She shrugs. “People tell me things. I listen. Kevin knows more about beer than almost anyone I’ve ever met. This bar doesn’t look like much, but the real die-hard beer fans know it’s the place to go. It’s how I got so hooked on craft beer in the first place—too many chats with Kevin when I should have been focusing on my books.”
I scan the room with a new sense of interest. It’s still not my idea of an ideal place to spend an evening—there’s a cow hide on the wall, for god’s sake—but I can picture Monroe here, hunched over a table with a pile of textbooks in front of her, chewing on the end of a pen. I don’t even know if that’s a habit of hers, but I can see it so clearly it’s almost like a memory, one that lies just out of reach when I try to grab it with my hands.
“Taste it.”
I focus back on the version of her that’s sitting in front of me now. The buttons of her shirt are spaced wide enough that I can catch a hint of pale flesh in the gaps between them when she shifts forward.
“Go on. Taste it.”
The words suddenly take on an added heat. My whole mouth seems to go dry, and I feel my tongue dart between my parched lips. I wrap my hand around the glass. Our eye contact doesn’t break as I bring the beer up to take a sip.
The liquid is cold, cold enough to make me realize just how warm I’ve gotten as the beer hits my taste buds, frothy and flavourful with the malted finish of ale. It doesn’t seduce the way wine does. It’s not a hooked finger or an arched brow; this beer is the slap of skin on skin, the exhilarated rush that comes from falling back on drenched sheets in a satisfied tangle of arms and legs.
It’s the taste of a good, sweaty fuck.
I watch Monroe’s attention slide to my throat as I swallow.
“Not bad.”
I swear I see her blush.
She does her best to continue a normal conversation after that, asking me a few questions about Frango Tango and telling me more about the beer they serve here. I see how much she’s affected by the sparks jumping between us, though. She worries her lip between her teeth, and I can feel the vibrations of her knee bouncing under the table where it’s only a few inches from mine.
“You had something you wanted to tell me,” she blurts when we’re halfway through our pints.
“I was wondering when you’d bring that up.” I lift my glass a few inches. “Were you hoping to get me drunk beforehand?”
“I have a feeling it takes far more than one beer to get you drunk, you wino. You probably have the tolerance of a Yeti with all the wine you must spend your evenings tasting.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Why a Yeti?”
“I was trying to think of something that’s big.”
“Are you saying you think I’m...big,Madamoiselle?”
Now I’m sure she blushes.
“Just tell me what your damn idea is already.”
“My idea,” I begin, dangerously pleased with how easy it was to put her on the defensive, “is that once my as-yet-unnamed wine bar has been opened and becomesobscénémentsuccessful in an astoundingly short period of time, as it is destined to do—”
She groans and rolls her eyes before taking a gulp of beer.
“At that point, I’m thinking about expanding on my original plan,” I continue. “I wanted to create something intimate, something that felt exclusive, where the focus was on savouring the small-scale details of the experience, but I think if I buy the bar next door, this has the potential to be...bigger.”
Another eye roll.
“You’ve inspired me, Monroe. Maybe there is a benefit to—what did you call it? Hominess? With the extra space, I could make the wine bar concept more social: a stage, maybe, for small concerts, a few communal tables—since those are so popular in the restaurant world right now—and an expanded menu at a more accessible price point. It might even attract some of Taverne Toulouse’s current crowd. Of course we’d have to overhaul the place entirely. It’s dingy at best. Even you have to admit that, but we could preserve some of the spirit of what it is now, and with a new manager on board—”
“You don’t want to preserve it,” she interrupts, dark eyes flashing a warning. “You want to change everything about it. Do you think any of these people would come back here if they put in crystal chandeliers and replaced Kevin with some slick young guy in a suit? If they started serving smaller beers for higher prices? It’s called gentrification, and it destroys the things people love.”
“It’s called adaption,” I correct. “It’s called business. Things change. They evolve.”
“And what about people like Kevin? What would happen to him if this placeevolved?”
“If he can’t evolve too, then he’d have to find another job. That’s how it works. It’s not personal.”
“But itis,” she insists, growing more and more agitated. “Kevin is almost seventy. He’s not going to find another job.”
