At Peace (The 'Burg #2)(15)

“So, I’m guessin’ Kenzie’s keepin’ her mouth shut.”

Joe’s head turned and he looked at me. “Yeah.”

“Everything cool with your clients?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re home a lot more than normal,” I remarked stupidly since I didn’t want him to notice that I noticed but at the same time I was bizarrely worried that Kenzie Elise was costing him clients and that was why he was home more than normal.

“Yeah,” he said then said no more and I’d run out of steam on that particular conversational gambit.

When I fell silent, Joe turned his head away and, keeping one elbow to the bar, with his other hand he lifted his beer to his lips and arched his neck back to take a pull. This fascinated me for some drunken reason. He had a muscular throat and I could see it as it arched and worked with his swallow. Furthermore, his jaw was on display, I noted how attractive it was and that was fascinating for some drunken reason too.

I tore my eyes away from his throat and jaw and caught on the little tray of fruit Feb, Morrie and Darryl used in the drinks. Wedges of lemon, lime, cocktail onions, olives and maraschino cherries.

“You know,” I started to inform Joe and just his head turned to me again, “back in the day, you could impress a guy just by tying the stem of a cherry in a knot with your tongue.”

Why I said this, I had no idea. I just couldn’t sit there, silent and sipping my vodka and cranberry juice while he did the same with his beer. It was just too weird. I couldn’t hack it. I had to talk about something.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“You do that often?” he asked.

“Not really,” I answered since I was with Tim and only Tim, back in the day and then forever, but it had impressed Tim. “Seems strange to me, why that’d impress a guy.”

Joe made no attempt to enlighten me.

“It’s good you all grow out of that,” I noted sensibly.

“Give you fifty dollars right now, you do it.”

I blinked. “What?”

He straightened, pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, flipped it open and pulled out a bill. Then he placed it on the bar between us and I saw it was a fifty dollar bill. I looked up from the money to him when he spoke.

“That’s yours, you do it,” Joe said as he shoved the wallet back in his pocket.

“Are you serious?” I whispered.

Joe didn’t respond verbally, he just reached out and nabbed a cherry by the stem, turned and held it out to me.

I stared at the cherry. He was serious.

“Fifty dollars to knot the stem with my tongue?” I checked, just to make sure.

“You can’t do it.”

“I can do it, I’m just…” I paused, coming off my elbow I reached out and took the cherry from him, “out of practice.”

Joe didn’t say anything and I wondered how I got myself into this. I was going to be sitting there moving my mouth around like an idiot while Joe watched and probably in the end not knotting the dumb cherry stem.

But I couldn’t back out now. It wasn’t about the fifty dollars, it was about my pride.

I plucked the cherry off the stem with my teeth, looked anywhere but at Joe as I chewed and swallowed, took a sip of my vodka and cranberry juice to clear my mouth in preparation for my endeavor then popped the stem in.

Within seconds, I’d done it. It wasn’t hard at all. I guessed it was like riding a bike.

I slid the stem from between my lips, showed him the result and set it on my cocktail napkin.

His clear blue eyes were on the stem when I asked, “You impressed?”

His head tipped to my glass. “That your last?”

I stared at him a second not following then I asked, “Last drink?”

“Yeah.”

“Um…” I tried to gauge if he was trying to say he was ready to go home since he was my ride. It would be rude to make him stay longer when he wanted to leave so I answered on a question just in case he was ready to hang out awhile since I wanted to hang out awhile. “Yes?”

“Drink up, buddy.”

I guess he wasn’t ready to hang out awhile.

I was weirdly deflated the cherry stem knotting thing hadn’t impressed him. Tim thought it was the shit.

I lifted my drink and put the straw to my lips, sucking back the rest of my vodka at the same time Joe’s fingers wrapped around my upper arm. He slid me off the stool as I kept the glass in my hand, straw to my mouth and sucked. I also kept sucking on my straw as Joe grabbed my purse from the bar and handed it to me then slid the fifty from the bar and shoved it in my front jeans pocket.

I looked up at him when he called, “Morrie, Violet paid or is she on a tab?”

“Tab,” Morrie answered.

I was realizing that I might be drunker than I expected seeing as I was standing which everyone knew made you drunker after you sat for a good while and imbibed. Therefore, since I was assessing the level of my drunkenness, I didn’t intervene when Joe dug his wallet out of his pocket, pulled out some bills and tossed them on the bar.

“That doesn’t cover it, I’ll catch you later,” Joe told Morrie.

“You got it, dude,” Morrie replied.

Joe shoved his wallet back in his pocket and pulled the drink out of my hand even though I was still sucking the dregs out through the straw (making that slurping noise). He put it on the bar, grabbed my hand and dragged me to the door.