“I guess not.” I didn’t tell him aboutEl Jove. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want to share it. “I’m going to see how he makes my drink.”
I left the table and headed inside before Monty could ask me anything else, my eyes finding it hard at first to adapt to the darkness in the bar.
It was quiet inside, most people sat in the sun or at the tables where the shade was lighter. Low tempo beats played, someone singing about flowers and daydreams and a beautiful day, the music more tense than the lyrics.
Tommy was behind the bar, pouring juice into a cocktail shaker. He looked up at me as I entered then sat on a barstool opposite him.
I didn’t say anything. Like some outed stalker, I just watched. He poured, shook, mixed. Not just our drinks, but those of another table first.
He didn’t speak either. He didn’t acknowledge me or look directly at me. His back tensed, his T-shirt pulled even more tightly across it. He was too sculpted, too big, too much. There was a ruggedness and a roughness that permeated every fibre of him, and I couldn’t take my eyes away.
A tray of cocktails was taken by one of the staff to a table, passed by him wordlessly. Only then did he look at me.
“It’s extra for the show.”
I didn’t apologise. “I’ll make sure you get a good tip.”
I saw humour in his eyes.
He made a tequila sunrise first, Lara’s choice. Then there were two beers, poured into frozen glasses, and Monty’s espresso. Tommy placed them on a tray and passed it to Rico, giving the table number in Catalan.
“You want this alcoholic or non?” His English felt foreign against the Spanish and German that was being used in the background.
I’d planned to make today clean. No meat, no booze. The no sex bit was pretty much guaranteed.
“Alcoholic.” Plan destroyed.
He gave that nod. “Tell me what you like.”
I looked across the shelves of liquor. Tequila, brandy, absinthe, Cointreau, vodka, gin, rum – lots of it.
Two large hands landed on the bar in front of me.
“Lady, if you can’t tell me what you like, tell me what you don’t. Give me your hard limits.”
I felt my face flush.
His chuckle was dirty. “With drinks. Alcohol. If brandy made you throw up when you were fifteen and now you can’t stand the smell of it, I need to know.”
“Brandy is one, actually.” Fourteen. We raided Livi’s drinks cabinet and tried to make a Brandy Alexander. “And I’m not keen on cream, unless it’s in a Piña Colada.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t want to end up on my arse.”
He laughed. “You won’t on my watch. Not good for business to have pretty girls lying in my gutters.”
“Save that for Sant Antoni.” Nights there did end with people crashed on the beaches outside, too worse for wear to get home.
Tommy turned around and took the Campari, adding half a shot. His T-shirt lifted as he reached for a ginger liquor, something I wouldn’t have known what to do with, and I caught a glance of his back, tanned tight skin. My eyes lingered on his torso as he turned round and I caught my bottom lip between my teeth.
I didn’t sit at bars on my own, perving at bartenders who were probably too old for me and far too dangerous. My fishing pool of men tended to be full of trendy metrosexuals, models and sons looking to produce an heir to their land and title, not men who looked like they could eat me for breakfast, resurrect me and have me again for lunch.
We wouldn’t even discuss dinner.
“This isn’t going to be sweet.” He picked up half a lime and squeezed it with his hand straight into the shaker. His forearm tensed as he did so, the strength he had clear. “These are angostura bitters,” he looked up at me, as if about to teach a lesson. “Made from the oils of bitter and sweet oranges, with spices mixed in.” He added a dash to the shaker. “I could show off for you now, throw this around a bit, but I’m not going to.”
“You aren’t one for peacocking?”
