There was a depth to Juliet that was completely overlooked, she’d come to realize, from the image Juliet had spent her entire career maintaining. It was all focused on Darcy, right now.
Her heart skipped a beat, and she roughly cleared her throat.
“Anyway.” Leaning on her arm across the bar, she fixed on a smile. The kind of smile she’d have worn with any woman who looked at her like Juliet was from the other side of the bar.
Granted, there’d never been anyone that looked at herquitelike this.
“What can I get for you this evening, ma’am?”
Juliet’s dark eyes stayed trained on her for another beat before she shook her head. “Nothing, actually.” She turned to pluck open her large purse that she’d kept shut all day where she’d sat it on the stool next to her.
Curious, Darcy pushed herself to her tiptoes to peer in, before Juliet emerged with a bottle of Jack Daniels with a silver bow tied artfully around it.
“Merry Christmas,” Juliet announced with a flourish.
“You shouldn’t have…?” She couldn’t help but chuckle, shooting her a questioning stare. She gestured behind her at the shelves. “You know, we do carry that here.”
Juliet pouted back at her, so absurdly cute, exasperation coloring her tone, “When we did ‘Porchlight’ you said you’re a whiskey person. I said I’d get you some inexpensive whiskey. Thus…”
Darcy had said that. But she’d assumed when Juliet had teased her back then that she’d get her a bottle, she’d been facetious.
Juliet remembered it, though. Their conversation from even before Darcy had come out to her, before they were sleeping together. And that… well, that made her feel entirely too warm and melty inside.
Being given a bottle of twenty-dollar whiskey wasn’t typicallyromantic, but this was. To Darcy, right now, it was.
“You don’t have to take it,” Juliet said after a few seconds. She reached for the bottle. “It’s fine–”
Darcy shot her hand out, gripping the whiskey and holding it firmly against the bar. “No, I want it. It’s mine.”
Juliet breathed out a laugh, combing a hand through her hair. “Okay, great. I don’t know what I would have done with it, anyway.”
“You could have had some?” She suggested, mostly as a joke.
In the last couple of months, she’d never seen Juliet crack anything open that wasn’t some sort of luxury brand. Even her water and tea had logos Darcy couldn’t even find in the Pineford grocery store.
“All right. Let’s do it.”
Darcy obliged, even though she had to point out, “I can make a lot more impressive drinks than this. Try me.”
Juliet’s lips were curved into a small grin as she watched her use tongs to put some ice in the tumblers. “I’m fine with this. For now.”
She slid Juliet her glass, tapping her fingers against her own. Debating if she should tell this to Juliet or just give it to her or what.
Juliet narrowed her eyes as she took a sip, before she lowered her tumbler to ask, “What is with your face?”
“My face is fine, thanks.” She shrugged, looking down into her own whiskey as she swirled the glass. “I… got you a little gift, too. It’s upstairs.”
Juliet sat up a little straighter. “Oh? What is it?”
“A notebook. Since youlovemine so much,” she cracked, feeling a little sheepish.
Then again, it wasn’t like Juliet had gotten her some huge, expensive gift, either. Just something small. Something that told Darcy that Juliet had thought about her. And Darcy’s was the same.
She hadn’t been sure she’d even give it to her. But since Juliet made the first gesture…
“So I can handwrite all of my thoughts out and spin pens and pencils through my fingers the way you do,” Juliet mused, rolling her lips. “I cannot wait.”
Even though her voice was dry, Darcy couldseehow she was holding back a smile.
