While teenage Cillian may be disappointed about our career path, he would not be let down by the woman across from us. “What about you? Would teenage Toni be ok with her choice of career?”
Toni doesn't answer immediately, taking her time to consider. She levels her dark eyes on me. “Do you want the honest answer or the easy one?”
Something about the way she asks sends a thrill through me. Most folks weren't willing to be so forward, especially not with someone they just met. “Honest. Always.”
She nods. “Teenage me wouldn't care about the career. She'd just be shocked we made it to thirty-three.”
It's the kind of answer that gives the smallest glimpse at her inner workings, a nod to the origins of the grit I’d seen in her earlier.
“On behalf of both our teenage selves, we're all glad you did.”
“I'm glad, too,” she pauses, “even on days when various body parts decide to randomly malfunction.”
I chuckle. “I'd say it gets better, but I try not to lie.” Mybody hurts more days than it doesn't, though that has more to do with spending almost eight years of my life being shot at and blown up for no good reason than my thirty-seven years. Even so, I was still happy to be here, something I couldn't always say. “It is still worth it, though.”
“Noted,” Toni says, a smile lifting her round cheeks.
“What would the easy answer have been?” I ask.
She swishes her cocktail in her mouth before swallowing. “She'd have no idea what the hell a marketing consultant does, so I think the confusion would outweigh any disappointment.”
“Huh.” The sound slips out before I can stop it.
“What?”
“I just—” I take in her cropped tank, the collection of metal in her ears, and the large peony tattoos covering her shoulders and sneaking down her arms. “I wouldn't have pegged you for the corporate type.”
“And what would you have pegged me for?”
“A creative. Visual art of some kind.” It's fast, but I know I don't imagine the flicker of pain in her eyes or the subtle way she seems to fold in on herself. Just as fast as it appeared, that easy self-assurance slips back over her.
“Sorry to disappoint.”
I scoff. “I doubt you've ever been within a hundred miles of disappointing.”
“Oof. I'm either a master of deception, or you're not great at reading people.” She finishes her cocktail. “Bad trait for a bartender.”
“Manager, thank you very much.” Our appetizers arrive, shifting our focus for a bit.
I pivot us back, enjoying excavating small pieces of this woman far more than the cheese tray we'd ordered. “What would you know about being a good bartender anyway?”
“Had to get through college somehow, and OnlyFansdidn't exist yet.” She pops a grape into her mouth, clearly savoring it. “You'd be hard pressed to find a service job I haven't done.”
“Stripping not your thing?” I ask and immediately regret it. Toni just huffs a laugh.
“Too niche a market.”
“You'd be surprised.” Be it the woman or the whiskey, something had completely removed the filter between my brain and my mouth.
“I really wouldn't. Loyal fanbase.” Toni settles back into her chair a bit, shoulders squaring, that dimple making another appearance as she pins me with a stare I'd almost call challenging. “Just not always the majority.”
I can practically taste the stupidity on my tongue. I want to tell her I'd make sure she'd never spare a thought about the majority again because if she let me between those perfect thighs, I'd?—
The entrées arriving save me from myself.
Our dinner chat is much safer. Though I notice her efforts to keep the focus on me, pivoting away from anything that gives her a chance to show too much of herself.
By the time the server is clearing our plates, she knows that my dad is mostly retired, leaving the bar running to me and my older brother, Michael. She knows Michael handles the books for the bar, while I handle the day-to-day, and that three of our cousins work for us. I tell her about Lucy and Oliver, my two best friends who are practically family. That my parents still live in the house I grew up in, and that they are, in fact, still blissfully in love.
