“We don’t usually do table service, Miss Bernard.”
“You know who I am?” My voice was still strong and clear, I noted with satisfaction. Although my question was dumb.
“Of course.” He gave me a kind of polite duh look. I’m like one of those rich society girls—ridiculously famous in certain circles but only for stupid reasons.
“Well, then you know that every time I get up and move around, it makes people nervous. And I am here to serioshly drink.” Whoops. Had I just said “serioshly”? “So maybe you could make an exception just this once,” I added carefully.
“Fair enough,” he said easily. “What are you drinking?”
“Double shot of Irish whiskey. Rocks. Please.” It was my mother’s drink. My father was something like seven-eighths Irish—his mother had come to America from Galway—but he hated the taste of whiskey. My mother’s people were from Eastern Europe, but it was her absolute favorite. They’d met at an Irish pub in LA, and their first conversation was about whiskey.
When Eli brought me my fourth drink, he wouldn’t hand it over without getting my keys in exchange. When I asked for my fifth, he brought over a cheeseburger and fries instead and promised me that I could drink more as soon as I ate them. By the time I asked for number six, the bar had emptied out and he was wiping down the tables. I could have walked over to the bar to get it, but I wasn’t very confident in my ability to walk straight. So I just yelled across the empty bar. “Barkeep! More whiskey!”
Eli tossed down his towel and went behind the bar, coming back with a big mug of coffee instead. He set it down in front of me and then dropped down into the opposite seat. “Eli. My name is Eli.” He pointed to the name tag pinned to his chest, tucking in his chin to see it. “See? It’s right here. Eli.”
“Eli, this is not what I ordered,” I said.
“Drink this instead. Then I’ll call you a cab.”
“Make you a deal,” I said, only slushing the words a little. When I get drunk, the ability to speak is the last skill I retain. Don’t ask me why. “I will drink thish coffee if you go pour yourself a whiskey. But it has to be a double, or it don’t count.”
He looked at me for a long moment, then sighed and scooted out of the booth. He came back with the drink and resumed his post across from me.
“On three,” I commanded. I was working pretty hard to get all of the pesky syllables. “One, two, three.”
We both stared at each other suspiciously, then took a sip of our respective drinks.
“So,” Eli said when we’d set our glasses back down, “do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“Whatever is making you sad.”
I thought about that for a second. “What’s in it for you?”
“Pardon?” he said, taken aback.
“Are you hoping to hang out in my little circle of peace for a little bit longer, or trying to get laid, or what?”
“No,” he said, and there was enough surprise in his voice that I relaxed a little bit. “You just looked like you could use a friend.”
“Well, I don’t. Friends are for suckers.” I took another sip of the coffee and pointed to his drink, which he sipped dutifully. “Tell me about what you did today instead.”
So he did. He had slept late, gone surfing, and cooked himself dinner. He talked about surfing with a dreamy look on his face, the way some runners talk about running as though it’s the greatest drug the world has ever known. He didn’t mention that it helps him tame his inner wolf, too, but I figured that out myself. Then he asked me about what I’d done, which was equally boring, and I told him. Half an hour later, we’d moved to the bar, where he was finishing his second drink, me my second coffee. Since Eli hadn’t had alcohol as a human in years—the wolves’ tolerance is off the charts, to go with their metabolism, so they mostly don’t bother drinking—he misjudged his safe number of drinks, and by the time he finished describing his plans for the weekend, we were more or less on an equal level of drunkenness. Which, on a scale of one to ten, was probably about a seven.
I can’t remember who kissed whom first or when we left the bar. In fact, my next clear memory is of being in the back of a cab, kissing Eli with a need and a recklessness that scared even drunken me. We went to his apartment in Santa Monica, stumbling up the outdoor staircase and through the door. The second it was closed, he backed me against it, his lips on my neck, his hands sliding down my back, and I felt my body relax for the first time that day. When he cupped my ass and picked me up, it was the most natural thing in the world to wrap my legs around his waist, and then my memory gets a little fuzzy again.
The next morning, I woke up around five with a bad hangover and no idea where I was. The shower was running, presumably with Eli in it, and so I hastily threw on my clothes and scurried out of there like the coward I was. And I promised myself that I’d stay away from Hair of the Dog for like a year. Minimum.
Seven weeks later, it was my dad’s birthday. And we did the same thing all over again.
And then, of course, there was two nights ago, when I had gone to Hair of the Dog specifically for Eli—although let’s not kid ourselves; I was there for him the second time, too—who had eventually forgiven me for blowing off his calls (twice) and invited me home with him again. I’d been only a little tipsy that time, and it still scared me that I’d said yes. This time the sex was less frantic and carnal and more...tentative. Exploratory.