7. How to Make a Gin Martini

SEVEN

#4 Legit WHO CARES this drink is for old people

"Who," Rochelle said again. "Is that?"

I sighed. "No one." I leaned over and kissed her cheek one more time. "Go to work. I'll tell you later."

"Queen, you better." My cousin left, but not without giving Hunt a solid up and down as she walked out.

He didn't even seem to notice as he made his way to my side of the bar.

I checked the clock behind the register. Then my phone, just for good measure.

It wasn't even eleven.

He was never at the bar at this time of night. Usually showed up sometime past two, sometimes even three or four, closer to last call.

Instead of the basic, if immaculate, clothing he typically wore, this time, Hunt actually looked a doctor, with a pair of blue scrubs underneath his pea coat and the Hokas I'd seen him in before instead of shiny oxfords. He pushed his glasses up his nose as he stood at the bar and appraised me up and down, open but somehow without a drop of crudeness.

I had seen the way others noticed me the moment I emerged from Tom's office. There had been a whistle or two and plenty of men undressing me with their eyes.

Despite the fact that Hunt's open gaze lacked even a single of iota lewdness, his was the only one that affected me at all. As those brown eyes dragged back up my body, every bit of my skin seemed to flicker in response, like a candle that had just been lit.

Bastard.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded.

He swallowed and glanced around at the steadily growing crowd. Thursdays at Opal were usually somewhat crowded until about one thirty, which was why Tom shelled out for dancers to pump up the after-work crowd. It was probably a very different scene than the doctor was used to when he came in between two and three.

"There was a change at the hospital," he said, forced to speak louder to be heard over the noise. "I didn't have to work all night."

I crossed my arms. "I didn't ask you why you were here early. I asked why you are here at all. I told you to leave me the fuck alone."

He didn't answer right away but took his usual seat at the bar anyway. For some reason, I found it totally infuriating. What fucking game was this guy playing? Did he just get his rocks off all the time by torturing poor patients and bartenders?

Before I could ask him, a man in a blue striped shirt approached the bar. "Hey, gorgeous, can I get two gin martinis with twists?"

I sighed. "Right away."

Then I stood at the bar for a solid minute, trying and failing to look competent. What went into a martini again?

"Two and a half ounces of gin," Hunt said quietly enough that only I would hear him, though he appeared to be studying his fingernails. "Half ounce of vermouth. Twist of lemon."

I scowled. "I knew that."

He looked up, that gaze still forceful but open. Patient, even.

But he didn't say anything more.

Dick.

I finished the drinks and took the customer's card to close him out.

"Can I give you my number too?" he asked when I handed it back to him.

"Only if you want it in the garbage, baby," I said with a sickeningly bright smile. I knew this type. Men like him loved to be treated like shit by beautiful women, but only if you smiled while you did it.

It worked like a charm.

"Let me know if you change your mind," he said as he laid an extra twenty on the bar.

I swiped it up before he could change his.

Hunt didn't react to the exchange, but his dark eyes still followed me as I dropped the money into the tip jar behind the counter.

"Do you want your Macallan?" I asked him before helping several others waiting for drinks.

He shook his head. "No, help them first."

So he wanted to wait. Well, I had no problem with that.

Which he did. But not without quietly narrating the recipes for cosmopolitans, old-fashioneds, a mojito, a sidecar, and a lemon drop.

It was like having Siri talk me through a bartending class, if Siri looked like a movie star and spoke like a voice actor. I would have been annoyed if it hadn't been so helpful.

"How do you know all those drinks?" I asked once I was through the line and finally able to pour his whiskey.

Hunt accepted the brown liquid and swirled it under his nose. He took a small sip and set it back on the coaster. "My mother enjoys cocktails. We all learned the basics when we were children."

He didn't elaborate on who "we" were, and to my surprise, I found I wanted to know. Just like I wanted to know what kind of mother asked her children to mix her drinks regularly enough that they would memorize a textbook's worth of mixology.

I didn't ask, though, because I was also irritated that he piqued my interest in the first place.

And I did not want to be interested in anything about Nathan Hunt. Not at all.

"I'm surprised you wanted to show yourself in here," I said while I took advantage of the lull in orders to wipe down the bar top. "Lower yourself to interact with an exotic dancer like myself."

Dr. Hunt blinked. "Did something change in the last week?"

God. Not him too.

"Not a thing," I lied with a fake, fake smile. "I'm walking on sunshine, can't you tell? It's always been my life's dream to show my tits to horny men."

Hunt looked confused. "I assume you're being sarcastic."

I huffed. He waited.

Fuck it. He already knew I was a mess, and I wasn't hiding anything. "This is just the face of someone who is running out of options."

I waited for him to ask me why. Drummed my fingers on the bar, tapped my toes on the ground, chewed my lower lip in anticipation of the next cutting remark where he would tell me I was an idiot or critique my increasingly inevitable career path.

I waited for his gaze to shift too. To drift down my body, openly eye my breasts, hips, legs, and everything else like a vulture ready to land on its carrion. I'd seen it too many times when other men learned I was a dancer and thought it meant the exotic variety. Once you crossed into that field, a certain—and large—portion of the world thought that meant every part of you was up for grabs.

But Hunt's gaze remained squarely on my face, pensive and unmoving. As solid as the building we were in. He stared, and I found myself staring back, the two of us caught in a tunnel of our own making. One that finally seemed to quiet all the noise that was constantly in my head. One that made my hands and feet still and my breathing come easier.

Then he pulled something out of his pocket.

"I stopped by to bring you something," he said as he set a package on the bar top.

"A present?" I joked, though something inside me squeezed. Why, I couldn't say. I didn't want anything from Nathan Hunt, much less a gift.

"Not really."

I opened the padded manila envelope and drew out a folded sheet of paper and then a familiar garment: the emerald green bra I'd misplaced five days ago in his schmancy old building. "Where did you get this?"

Hunt tilted his head. "I found it."

"In your building? Oh my God, it was probably hanging off my clothes or something, wasn't it?" I slapped a hand to my face, imagining myself striding through that gilded lobby with my underwear hanging out from under my shirt.

He didn't correct me. Christ, that walk of shame went even worse than I had even realized.

"What is this?" I demanded as I shoved the bra back into the packet, then set it under the bar to grab later. "Some kind of messed up game? You don't have to show me the error of my ways, Dr. Hunt. I'm fully aware I'm a slutty bartender without common sense or any brains. My family, my boss, my friends—they tell me that all the time, so I definitely don't need some stuck-up doctor to point it out on a daily basis."

By the time I was done, Hunt's expression had barely shifted, though his brown eyes swirled with something like surprise.

"I—" He swallowed. "I wasn't trying to tell you that at all."

"Oh, really?" I snarked back.

He shook his head. "No. I assumed the bra was yours, so I brought it back when I found it. And…" He swallowed again, then pointed at the note. "The rest is in there."

I stared at the white piece of paper. I didn't want to pick it up. I didn't want any of this.

"I'm not always very good at saying what I mean," he continued. "Or at least what I…feel. It's an apology. For what happened in my office. And, um, the other day too, I suppose. I didn't understand that I'd offended you until I saw you exiting my building, and then I didn't know how to reach you otherwise, so I came here. That's, um, all."

"Hey, can we get a row of vodka shots, lady?"

"In a minute," I snapped. Then I picked up the note and took my sweet damn time reading it.

JONI,

PLEASE FORGIVE MY RUDE BEHAVIOR. IF I GAVE YOU ANY REASON TO THINK I WAS JUDGING YOUR PROFESSIONAL CHOICES, I APOLOGIZE. I RESPECT WHATEVER CHOICES YOU MAKE FOR YOUR BODY, YOUR JOB, OR ANY OTHER PARTS OF YOUR LIFE. MY ONLY CONCERNS ORIGINATE OUT OF FRIENDSHIP AND RESPECT.

SINCERELY,

NATHAN

His handwriting was small and neat—the opposite of what I would have expected from a doctor. He wrote with a mild cursive that I had to go over more times than I would have admitted to anyone to understand completely, so it took even longer than usual for me to get through it. But when I was finished, I didn't throw it in the trash. Instead, I folded it into a very small square and slid it into my shorts at my hip.

Hunt—no, Nathan—waited while I poured the vodka shots and made a few other drinks before I was finally able to return to him. When I did, he was staring at the note, the square visible through the tight silver fabric.

"You have terrible handwriting," I told him. When he held out his card to pay for his still-full drink, I shook my head. "It's on me."

"That's not necessary. I'm the one apologizing."

"So you did," I said. "And I appreciate it."

Nathan frowned. "That drink is very expensive. I don't want it coming out of your pay."

I didn't want that either, but somehow, tonight, it didn't feel right.

I thought about the note again. It contained words I'd so rarely heard from anyone. Respect. Friendship. Forgiveness.

And then I thought about the other word he said to me too.

"It's fine, really," I said. "I accept your apology. And, well, it's kind of hard to be mad at someone who tells you that you're perfect."

The noise seemed to die down as we stared at each other again. Even in the dark light, Nathan's eyes gleamed like silk. Full of promise. And something else I couldn't quite name that made me quiver like a plucked violin string.

"Well, I am sorry," he told me. "Please believe me. I was only surprised by your request." Tentatively, he took a sip of scotch, though his eyes maintained their focus on me.

"You're very intense," I said bluntly. "Do you know that?"

Nathan set down his drink. "I—yes. Yes, I'm aware."

"And it doesn't bother you that might put other people off?"

He seemed to think about that for a moment. "It does. I try to be attuned and adjust my behavior when necessary. But trying to be something I'm not capable of feels…uncomfortable. Painful, even. I don't do it unless I absolutely have to."

I swallowed. Yeah, I knew how that felt.

"So, you don't think less of me because I might be taking my clothes off for money in the near future?" I asked.

I was pushing; I knew. And rewarded when he almost spit out his drink.

But he didn't.

And I had to hide a smile myself.

"It's none of my business," Nathan managed after he finally swallowed. "It's your life, Joni, not mine. I would never judge anything you chose to do with it."

I adjusted the silver strap of the bra top, almost like I was bracing for a blow. If anyone else from my neighborhood had said something like that, I'd have thought they were joking. I felt like I was waiting for the punch line. Emphasis on punch.

"You don't usually dress like this at the bar," Nathan said, his gaze flickering ever-so-briefly to my skimpy clothes.

I looked down at them and back up. I thought I saw him looking at my legs, but it was too quick to tell. His eyes were as steadfast as ever, never drifting, never ogling. Not once.

Perfect, he'd said.

What did that even mean?

"I'm on one of the platforms tonight." I pointed to the staggered stages set into the wall above a row of VIP booths. "I used to dance there every weekend when I was in between gigs. The one in the middle is my old spot."

Nathan followed my finger like he'd never before observed the architecture of the bar despite having been here so many times. "Oh."

"Don't worry. Opal isn't that kind of club, so I won't demean myself by removing my clothes."

I couldn't help it. It was like picking at a scab covering a much larger wound, knowing that it would never heal unless I opened it up completely.

Nathan only shrugged. "Well, since you're not wearing very much right now anyway, I don't think it would make a difference. Although, at your other job, I suppose you'd need to be able to remove the rest easily, correct?"

I sighed. Why was it so hard to get under his skin? Especially when he was so good at getting under mine? "Ugh. For the record, I'm not a stripper, all right? Not that it would matter if I was, but I'm not."

Was it odd that I could almost hear a "yet" at the end of my own sentence?

I could practically hear Rochelle cheering from the Bronx.

Nathan turned his glass back and forth on the bar, almost meditatively. "Then why did you tell me you were? Or planning to be?"

This time, I couldn't quite meet his eyes. "Well, who knows what I'll be? And bigger boobs would come in useful here. You see what happens with a lot of the male customers. I figured I could turn that into some life-changing tips with the right equipment."

He frowned, like something didn't quite compute. "You want an augmentation to serve drinks here?"

"Oh my God, shout it, why don't you!" I hissed.

I grabbed a lime and started cutting it far too quickly, given how dull the knife was and the fact that I could barely see it through the tears suddenly clouding my vision. I could practically smell the desperation wafting off me like perfume. Could he? Could everyone in here?

A pair of large, capable hands descended on top of mine, stilling the knife. I looked up to find Nathan standing, having reached across the bar to steady me in my rage.

Every bit of anger fled, replaced by the electricity passing through our touch. And then something I wasn't prepared for at all. Something like peace.

"Joni," he said. "Please listen. And try not to slice your fingers."

I sniffed and shook a bit of hair out of my face, but released my grip on the knife. "What's the point?"

People around us were watching curiously by now. The other bartenders, dancers flirting with customers, even Tom through the window of his office. But Nathan didn't seem to notice or care. His gaze was as unwavering as ever, magnified by those simple silver frames, focused wholly on me.

"I'm not good at reading people's emotions," he said, just under the thump of bass vibrating across the lounge. "But when I know them well, I can read their bodies. Your eyes are very wet. You are about to cry. So I want to know why. I want to know what I did to make you so upset. Will you tell me?"

I blinked away the tears that were threatening more than ever. "You can't tell? Really?"

Nathan shook his head. "I know it's something I said, but I don't know what. You don't seem to like it when men look at your body and make sexually suggestive comments. At the same time, you move with—you hold yourself with so much grace, so much more at ease with your body than most. So, I didn't understand why you would want to change yourself that way. If it's what you really want, I won't say anything more about it. But I…" He released my hands then, only to push his glasses up his nose. One of his few nervous tics, I realized. "I don't think you really do."

I sniffed back a few more tears. "You don't know shit about me. You know I'm cute. You know I mix drinks. You know before that day in your office, I was nice to you. That's it."

For the first time, Nathan's full mouth twisted, like he'd tasted something unpleasant.

"I know more than that," he said. "I know you're kind to people when you don't have to be. That you have four sisters and one brother and you care deeply about what they think of you. That you live in the Bronx. There's more, but the point is that I listen when you talk, whether it's to Tom or another customer or sometimes to yourself when you're making mental lists of things to remember."

This time, I was the one who stared. How in the hell did he know all of that? Had I actually said those things over the past months? It wasn't impossible. But Nathan had never seemed like he was listening. And all this time he was paying that close of attention?

For what?

But before I could reply, the lights in the bar dropped suddenly, and the music changed from evening-friendly hip-hop to the more bass-heavy dance music preferred by the late-night clientele.

"Joni," Tom called from the other end of the bar. "Let's go."

I turned back to Nathan, then looked up to where other girls were starting to take their places on the platforms. "It's showtime."