His words work their way into somewhere I didn’t know I needed. It feels better than the way everyone else compliments me. And I can’t seem to look away from him as he runs two fingers back and forth along his bottom lip. And quietly, almost to himself, he says, “So, she likes praise.”
All over again, my pulse quickens, my cheeks instantly warming, and I can’t help but search for a visual of what that would look like from him. At the thought of all the ways he might praise me, what I’d do to earn more words that would make me feel something I haven’t given myself permission to feel before, I squeeze my thighs together.
“She likes tips too,” Viv interjects from her stool.
Boss chimes in, “Highest tip of the night earns a reading, too.”
Julian’s eyebrows raise. “Are we talking poems, tea leaves, tarot?”
“Palm,” I correct. I’m barely good at it, despite the efforts of the woman who taught me. If she saw me now, she’d swat at me and tell me to“take my time and do it right.”
He throws down a hundred-dollar bill. “Pour one this time for both of us, and I’ll let you tell me all about my future,” he says, keeping his eyes on me as he tips the glass back slowly.
I can’t help but bark out a laugh. “Let me? I think you mean, beg me,” I say, raising an eyebrow. “A hundred dollars seems pretty desperate, Julian.”
“I never mind a little bit of begging,” he says, tipping his empty glass toward him. “And yeah, I’m feeling pretty desperate.”
My stomach swoops and lips part as I try to decipher how I’m supposed to respond to that. What would that look like? A man like him begging someone like me for what he wants? Goosebumps run up my arms at the flash of such a dirty fantasy. I glance at the abandoned ingredients and decide to shift back to the actual request.
“It doesn’t really work that way,” I say as I use a sharp knife to cut open a vanilla bean stalk. Slicing the tip of the knife through the dark, paste-like insides, I swipe it along the edge of the glass. I lift it to smell, close my eyes, and allow the savorinessof the thyme and sweetness of the vanilla bean to remind me of home. When I open my eyes and find him watching me, it doesn’t make me uneasy—it does the opposite. It has me audibly exhaling.
“Don’t leave me on the edge of my seat like that, Naomi,” he teases. Leaning on his elbows, he says, “Tell me how it works, then.” The lilt of his voice is coaxing and calm, almost as smooth as the liquor I just poured.
The podcast episode fills in the blips of quiet, so I doubt anyone’s listening too closely. I’ve been offered plenty of drinks from customers before, and while Boss says he doesn’t care, I’ve still never had one while working. Until tonight. I pour two shots of the whiskey I infused into two rocks glasses, both with a swipe of the vanilla and thyme paste along its edge. As I slide Julian his glass across the bar, he opens his hand, palm facing up.
Be brave.
Glancing down, I lean my weight onto the bar’s edge. “It depends on how much you’re willing to believe. Palmistry has deep conflicting origins, but it all derives from the assumption that fate exists, and that those fates, if interpreted correctly, can be adjusted.”
I run the tips of my fingers along the worn leather of the cuff on his wrist. It’s wide enough that it extends almost to the base of his palm.
“May I?” I ask, with my fingers lingering along its edges. I’d like to see the lines beneath it too.
His closed-mouth smile comes with a nod as I begin unsnapping its two gold buttons. “I like this,” I tell him, grazing my fingertips along its stitched edges.
“Made it a long time ago, but it’s still one of my favorites.”
“You made this?” It doesn’t look like a weekend craft project.
“This one too,” he says, pointing to the other wrist, and then running his fingers along the rings on his opposite hand. “And these.”
“Do you do this for a living?” I ask with a smile, and he nods. “You’re a?—”
“Jeweler, goldsmith, designer, among other things. But yes, I do this for a living,” he says with almost a shy smile, like there’s more he’s not saying.
“I would not have guessed that about you,” I say as I run my fingers across his open palm again. I don’t particularly need to touch him, but it would be a shame not to.
“What would you have guessed?” he asks. He glances down at where I’m touching.
Brushing two fingers along the width of his hand, I quietly say, “Something far more dangerous, morally gray. Until you started talking, you were very intimidating.”
He sniffs out a laugh. “You’re right; maybe you’re not very good at this telling-my-future thing.” He starts to sit back, pulling his hand away to play with me, but I catch his wrist and pull him back toward the bar. My smile falters as my eyes lock with his. I guide his hand back to where it was and I brush my fingers from his wrist to his now extended palm.
His Adam’s apple bobs as he looks at where I’m touching. The playfulness of his attention seems suddenly more serious, more curious. This should feel like an innocent exchange, but there’s something about our closeness that seems quite the opposite.
“Your dominant hand is the path you’re on.” I send a pointed look to the hand that’s holding his drink. “While your nondominant is the path you were born to take. The way it was explained to me is that every line can have a meaning, but they can be interpreted differently. It’s not so much about telling youyour future, but it’s about putting the possibilities into words and then interpreting them however you’d like.”
He looks up at me, his gaze lingering on my lips again, and it feels like it’s struck a live wire. Any part of me that hadn’t already been aware of his proximity is well informed now.What is it about this man that makes me want to keep talking?
