Atonement(17)
We shared cooking duties and I soon learned he was an excellent cook as well. He had a housekeeper who came by three days per week and as I had my volunteer work during the weekdays, I never met or saw her but I did know the condo was always neat and tidy.
We settled into a routine of late nights where we would share a couple of beers or a bottle of wine and talk about the places we’d been, what we would like to see and planned our trip in a roundabout sort of way. Neither of us were traveling newbies and had been to Europe more times than we could count. As Jeanette’s family still lived in Cornwall and my grandparents were comfortably situated in Strasbourg, I had taken more trips to the UK and France than I could shake a stick at therefore it was quite fun discussing past adventures with Colin.
Midway through the week, I began to panic because although he would come home nightly with reports about what places he had managed to snag for us through Airbnb, both of us seemed to overlook the most important part of the trip: plane tickets! We’d planned to leave a Sunday afternoon so we could arrive at a decent time on Monday but I still hadn’t purchased a ticket and as I needed to find out where he would rather be situated in the plane, I couldn’t bother to do it without his input into the matter.
It took all my concentration to get through my day at the half-way house before I left in a bit of a hurry and rushed over to O’Shaughnessy’s where Colin would be working until ten o’clock that evening. Though he owned a gas-guzzling yet very comfortable late-model Chevy Tahoe, he also owned a late-model black electric Smart car as well. As my cousin raced around town in my car, that left me without a vehicle to drive and he’d handed over the keys as if it were nothing.
The bar was packed as usual with the elite and hardworking from Seattle’s young and tech-savvy employed community. I found Colin behind the bar entertaining his brother, Liam, and a group of friends who had taken the best choice seating at the bar.
I tried to press through, feeling self-conscious and not very professional in a pair of skinny jeans and a man-sized gray cashmere sweater. The weather was starting to heat up by Seattle’s standards but it was far from being warm in the evenings.
A pair of hands wrapped around my waist and pulled me close. “Mmm, don’t you smell f*cking amazing?”
I smiled only slightly as I wouldn’t miss Liam’s voice if it was the last deep gravely voice I’d ever heard. Hell, he could give Vin Diesel a run for his money the moment words began to tumble from that sensuous mouth.
“Isn’t my brother the luckiest guy in the world?” Liam enthused to his friends as he held me a bit too close. I knew he was drunk though he didn’t slur his words but I also wondered if he had taken something else, nothing pharmaceutical but rather high-quality and hard to come by like grade-A cocaine.
“Colin and I are just roomies until Sunday!” I announced happily as I slapped his hands away and he whipped me around to face him.
“Roomies, huh? Does that mean I can tap this before you two go out of town?”
I rolled my eyes. “Liam, don’t be crass. I think my cousin wants to plan a little party before we leave so perhaps you would rather tap her ass. She’s more your type anyway,” I enthused.
“Nah, unless she’s blonde. I heard you and Caitlyn are related and that girl is smokin’! Won’t give me the time of day but perhaps you can make an introduction and soften her up a bit.”
The look in those intense sky blue eyes sent me over the edge but not enough I didn’t notice his hands were placed on my ass. “Perhaps if you let me go so I can talk to your brother, I just might make that introduction,” I whispered in his ear.
“It is true…I do like blondes…love ‘em in fact but…there is just something about you that sets my world on fire. What do you think it could be?” he inquired rhetorically.
“You know what? I wouldn’t have a clue.” I smiled ingratiatingly and reached the bar with very little room to spare.
It was a shame to admit but I really enjoyed observing Colin work. His brother might be sex on a stick but Colin was still very hot and I enjoyed watching him make mixed beverages like it was nothing, the casual way which he flirted with the scantily-clad cocktail waitresses but he never let it go past bantering. Oh, he was good, very good.
As soon as he managed a spare moment, he walked over and leaned over the bar before he delivered a chaste kiss on my right cheek. “Hey you. What’s the matter? If I didn’t know any better, you look like you have seen a ghost!”