Then he turns to me.
“And you? Do I also need to apologize for forgetting our first meeting?”
I’m not a shy person. There’s no room for hesitation when you’re swatting drunks away at the bar or breaking up dance floor make-out sessions that are about to go from PG13 to straight up R, but those damn ice-blue laser beams have me pinned to the sidewalk.
“Um, no,” I force out in English, and then stutter to correct myself. “I mean, um,non.”
He steps forward, one arm still holding the door open, and extends his hand to me.
“A fresh start, then. I’m Julien.”
There’s no spark or tingle when his bare skin closes over my thin black glove. The world doesn’t stop. The sidewalk doesn’t fall away from under my feet. I don’t stare into his eyes and feel an irreversible shifting somewhere deep inside me.
What happens is far less dramatic, but all the more startling for that. As soon as I feel the pressure of his hand on mine, my breathing eases. The rushing sound I didn’t even realize had flooded my ears fades away. My confidence comes back to me like a jolt from a defibrillator. I remember to return his smile and pump my hand up and down instead of letting it hang between us like some kind of dead fish.
“Monroe,” I introduce myself, breaking our contact and propping my hand on my hip in the typical tavern wench stance I seem to adopt on instinct after so many years behind the bar.
“Monroe,” Julien repeats, in the curious tone people usually use when I tell them my name. “First name or last?”
“I just go by Monroe.”
I can see his curiosity pique in the way his eyebrows draw together, as if he’s a teacher who just got his hands on a new textbook, but he lets the subject drop.
“So, Roxanne and Monroe, are you out spying on every store on Avenue Mont-Royal today?”
“We’re only spying on this one, but we might get a drink at the bar next door,” I improvise. Now that I’m not quite so caught up in his beard magic, I’m refocused on the task at hand: finding out what’s going on at this building and whether or not I need to do something about it.
Not that I have any ideawhatI would do about it, but that’s a bridge I can cross later on.
Julien huffs out a laugh and glances over at Taverne Toulouse. “That little dump? People actually drink there?”
I bristle so quickly I feel Roxanne lean away from me like I’ve turned into a porcupine, but Julien doesn’t seem to notice.
“We were just talking about what a waste of the property it is,” he continues, unaware that I’d be shooting quills out of my skin if I had any quills to shoot. “It would be nice to have both units for my project, but that place looks like it might need to be completely gutted. I was going to head over there myself once this meeting is over to see if it’s worth looking into.”
This is good,I tell myself, as my insides start mixing up a cocktail of insult and disappointment to wash away any traces of my five second crush.This will allow me to focus on the task at hand.
The task at hand is now more vital than ever. He’s already talking about being interested in buying Taverne Toulouse. I need to pump him for information, and it strikes me to do that the best way I know how: over a pint.
So I swallow down the indignation of hearing my favourite place in the world described as ‘that little dump,’ and I make my move.
“Would you like to join us for a drink?”
Three
Julien
PLONK: A British slang term for inexpensive or low quality wine
Drinks with strange—andattractive—women I found on the sidewalk were not on today’s schedule, but I still find myself saying yes. There are approximately twenty-eight other things I need to be doing right now, and yet I look down at the curvy brunette in front of me, the one with her lips pursed and her hand propped on her hip, and tell her I’d like nothing better.
I don’t know what startles me more: those words coming out of my mouth, or the fact that they’re completely true. It’s the middle of a work day. I should be making my excuses and heading out.
“I just have to finish up inside and I’ll be right over.”
I leave the girls standing where I found them and step back into the bare room, where the workers are packing up the measuring tools they brought with them. Swiping at my phone, I double check there’s nowhere I absolutely have to be and refresh my inbox to convince myself I don’t have any emails that need immediate attention. I tuck my phone away after I’m certain the world won’t fall apart if I go for a drink and happen to catch a glimpse of my lock screen as I do.
I really have to change themauditthing.
