She covers her eyes with her hand. “No. God. I don’t want to be that couple where she can’t even pop a jar of olives. If you weren’t here, I’d just get a knife or fork and shove the prongs of it beneath the lid to pop it.”
At some point, I should probably take myself down to the boathouse and give myself a little smack about the head for not even flinching at the word couple.
But instead, everything just…eases.
“Maybe that’s one of the perks you should get used to. I can undo tight jars, reach shit on tall shelves, and I’m real fucking handy with a hammer.”
Maren grins. “You should put that on your dating profile. It would be better than pictures of you fishing and cleaning your motorcycle.”
I begin to pull things out of the bags. A bottle of good quality bourbon. The freshest lemons I could find. Sugar. And because I’m committed to a good sour, eggs.
“What do you know about dating profiles?”
She shudders as she pokes a stick into an olive. “Honestly, more than I want to. The dating pool here is slim. It’s not much better wider afield. I’ve been on a dating hiatus.”
That piques my interest. “How long of a hiatus?”
She shrugs as she fiddles the pit of the olive out of her mouth, and I pop a plate in front of her to put it on. “Longer than I want to admit to you.”
Because she looks a little shy about the admission, I walk to where she’s seated, tip her chin, and kiss her tenderly. She tastes of olives. And maybe that’s how tonight is going to go. I’m gonna experience all the flavors Maren can taste like.
“Kinda like that you’ve been waiting for me,” I admit.
She takes a breath. “Yeah. Maybe.”
From the next bag, I pull out the good whiskey glasses that come in a blue box that’s lined with some kind of silky material.
“Oh, fancy,” Maren says.
“North, my VP, got them for me for my fortieth birthday. They’re crystal. The real deal. Make a ting sound when you flick them and everything. Never used ‘em.”
Maren reaches for the box, and I hand it to her. She takes one out and flicks her fingernail against the crystal. The sharp ting echoes around the room. “Huh. Who knew crystal did that?”
I shrug. “That’s how you tell it’s crystal and not glass, apparently. North told me when I unwrapped it.”
“And how does North know these things?”
I laugh before I can answer. “You sure you want to know?”
“Of course, I do, now you’ve said that.”
“He was fucking a sales assistant at one of those fancy stores in Miami. She gave him a staff discount and a blow job within the same thirty minutes.”
Maren puts her hands over her face and laughs. “I shouldn’t find it funny, but it’s the way you said it. Would he really have left me to those guys?”
“Club’s got some separating of you and your father to do. But, no, I don’t think he would have.” I smile and start making the drinks by cutting the lemons in half. “It’s our life. You know, live hard, play hard. Take what you want when you want it. Stand for what you believe in.”
The sigh Maren blows out is wistful. “Somewhere along the way, I lost that. But it sounds…freeing.”
“Nothing stopping you changing right this minute, sweetheart. You got a good business, solid foundation. You don’t have to know every answer or every decision you want to make. You just gotta decide that the next ten minutes are gonna be different from the last ten. Keep doing that on repeat and then, you’ve lived a whole day different, a whole week, a whole month.”
Maren stabs another olive, then stands and comes over to me before offering it to my mouth. I grab it off the end of the stick with my teeth. “Thank you.”
“You brought eggs? That’s commitment. Where did you learn how to make this?”
I raise a brow. “Don’t question my process. My mom loves ‘em, and I love my mom, so I learned how to make them for her. I mean, she taught me what to do.”
“So, you’re a momma’s boy?”
