her?”
It was my turn to shoot him a look. “I didn’t say I hated her. You said that.”
“Eliza,” he warned.
All right, so this wasn’t working. I took a different approach. “She’s a salesman. Er, saleswoman. I’m allergic to schmoozy people.”
He laughed and sank his teeth into a bite of a slider. Another drink station was nearby, and I eyed it wistfully. I was legitimately thirsty, but it would look suspicious if I got up now.
“You’ve never mentioned her before,” I prodded instead. “How long have you known her?”
He poked around his plate, avoiding my gaze. “Uh, I don’t know. Since I was at Benton Brothers. She started there too, then moved on to Modern Bev. She tried to get Will and me to go with her, but that was about the time we both left anyway.”
“She seems nice.”
“You just told me you’re allergic to her.”
I smiled. He’d caught me. “Yeah, I don’t want her trying to get me to sign a contract tonight. But I mean, as far as you’re concerned. She seems... nice.”
“Oh, you think I like her?”
“You just told me you like her.”
“I told you I’m friends with her,” he clarified. “Friends.” There was a beat of silence before he added, “Not everything has to be like... romantic with me.”
I frowned, unsure how to take that. Were we still talking about Logan? Or was this about last weekend? For being best friends, there were sure a lot of things I was afraid to ask him.
“I know.” It was my turn to push food around my plate. “I think we need more drinks.”
He nodded. “Definitely.” Without me asking him to, he stood and walked over to the nearest table that had a perfect lull in the line. He grabbed two cups and walked back over to me in less than a minute. “Apple cinnamon vodka and cider or something like that.”
“Ooh, seasonal.” Kudos to Galliger because this was my favorite one yet. I was all about seasonal flavors. Watermelon and peaches all summer long. Florals for spring. Pumpkin everything in the fall. And apple cider, white Russians, and mulled wine through winter, please and thank you.
“This would be pretty with a smoldering cinnamon stick and a spiraled apple for garnish,” I told him, imagining it at my own bar.
He looked at me thoughtfully. “You’re not wrong.”
