We had been courting her for a couple of months now. That's what it felt like, courting. We hoped she thought so, too--we were pretty sure she did. In so many little ways, she let us know. The particular smile she gave us when we walked into the bar, a bit lopsided, ever so slightly wicked. The way she bit her lower lip when she talked to us, shyly mischievous, a little bit hungry; the way she leaned a bit farther over the bar than strictly necessary when handing us our drinks, her eyes flirtatiously on mine. The way she ran her hands through her hair, the way she lingered, talking with us, until the next customer needed a drink--and the way she'd leave us then, a tiny half-smile of promise on her lips. We got a lot of mileage out of that smile, later, in bed.
We'd found the bar when they started carrying Jake's rum--he ran a small craft distillery--and soon we were stopping in for a drink or two a few nights a week. It was our favorite kind of place--casual and unpretentious, no hipster drinks on the menu, no mustachioed and waistcoated bartenders, but plenty of interesting, quality bottles behind the rail, and staff who knew what to do with them. We liked that it felt cozy--just one little room, brick walls and warm soft lights throwing a dim glow on the dark of the bar. And best of all, we liked that nobody else seemed to know about it. It was never empty, always a buzz of conversation and enough other people sitting at the bar to make us feel a little bit private and anonymous--but it didn't draw the crowds a place like that deserved, and we knew we could always find a couple of stools next to each other.
It didn't take long before she was our favorite bartender, and without ever acknowledging it, we seemed to end up at the bar only on the nights she was working. She'd start mixing my Tanqueray and tonic as soon as we walked through the door, but she'd always have something different for Jake, a new bourbon or a recipe she'd made up. It was a game with the two of them--she'd never give him the same drink twice, always trying to surprise him with a creative new twist or the ultimate version of a classic. And he'd tease her, a little exacting and difficult to please, always a bit of a challenge--but when he'd nod with pleasure at his first sip, she'd flush, victorious. After that first drink, he'd settle into a Sazerac or a few fingers of Balvenie, but when he first sat down at the bar, he never knew what she'd hand him.
Probably it started there, the flirtation that built up between us, with the challenge that rested between the two of them once she learned Jake was a distiller. But we all felt it, that indefinable electricity. It was in the way she'd rest her hand on my arm when we talked, so lightly, just above my elbow. The way my gaze kept straying to the lovely curve of her breasts in the black wrap dress she wore, the way I couldn't stop imagining what it would feel like to run my finger along her collarbone. The way Jake was with her, open and charming but oh so sexily in control.
The way we fucked when we got home, hard and fast and intense, a little bit wild. The way we whispered to each other between kisses, "What if we...," "Imagine that now she's..." They way Jake's shoulders looked the next morning, red and raw with marks that were suspiciously finger shaped.
It might have stopped there, just a fun little flirtation to get us all riled up in bed, if we had more of a taste for modern art.
We'd gone to the gallery on a Saturday afternoon to see a portrait exhibit we'd heard good things about--and we walked through the stark white rooms and took it in, absorbed our share of culture, and half an hour later, we were done. The rest of the gallery, the Picassos and the Rothkos and the Pollocks, didn't hold much interest for us. So there we were, plans for the afternoon more or less shot, and a nice wide swath of time on our hands. So we decided to stop in at the bar for a drink--just one, we agreed.
"No day drinking," I warned Jake. "I don't want to be passed out on the couch by 5 o'clock."
"Nope," he reassured me. "Just one drink. You can have a glass of wine if you want. Very responsible."
But when we stepped in from the cold, stopping just inside the door to brush the snow off our shoulders, there she was behind the bar, polishing glasses.
My heart did a little tumble, and I know I was probably blushing. But with one hand firm on the small of my back, Jake guided me to a pair of stools at the corner of the bar, tucked into a cozy nook by the window. And before I could decide if I was in the mood for pinot grigio or riesling, there was a gin and tonic in my hand, and she was pulling down a bottle of Campari to make a drink for Jake.
"I didn't think you worked afternoons," he said off-handedly. "You must have known we were coming in."
"The day girl has the flu, so I picked up a shift. You two are just a lovely surprise." She gave him a sleepy-eyed smile as she slipped a twist of orange into his drink and handed it to him to try.
"Apparently we're philistines," I told her. "We tried to go to that exhibit at the art gallery and we couldn't even spend an hour there. And since we're actually out of our pajamas on a Saturday, we thought we might as well get a drink."
"Not really my thing either," she agreed. "I always feel like my nephew could have made most of those paintings."
"I know, right? Give me a poem any day."
"Lucy, this is fantastic," Jake broke in, setting his drink down on the bar. "What am I drinking?"
"You can't guess?" she teased.
He took another sip, letting the drink roll over his tongue, then passed the glass into my outstretched hand. But my nostrils flared with the first taste. "Wow. That's too much for me." I washed away the burn with the last of my G&T.
"Slow down there, cowboy," he said. "I thought you said no day drinking." But Lucy was already setting another down in front of me. And anyway, it was a snowy Saturday afternoon. What else did we need to be doing?
"Ok, so...no idea?" she challenged Jake.
"Fuck. No. Campari with orange--but there's something else I can't place. What's in there--a boutique tequila?"
"Nope," she grinned. "I made you a Smoky Negroni. That's mezcal you taste."
"Hmm. I like it. It's a darker taste than tequila--but sweeter, too." And then Lucy was pulling down bottles, pouring him a couple different mezcals to taste, and some tequila for the sake of comparison.
"Robin, you'd like this one," he said, holding out his glass to me. "Are you sure you don't want to try?"
"Baby, my tequila drinking days are over. Mr. Cuervo and I have a sordid history."
The bar wasn't crowded, and somehow the afternoon passed while we sat on those barstools, knees pressed up together, fingers intertwined. Lucy talking with us between mixing drinks and pulling pints. And then the sky was starting to get dark, and Lucy's shift was over, and she came around the bar to sit on the stool beside me, and we bought her a drink to say thank you for all the tequila tasting Jake had done.
"This was fun," she said as she drained her glass. "But I'd better go home now, while I can still drive."
"This was fun," Jake agreed. "What are you doing next Saturday? Let us take you to dinner."
