Drunk on Love(6)

She laughed, too.

“You’re correct about that—it’s the only time I’ve done it.”

He turned his whole body to face her, to make it easier to watch her.

“So you were successful, then?”

She opened her eyes wide and gave him a sly smile.

“We were indeed. You see . . .” She leaned in closer to him and lowered her voice. That, of course, made him lean in closer to her. “We made my friend Julian be the one to flag down a car. He was the only white guy of the three of us, you see.”

Luke burst out laughing, and she joined him. She seemed very amused with herself, and—he thought—with him, for appreciating her story. He liked the way her eyes shined at him.

She’d given him another bit of information, he realized—she’d said this had been when she was in graduate school. Business school, it must have been. She must be an executive, somewhere here in Napa; high up at a hotel, or a big wine conglomerate, or something like that. She probably wasn’t from here at all, but had come here for this job, and despite all of what she’d said to him about the way people dressed in Napa Valley, she still dressed however she wanted to.

He liked that about her.

Especially since he really liked the way she looked in that dress.

“Okay, but where does the tow truck come in?” he asked her.

She picked up her glass of wine. The light reflected off the red liquid and onto her face.

“I was getting to that,” she said. “We had to get our truck unstuck, didn’t we? When we got to town, we called for a tow truck.” She grinned again, that slow, wide grin that made him smile back at her, even though he didn’t know the joke. “And when that tow truck got stuck, we had to call a second, more powerful tow truck that could get both our rental truck and the original tow truck out.” She shook her head. “I have absolutely no memory of how much all of that cost us but I’m certain it was very expensive.”

Luke moved to the side to allow the server to clear their plates. He hadn’t even realized they’d finished the charcuterie plate while they’d been talking.

“What did you do once you got your truck back?” he asked.

She laughed.

“We did the only thing we could do, after sunset, in a hotel in a tiny town in Death Valley. We got very drunk.”

Speaking of. That had been his general intention when he’d walked into this bar, which was why he’d ordered whiskey instead of beer. That’s why he’d come here, after this week, before the week to come. But Margot had done a good job of distracting him from all of that.

“Sometimes—not all the time, but sometimes,” he said, “that is the best course of action.”

She looked at him, and smiled slowly.

“Indeed,” she said.





Two


THREE HOURS LATER, MARGOT got up from the bar and slid her leather jacket on. Despite what she’d said to Luke, she hadn’t gotten drunk, but then, neither had he. They’d been too busy talking to drink that much.

They’d talked about so much over the last few hours. About his best tow truck adventure, which included an accident and rescue by the side of Highway 101; how they both felt about cheeseburger toppings—they agreed that the trend of far too many toppings was just a way to mask a bad burger, but vehemently disagreed on fried eggs on them (she was pro, he was con), and tomatoes (vice versa); and books they’d read recently—she’d raved to him about a mystery novel, he’d raved to her about a celebrity memoir (she’d been skeptical, but he’d convinced her to read it).

Sydney raised her eyebrows as both Margot and Luke got up, but Margot shook her head. She didn’t think anything was actually going to happen between her and this adorable, far-too- young-for-her man she’d been talking to all night. Sure, he’d listened very closely to her at the bar, asked her lots of questions, and hadn’t then immediately jumped in to tell his own stories. But while they’d sat closely together for the past few hours, he hadn’t done any of the moves that made her know a guy would try to get her to go home with him that night: no “accidental” brushes of her arms or back, no hand on her thigh, no staring at her cleavage.

And yeah, she could have made some “accidental” touches of her own, of course, just to see what would happen. But it had been a long, stressful day, and she didn’t want to deal with the ego blow that she’d get if she made a move on this guy and he told her no, he wasn’t interested, he had a girlfriend, whatever. Better to just leave the bar smiling. Maybe it was enough to have a few hours of good, old-fashioned flirting with a guy who seemed charmed by her, whether he actually was or not.

She let out a small sigh as they approached the door. She was sad that the night was ending. Even aside from how fun it had been to flirt with Luke, it had been one of her best actual conversations with someone in a while. They hadn’t talked about work—as a matter of fact, they hadn’t talked about wine at all. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a conversation with anyone that didn’t touch on wine. She didn’t even know what wine Sydney had poured for her—a Cab, obviously local, but that was all she’d recognized. God, that felt great. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her job—she did love her job—but it was all-consuming sometimes. Most of the time.