He fiddles with the saltshaker, pouring a bit of salt on the table and balancing the shaker on one end. “Heck no! I visited a couple times, but the thought of trying to live there full-time?” He shudders. “I break out in hives just thinking about it.”
“Well, Clayton is as far from the Big Apple as you can get, I’d say, actual distance notwithstanding.” I knock over the saltshaker, and then try to balance it in the salt like he had; I fail repeatedly, and we both laugh.
The pitcher of water is empty, and Jamie nudges it toward me. “You want more?”
I shake my head. “Nah. I’ve had so much water at this point that my belly is all sloshy, as Aiden would put it.”
“It’s all water too, I’m sure,” he teases.
“Yeah, well…” I shrug, and then meet his intriguing brown eyes. “I’ve had fun,” I say.
“Me too.”
Silence.
“I’m gonna go potty,” I say, and then groan at myself. “To the bathroom, I mean. Because I am actually an adult.”
Jamie just laughs. “Spend enough time around kids, and you tend to pick up some of their mannerisms.”
When I come out of the bathroom—shaking my hands dry because all Vinnie has in there to dry your hands is an aging air dryer that feels like having a geriatric poodle breathe on your hands—the booth is empty. Odd.
I’m wondering if he left, or if he went to the bathroom when I feel two warm hands clap me on the arms and spin me around.
“Elyse! I’m so proud of you!” Cora is in rare Cora form—meaning, she’s had as much to drink as I have, but less water. “You’re macking on the hottie in the starched chinos!”
“His name is Jamie, and I’m not sure where he went, actually.” I arch an eyebrow at her. “And literally zero people say macking anymore, by the way.”
She wiggles her eyebrow. “He’s in the bathroom. He had to adjust himself.”
I frown. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve been spying on you from the bar!” She gyrates her hips. “You guys were dancin, and drinkin’, and talkin’! And the eyes you were making at him? Oooh, baby. Gettin’ spicy up in here!”
“I think you’ve had enough to drink, Cora.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “It’s my last hurrah of the summer,Elyse. Don’t shit on my parade.”
“Rain on your parade, you mean?”
“Whatever. My point is—” she wraps an arm around me. “My pointis…he’s in the bathroom, and when he went in, he was adjusting a nice little semi, because he’s, like, themostinto you.”
“Cora!”
“What?”
“Have some water.”
She shakes her head. “Nope, nope, nopety, nope, nope. Monty is on call! Monty the Mountie, to my rescue.”
“You didn’t make him any promises, did you?”
She frowns at me. “Aside from cold hard cash in exchange for his professional services? No. What do you take me for?”
“A crazy person who does crazy things when she’s drunk, and you’re drunk.”
“If it was Lewis Calhoun, I’d be telling a different story. But, alas, Lewis Calhoun is alone wolf, and he’s too cool for bars.” She sighs sadly. “And I’m not drunk enough yet to just show up at his place.”
“Good idea,” I say, drily. “You never know, he might be in the middle of a drug deal.”
