Speakeasy (True North #5)(39)
Selena: Hi babe. I love the braids you put in my hair. Can we do it again sometime?
May: Only if you’ll let me paint our toenails, too.
Selena: You are hilarious. But I had so much fun Sunday night that I’d probably let you. Although, have you seen these toenails?
May: Good point. Pillow fight, then?
Selena: Anytime, anywhere. I’ll bring the feathers and the hot chocolate.
May: Laying it on a little thick there, Selena.
Selena: A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta DO. You know what? I never told you my mushroom joke. But it only works in person.
May: A perfect excuse to see you again soon.
Selena: That’s what I like to hear.
May: Night, Selena.
Selena: Night, May.
Chapter Fourteen
Alec
The next time I see May, though, it’s not in my bed. It’s in my bar. On a Tuesday night I look up from making a margarita and she’s seated three feet in front of me on a barstool, her brown eyes smiling.
“Well, hello,” I say immediately, my voice going rough. I’m already picturing another night in my hot tub. Lucky me.
“Hello to you, too.” Her brother’s grumpy voice instantly kills my buzz. I didn’t see my least favorite Shipley there, one barstool over. Abort mission! Good thing I didn’t go in for the kiss.
“Griff Shipley! Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world, you just happen to walk into mine. What can I get you?”
“I’d love a Goldenpour.”
“Everybody does.” I grab a pint glass and hold it under the tap. “And for you, pretty girl? Should I shake up a mocktail?”
“You make your own tonic, right?”
“Yes I do, Miss Shipley.”
Her smile says, You’re laying it on a little thick there, buddy. “Tonic and lime. That’s what I’m in the mood for.”
“You got it.” I pass over their drinks and then make a few more for Becky. “What brings you guys in tonight?” I ask once I can catch my breath.
“We were at a meeting,” Griff says.
At first I don’t understand, but then May turns pink. “An AA meeting?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Nothing like walking out of there and then straight into a bar. But we’re meeting Audrey for a movie in a half hour so we stopped in here.”
“Cool. Hey—I also have a non-alcoholic beer. Do you drink those? It’s Corker’s.”
Griff chuckles. “I brought home a six-pack once. She said she missed having a beer with a burger. But then we drank some.” He makes a face. “It was a different brand, but it put us off of NA beers.”
“That bad, huh?” This is alarming, because I don’t want to serve any crappy beer at the Gin Mill. I reach into my cooler and pull out a bottle. “Try this and tell me if it’s terrible?” I put it on the counter in front of May and remove the cap.
When you serve a NA beer, you always do so in the bottle, so that the customer knows for sure they’re getting a non-alcoholic beverage. It has to be less than a half percent alcohol by volume. I know the basics of NA beer and how to serve it. It’s just that I’ve never drunk one.
She picks up the bottle and tries a sip.
“Well?”
“You want a taste?” she asks. Her smile is a challenge.
And then I remember what happened the last time she volunteered a taste of her drink. I’d taken my sample from her lips, and then we’d ended up having wild, clawing-at-each-other sex in my truck.
Gawd, that memory. I want it again. Right fucking now.
May offers me the bottle with a naughty gleam in her eye. I take it, remembering the taste of her kisses. I tip the bottle to my lips.
She smiles at me and…
“It’s terrible.” I say the second after swallowing. “Like beer-flavored…water. Jesus.”
May just laughs.
I take another sip, just to experience it again. It’s too effervescent for beer and so it has a soda-like mouthfeel. There’s a quick hit of beer-like flavor but it dies on the palate after a fractional moment. And then nothing. Just a flavor void.
“Pretty bad, right?” Griffin chuckles.
“Disappointing,” I say, handing the bottle back to May. “I’ll need to source a better product.”
“You can try,” Griff says. “This one has a lot of the market share.”
“Why is that?” I think of all the wonderful beers in Vermont. “Nobody can scare up a good alcohol-free version?” With the soda gun, I pour myself a Coke just to get the awful taste out of my mouth.
Griff nods his big mountain-man head. “NA beer is kinda complicated.”
“Really?”
“Well, yeah,” Griff says, rubbing his beard. “First they brew a normal beer and ferment it. But then they extract the alcohol by boiling it off.”
“Oh.” That can’t be good for the taste.
“All those delicate organic flavors and compounds become unstable at the higher temperature. The odor gets cooked off and the flavor turns bitter.”
Ah. “Makes sense.”
Whereas I have a degree in partying, Griff has a degree in chemistry. I should have guessed he’d know every freaking thing about it. On the other hand, it’s interesting to me.