She was my aunt, but she was only a couple of years older than me. We’d grown up more like cousins. She had lived with us for a time, but I was too young to remember.
It had taken some acting to pretend I wasn’t as drunk as I actually was to get her to give me another whiskey.
Finally, I reached over and picked up one of the potato skins and held it to her little pink perfect mouth. She frowned immediately. “Eat it with your hands. Try it. The grease gets on your fingers, but somehow that makes it all better.”
I wasn’t a junk food guy. I was a runner and very careful about the food I ate until I got drunk. Then I ate all the bad shit. However, Lila was keeping me from eating the greasy bar food. I was too enthralled with her to care about anything else.
She took a dainty bite, and then cover her mouth as she chewed, grinning as if she had done something completely wicked. Damn, that was hot. There was no way she was as perfect as I saw her. She had to have something wrong with her. I just couldn’t see clearly through the drunken haze. I needed to tread carefully.
I tried to focus harder to see if her teeth were bucked or if there was a gap big enough for food to fit through. Maybe she had bad breath? Or was married? I began checking those for evidence of those intently.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I wasn’t about to tell her I was trying to focus enough to find her flaws. There had to be a reason I was the only guy in this bar hitting on her. If she was, in fact, as fucking perfect as my mind was telling me she was, then she should have several guys hovering around her. That was my first clue. I could ask Larissa, but then she’d stop giving me drinks, and possibly slap me across the face for being so shallow.
I went with the best excuse. “I was trying to figure out if you were married or engaged.”
She laughed then. Out loud. A musical sound that made me feel nice all over. “Married? Why would you think I was married? And why were you studying my mouth like it was a science experiment? Was it going to tell you I was married?”
I wasn’t very smooth. Maybe I should drink some water.
“Just checking to see if those green onions were sticking in your teeth. They always get in mine.”
She laughed again. Damn, I liked that laugh. I liked that she thought my lie was funny.
“Thanks, I think. I assume I passed the inspection.”
I nodded because she still looked perfect, and fuck me if it was the drunk goggles talking. If it was, I had a better imagination than I realized.
“Dance with me,” I said standing up, thankful I didn’t fall over. I could still balance. That was good.
“Drink this water first, Romeo,” Larissa interrupted me. Her serious expression told me maybe I wasn’t hiding my drunk that well. So, I took the glass and downed it.
She cut her eyes to Lila. “I’m trusting you,” were her final words to me before she walked back to help other customers. It sucked when your aunt was the bartender at the only place in town that was worth going to. Well, it didn’t always suck, but tonight it was getting in my way.
I smirked and blew it off. “Larissa is my aunt. You’ll have to ignore her.”
Lila’s stunning eyes widened in surprise. “Oh. She looks so young.”
“She is. Only a few years older than me. The story is long, full of intrigue and lies. Very daytime soap opera. I’ll tell you all about it if you dance with me. I swear it’s better than a romance novel.” That much was true. Larissa’s story was intense.
Lila looked down at her uneaten food. “I can’t eat any more anyway. You were right they are delicious but heavy. I’m full.” She stood up and gave me that smile that I hoped I remembered tomorrow.
I placed a hand on her lower back and led her out to the dance floor. Glancing at the table I had been at when she walked in, I saw Micah Falco and Jimmy Taylor give me the nod. They were both smiling. Either they were smiling because she was as smoking hot as I thought she was, or because they were going to harass me about this for years to come. I just didn’t care anymore. And I was fucking thrilled Saffron’s crazy ass wasn’t here tonight to cause trouble. She’d ruin this just for the hell of it.
Even if I did forget fragments of tonight, Micah and Jimmy would surely give me a complete recap. Once we were on the packed dance floor, I pulled her to me and inhaled. Jesus, she smelled like heaven. She wasn’t wearing some heavy perfume or body lotion. It was light and smelled like almonds or cinnamon. Fuck if I knew. It was just intoxicating. I pulled her closer and took a deep breath.
“I’m sure you hear this a lot, but you smell amazing.”
She tilted her head back just enough to look up at me. “Thanks. And no, I don’t actually.”
That caused me to pause. Did she live in a convent? “How is that possible?”
She gave me a small shrug. “I don’t get close to guys often.” She hesitated, then she looked serious like she was unsure she should have said that. “I mean I didn’t for a long time, but I do now. I’m different. It’s time for a change.”
A change? What was she a lesbian trying out the other side? I decided against asking that figuring if it was the case she might be offended. Didn’t matter to me either way.
“What all does this change of yours consist of?” I asked her.
“Adventure.”
Just that one word. Interesting. She had eaten her bar food with a knife and fork with her paper napkin in her lap and she wanted an adventure. I wasn’t sure that was safe. She seemed too innocent for an adventure. Or maybe I was reading her completely wrong?
“What is this adventure?”
“I’m not sure yet. But I am on it now. Bars, random guys, bar food—that’s all part of it.”
“Am I the beginning of your adventure?”
She smiled and then nodded. “Yes, Eli, you are.”
Lila Kate
DANCING WITH ELI at this bar wasn’t my first time to dance at a bar. I had once before while in college. A friend on the dance team had her twenty-first birthday party at the local haunt. I went. I danced. I left early and arrived home before midnight sober. But that was the old me.
“I think I’d like another drink,” I told Eli after our dance.
He smiled as if I was amusing. “Anything in particular?”
I almost said a martini and stopped myself. “Whatever.”
He chuckled and I watched as he held his hand up signaling a waitress who was carrying a tray of little shot glasses filled with Jell-O. She came over and he took two glasses off her tray. “Thanks.”
Then he handed one to me.
“What’s this?” I asked holding the cup of Jell-O in front of me.
“A Jell-O shot. It’s even better than a bar drink. It’s a club drink.”
The club he was referring to was different than the club I had grown up in and I knew that. I figured why not. I tasted it slowly.
“It’s a shot, Lila. Don’t savor it. Just down it.”
Not wanting to disappoint him or me, so I did as Eli said.
When I was done, I thought it tasted yummy like strawberry Jell-O.
“What did you think?”
“I liked it.”
He handed me the shot glass he was holding. “I never was one to think a guy looked right doing a Jell-O shot. Take this one.”