Page 32 of The Quit List
“Question two.” He nods at my full glass. “Can I get you something to drink that you actually like?”
Busted.
12
HOLLY
“How is it almost midnight?” I groan as I check my phone screen in disbelief.
Three cranberry juices later and I’m still here. On a barstool. Talking to Jax Grainger. My phone shows me no less than six messages from Aubrey, checking that I’m okay and haven’t been kidnapped or joined a cult.
I send an I’m fine, just out getting a drink - be home soon! message to Aubrey and a response comes through almost immediately. I catch the words “hot” and “bartender” and “TELL ME.” Quick as lightning, I flip my phone face-down on the bar, my cheeks reddening.
Jax watches me. “Everything okay?”
“I should go,” I say a tad sheepishly.
“Big plans for the rest of the night?” he asks coyly.
I chuckle. “Well, according to my planner, after my date with Emmett, I was meant to go to the gym, get groceries, and reorganize my underwear drawer. Instead, I’ve been here for hours, shirking my responsibilities.”
Jax laughs at that. He’s currently straining simple syrup into a glass bottle that contains multiple sprigs of fresh lavender, and I can’t help but notice again how his big hands move so skillfully and deliberately as he works. He hasn’t spilled a single drop.
The restaurant has been pretty quiet this evening, with a small but steady trickle of customers coming and going. Which means that we’ve had time to chat between Jax pouring me drinks and chopping limes and bringing me plates of french fries from the kitchen.
I’m surprised at how quickly time passed, how easy it was to sit here with him, shooting the breeze like… well, like George Clooney in an old-timey movie. Probably.
Jax puts down the bottle and nods towards the folded piece of paper in front of me—the one on which I wrote my four dating must-haves earlier. The one that I, at some point, folded into a neat square instead of showing him. “We haven’t even gotten to the reason you came here in the first place.”
He’s right. We’ve mostly been chatting nonsense. Nothing deep or meaningful. For example, I asked him why he was a bartender earlier and he replied with: “I like measuring things.”
Then, he promptly overpoured a shot and spilled liquor all over the bar. On purpose, I think, especially given his syrup-straining prowess. But I can’t be sure.
Either way, it made me laugh.
I don’t make friends easily. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I made a new friend. My coworkers are great, but our friendship has never trickled outside the hotel’s walls. And Aubrey basically adopted me as her pet introvert. But there’s something about Jax’s razor-sharp wit and silly banter that just clicks for me.
Although, maybe it’s one-sided clicking, and over on his end of the bar, he’s supremely bothered by the weird girl slurping cranberry juice who won’t take a hint and leave.
I look at him sheepishly, my fingers pressing the edges of the folded piece of paper. “And yet, I still managed to take up your entire shift.”
“Ah, it was a slow night. I was glad for the company.” He swipes my empty glass off the bar and sets a new glass in front of me, which makes me feel good—I may be no expert on reading signals, but surely this means he’s okay with me hanging out here.
If nothing else, at least my current state of desperation must be entertaining.
“Isn’t there another bartender working?” I ask.
“Yup. I saw him sneak out the back with one of our waitresses, Ella.”
“Sorry you got abandoned.”
He laughs. “Believe me, you’re way better company than he is. For one thing, you don’t keep telling me that I’m hitting things that I’m not,” he says cryptically. I frown and open my mouth to ask him what on earth goes on behind this bar on Monday nights when he glances at the clock. “Man, it really did get late fast. You got an early start in the morning?”
“No, I don’t work until 2. Late shift.”
He tilts his head at me, those slate eyes of his intent on mine once again. “I’ve just realized that I don’t even know what you do for work.”
I shrug. “I’m a magician.”