Six, p.12
Six, page 12
“I’m still sorry. I just get a little snippy sometimes.”
“Is it that time of the month?” Toy asked.
“No!” Paige snapped. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
“Because that is the male response to everything.”
Paige looked past Kyle’s shoulder to see Nadia returning to the group. She gave Toy a withering glance and sighed, “You really shouldn’t taunt people, Latoya. You never know when they might bite. What did I miss?”
“About half a fifth of whiskey and three pounds of bacon,” Toy said with a sweet smile. She looked back over to Paige. “Sorry, Shorty.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Paige said. “It’s just been a frustrating few weeks.”
“And concussions can cause temporary mood swings, particularly flashes of anger,” Kyle added before returning to his drink.
“Well, I think we could all use a round of chicken and waffle sliders,” Nadia said. She settled into the corner seat between Toy and Paige. In the meantime, Lorcan lifted the counter and slid behind the bar. He gave Nadia a little wink as he started reading the notes piled by the register.
“He’s the bartender?” Paige asked as she took stock of Lorcan’s tight-fitting black T-shirt and jeans combo.
Lorcan made his way down the line and topped off all the whiskeys and waters. He dutifully popped two cocktail napkins in front of Nadia and Paige. He furrowed his brows as a few straggling pieces of glitter livened up the otherwise plain white pieces of paper.
“Actually I’m the part-time bartender. I fill in for Rodney when he can’t get a sitter,” Lorcan said, his voice back in its English groove. “Also, if I didn’t step in, you’d be subjected to Alistair, the second-rate sommelier, serving you, and that simply won’t do.”
“You know what I like,” Nadia said sweetly. “Please, go easy on Paige, though.”
“I probably shouldn’t—” Paige started.
“After all you’ve been through, I think one drink is warranted,” Nadia said. “Nothing too strong—just enough to help you relax. Keep up that water, though; dehydration is the worst thing you can do to your body.”
“Now you sound like a trainer,” Paige muttered. “Um, can I have some white wine, or should I have red? That’s the healthy one, right?”
“Might I suggest that I make something for you, Miss Paige?” Lorcan asked. “I’m curious to know what you like, and I promise I won’t make it too strong.”
“I’m not a big fan of cocktails other than margaritas,” Paige said. “Wow, that glitter is persistent.”
Lorcan glared at the few specks on the back of his hand. As he went to the sink to wash it off, Paige added, “Do you need a mirror? Um, there is still a bunch by your ear.”
Kyle and Kayleigh both burst into a random fit of giggles at Paige’s question. Lorcan just smiled and shook his head. “I’ll take care of it later, thanks.” He then glared at the twins, who promptly shut up.
“Well, you like lime—that gives me somewhere to start, Miss Paige,” Lorcan continued. “Nadia, I’m out of tangerines, so it will be a regular screwdriver, all right?”
Paige watched in awe at Lorcan’s grace and finesse behind the bar. He even squeezed fresh oranges for Nadia to make a lovely, pulpy, vibrant beverage—topped with a sprig of fresh mint. Nadia raised a brow and stared at him sternly as he presented it. A second later she laughed as she tossed the green leaves right back at him.
“Mint is not food. Mint is for cats,” she said with a sly smile.
Lorcan actually managed to catch the tiny object one-handed. “One day you’ll get over that,” he said with a little laugh. He then popped the wayward herb in his mouth and proceeded to chew on it as he stared at the vast array of liquors on the wall behind him. He paced back and forth as he nibbled, tapping his lip with one finger as he waited for inspiration to strike.
Nadia leaned over and whispered conspiratorially to Paige, “He’s really quite the artiste when it comes to alcohol, but he can also be quite the diva and take forever to make something when he’s in these moods.”
Before Lorcan could so much as defend himself, Tina and one of her waitresses came barreling by with trays full of glistening greens. She smiled proudly as she placed a frosty bowl full of crinkly green leaves, plump chunks of pineapple, and some sort of seared meat cubes in front of each of them.
“No sliders?” Nadia asked as she gave Tina big puppy eyes.
“If you guys are really here to help review my menu and not just to devour a ton of free food, then you have to try the salads too,” Tina said flatly. She placed Paige’s down personally. “So, this is my momma’s Hawaiian BBQ Salad, but I spruced it up with a little kale and ditched the metric ton of mayo. I hope you like it, hon. I’m glad you stopped by!”
“What about us?” Toy asked as she twirled a piece of kale and examined it like an alien artifact. “Aren’t you glad to see us?”
“I’ll be glad to see you go. I’ve already reordered bacon this week,” Tina said.
“You always have to reorder bacon,” Kyle noted.
“It’s Sunday!” Tina said with a little pout. “Now, you can either try this, or I’m testing the vegan ice cream on all of you—and guess what, Nadia; it’s avocado mint chocolate chip.”
For a moment Nadia turned as green as her salad. She then proudly stabbed her fork into a hunk of potted meat, shoved it in her mouth, and gave a cheery thumbs-up to the group. Behind the counter Lorcan snickered until he was handed a pile of order tickets to fill.
“Since you are being a peach and helping, Lorcan, darling,” Tina said, “we have a pile of salesmen looking for martinis and whiskey sours.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a little salute. The whole group had a few furious minutes of chomping on salad and tasting components while Lorcan blitzed through a row of crystal clear beverages.
The skinny blonde waitress who came to collect the martinis gave a sly little look over her tray. “Oh, say it, please,” she said in her thick Memphis drawl.
“Two whiskey sours, three vodka martinis . . . ” Lorcan gave a wink as he drew out the last syllable in suspense before finally saying, “shaken, not stirred.”
The waitress sighed as she loaded up her tray. The twins giggled as the girl continued to fawn over the bartender. Paige tried her best to hide in her corner and gnaw on more kale.
“Easy, Grandpa,” Kyle said as the waitress scurried away. “I think she’s smitten.”
His twin instantly jammed her elbow into his ribs. Paige could just see Kayleigh pointing her way before Kyle’s back blocked the rest of the view. Toy rolled her eyes.
“Will you two knock it off?” Nadia snapped as their play fighting nearly knocked over the beverage she was nursing.
“Grandpa?” Paige asked.
“Those crazy kids just like to mock their elders,” Lorcan explained. “I told you, I’m older than I look.”
“You don’t look older than thirty,” she said. For a second, Paige thought she heard the twins choke a little. She tried to open her mouth again, but the perky blonde waitress came over and leaned in between Kyle and Nadia.
“Hey, there’s a gentleman at table six who really wants to buy you a drink,” she said to a dumbstruck Kyle.
“Me?” he asked.
Everyone at the bar leaned over to see a rather large gentleman with a halo of graying brown curls and an enormous beard give a cutesy little wave to Kyle. The redhead quickly yanked out his phone, and his eyes grew to the size of saucers. “What the—?”
Lorcan didn’t fight the smirk as he leaned over the bar and purred, “So, Kyle, what would you like that lovely older man to buy you?”
“I don’t know how you did this, old man, but—”
“I’ll make him a whiskey sour; it’s his favorite,” Lorcan said. As he looked into the eyes of the helpless waitress, Paige could swear she heard a sigh worthy of a Disney princess come out of the sweet young thing’s lips.
Kyle dutifully accepted his drink and gave a little nod to table six. Next to him, his sister was fighting back tears of laughter as she read something on his phone. Toy and Kayleigh both pushed their half-eaten salads across the bar, and each gave the blushing ginger a hearty one-armed hug.
“You look like you are going to have a busy night, baby bro,” Kayleigh said. “Toy?”
“Oh, let’s bounce, Freckles. We have an entire defrosted cheesecake and two seasons of Game of Thrones left to devour tonight.”
Kyle leaned over and looked desperately at a stone-faced Nadia. “You aren’t going to leave me like this, are you, Nads?” he begged.
“The man bought you a drink, Kyle. With your luck as of late, beggars shouldn’t be choosers. It’s all I’m saying,” Nadia said.
With a heavy sigh, Kyle grabbed his cocktail and barely touched bowl of kale-infused goodness and sauntered over to talk to a very fuzzy man in a blue polo.
Nadia smiled and finally turned to Paige. “Never turn down a man who gets you a drink, my dear,” she said. “Lorcan, what did you do?”
The man behind the bar smiled ever so innocently and put on his full Irish brogue. “Me? Now, why ever would you think a poor lad like me would do something cruel to a sweet, young lad?”
“Did you just fake an Irish accent, Lorcan?” Paige asked.
Both Nadia and Lorcan burst out in full-on guffaws. Once Nadia calmed down she explained, “This persnickety old fellow—”
“Ooh, I’m persnickety now,” Lorcan snickered as he returned to fussing about with liquor and limes in the back.
“Yes, that persnickety fellow is a consummate prankster if you give him enough of a push. Kyle and Lorcan have been waging a war of whoopee cushions, crank calls—”
“Fake doggy poop,” Lorcan interjected.
“Real doggy poop,” Nadia sighed, “and so on and so on for the better part of this year. You witnessed the latest retaliation earlier this evening.”
“He put bloody glitter in everything!” Lorcan punctuated his exclamation by squeezing a lime rather ferociously into a cocktail shaker.
“Well, you’re the one who’s a zombie waking up—”
“Hey, now—” Lorcan warned.
Paige continued to watch the two jab and spar while some sort of liquor joined the mix of lime, syrup, ice, and egg white in the silver vessel. She tried to focus on the drink shaking violently in Lorcan’s hands, but some weird trick of light kept distracting her. She craned her neck to try and get a better view of some sort of odd reflection in the metal, but the shaking was simply too fast.
“So, what did you do to Kyle?” she asked as a light green frothy concoction was strained into a chilled martini glass.
“I may have acquired access to his online dating profile and made some more adventurous modifications,” Lorcan said, still trying to maintain an innocent face.
“You did what?” Paige asked.
Lorcan pulled his own phone out of his pocket and swiped through a few screens. “Ah, here it is—‘Experienced catcher is looking for a daddy bear, NSA,’” Lorcan read. “I thought it was rather tame compared to Bumslayer69’s profile. I’m just happy I was around when someone took the bait.”
“Never type a password around Lorcan, Paige. Kyle may be good when he is focused, but that man there has a true photographic memory,” Nadia warned.
“Guilty as charged,” Lorcan said as he slid his latest drink on the bar. “Now, Paige, you said that you liked lime, drinks from south of the border. You also seemed curious when we last spoke, so I thought I’d make something a little different for you. I’d like to introduce you to a drink I first had in a dive bar in Lima while I was avoiding one of my wife’s parties. It’s called a pisco sour, and it’s the national drink of Peru.”
She reached for it tentatively, but Lorcan shook his head. “It’s not quite there yet. Just give me one second more to find that perfect finishing touch,” he said as he frantically dug into the cabinets along the back of the bar.
Nadia took this very moment to excuse herself. “Nature calls, dear,” she muttered as she left Paige as the lone occupant in the now darkened corner of Mayweather’s. The few other occupied tables seemed deeply engrossed in conversation, and even the cute little waitress seemed to have vanished from the scene.
“Did it get darker in here?” Paige muttered.
“What was that?” Lorcan asked as his hand finally reached behind one of the wooden doors and pulled out an old brown bottle with the label worn away.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “What is that?”
Lorcan leaned over the bar again, giving Paige a perfect view of his bright green eyes and purposefully messy dark waves. She tried to look away, but actually found herself leaning in closer as he took the stopper off the bottle and poured a few tiny drops of deep red liquid into the center of the foam in her glass.
“A perfect drink requires perfect balance. Sweetness comes from the sugar syrup, sour from the limes. The Peruvian brandy adds depth and warmth, while the egg foam makes it playful and coats your tongue. The final touch—drops of bitters. No ordinary mass-market bitters will do. This is my own special blend, a recipe given to me by an old friend and poker rival from South America; only these will make the drink taste just right,” he said softly as he slid the drink close to her at last. “That is, of course, if you can stand the taste of pisco. Some people love it; some people hate it.”
Paige finally remembered that she had to breathe. “Wow, I’ve never heard anyone love a drink so much—” she said.
“Oh, it’s not just a drink. I love things with a story, with history. I love unusual things, unique things. I love beautiful things,” he said, looking her right in the eyes. “Go ahead; try it.”
She grabbed the drink and pulled it slowly to her lips. She felt the cold sink into her fingers and sniffed the citrusy fragrance. A faint metallic-bitter smell made her pause, but she finally summoned the courage to take a tiny sip.
“Well?” he asked.
Her eyes lit up as she took another drink. She didn’t set it back down. Instead, she stared at the distinct layers of pale, clear green and frothy white. “It’s . . . perfect,” she finally whispered.
Both of them burst into huge smiles of dazzling teeth. Lorcan looked over Paige’s shoulder before he dared go to the back and mix up a second pisco sour. This time he pulled some sort of fresh syrup out of the fridge to shake in his drink, and his beverage had a faint salty smell and golden hue as he poured it into his glass.
“I have a slight . . . dietary restriction,” he sighed. “Too much sugar is bad for my health.”
“Can a bartender have a drink on duty?” Paige asked playfully between sips.
“He can when he owns fifty-one percent of the establishment,” Lorcan said. He took a deep drink, and instantly his cheeks flushed pink. “What can I say?”
“You own half of Tina’s restaurant?”
“And Nadia’s gym.”
“I thought you had to run the family business or something back in the UK.”
Lorcan shrugged. “Technically I do, but my family has a lot of very smart people to handle most of the business. My job as lord is usually to be as ridiculous as possible and apologize when required. I much prefer my little side ventures across the pond.”
“And part-time bartending?”
“And part-time bartending,” he sighed. “Bartenders are the priests of the modern age, don’t you think?”
“You mean how people get drunk and confess?” Paige asked. “Does that even work?”
“It depends on the person, I suppose—”
“Yeah, if they are desperate—”
“But aren’t we all terribly desperate from time to time, Miss Paige?” he asked. He stopped as a shadow loomed over Paige. “Are you all right, volchitsa?”
“Of course; I was catching up with Tina. I just wanted to see if you two were all right,” Nadia said.
“This drink is delicious. The salad, though, is a little, um, interesting,” Paige said.
“Oh, the drink is tasty?” Nadia asked.
“I’ve never had anything quite like it.”
Nadia paused for a moment. She gave the slightest of nods to Lorcan before scanning the room. Another table had just settled the check, and Kyle and his new friend were starting to hunt for keys and credit cards as well.
“Tina sort of needs a little reassurance right now,” Nadia finally said. “I think she was hoping that opening Sunday would be a little busier. Will you two be OK if I talk to her for a while? I know I promised that I’d make some time for you, Paige—”
“Oh no, it’s fine!” she said. “I can always head home—”
“No, please, finish your drink. Also, I’ll get some real food for you and try my best to let Tina down gently on this salad,” Nadia said as she stacked the remaining bowls. “You know, Lorcan is an amazing listener if you just need to talk, and he has a frightfully strict code of bartender-customer privilege. Seriously, I’ve known him all my life, and there is no one I’d trust more.”
Nadia leaned over the bar and kissed Lorcan’s cheek as she muttered something in Russian. He kissed her back and then mussed up her violet mane. “I’ll see you later, volchitsa,” he said with a wave.
“In case I don’t see you, night, Paige,” Nadia said before giving her a quick hug with one arm while balancing four stacked bowls in the other.
As soon as the purple-haired amazon disappeared into the kitchen, Paige gave Lorcan an incredulous look. “She’s known you her whole life?” Paige asked.
“I was friends with Nadia’s mother, if you can believe that.”
“Not really, but I guess you are older than you look.”
Lorcan smiled the very same smile from the first night they met. He toyed with his earring for a second before taking another gulp of his drink.
“Mina and I were Nadia’s godparents,” he said as he stared off into space. “She was the single worst-behaved baby at any christening I’d ever been to, and I adored her for that. She’s always had a way of commanding attention, just like my Mina.”
