A Toast to the Good Times Read online

  Her eyes light up for a single instant, but they tamper back down almost immediately.

  “Yeah. That makes sense. I’m comfortable. Dependable. Good old Mila. But the only times you’ve ever seen me as anything else were when you were so drunk it was just crazy and when your brother showed some interest.”

  I shake my head, filled with frustration and the need to come up with the right words, fast, before I blow it for good.

  “No, not true. Not true, Mila. This isn’t some stupid competition or some one-night stand kind of thing. I like you. I really like you. Everything about you. All the time.”

  She presses her hands to her temples.

  “How can this be exactly what I wanted to hear the most and everything I was afraid of at the same time?” When she glances back at me, her eyes are teary. “Don’t hate me for saying this, but I don’t think you know what you want. I think you like me because I’m convenient, and it makes no sense that I’m babbling about this because I’m the one who came to see you. I came to see you. But that’s just it, isn’t it?”

  I press close to her, but she wiggles back. “What? What’s just it, Mila?”

  “You’re opportunistic with girls, Landry,” she says, her eyes shifting back and forth like she’s confessing on a witness stand. “You like whoever’s in front of you at the moment. If one of your old girlfriends had shown up a minute before me, you probably would have asked her out, right?”

  My ears burn and I grit my teeth. Mila’s features goes slack like she knows, like she can decode it all based on the look on my face. I feel guilt about Toni tangled with a need to explain before this gets more out of control.

  “I did meet up with someone, but it wasn’t exactly like that—”

  “It’s okay!” she yelps, backing away from me. “It’s so okay. This is my fault, Landry, not yours. It’s weird what six hours of back-to-back Hollywood romance can do to a sane person’s brain. I’m so, so sorry for crashing your holiday and making everything a huge mess. I feel like such a crazy, stupid idiot. I really do. I’ll leave tonight.”

  “Don’t be insane. You’re not going anywhere.” I put my arms around her, softly, gently, so I don’t spook her, and that’s how Paisley finds us.

  “Um, sorry.” My sister half backs up the stairs. “Sorry, guys, to, um, interrupt.” Mila’s already jumped out of my arms and is pressing her hands on the sides of her bright pink cheeks. “Dad called, Landry. The bar is getting slammed. Like, super slammed. He could use your help if it wouldn’t kill you.”

  Part of me hates thinking about stepping back in that bar and working under my dad. But a huge part of me knows I owe him, owe myself to bridge this gap and grow the hell up. It’s time to finally face what I’ve spent so many months running from, but I’m not prepared to do it on my own.

  Or maybe that’s the wrong way to put it.

  I could face it on my own if I had to. But if I had a choice, I’d want Mila by my side.

  “Come with me,” I beg Mila, because I’m not above making an ass of myself to try to keep her around. “Please. Come with me? Free drinks all night, on the house.”

  “The bar is open on Christmas Eve?” A tiny smile quirks on her lips. “At least I know where you get your crazy holiday hour ideas from.”

  “It’s a huge night for college kids, back home and looking for a drink to help them deal with being under their parents’ roofs again,” I tell her. “Will you come?”

  For a few seconds I have no idea what her answer will be, but when she nods, relief flashes through me, hot and quick.

  “You guys better head out. Dad was a little frantic when he called,” Paisley calls as she runs back up the stairs.

  Chapter 11

  I keep my mouth shut while Mila drives to my father’s bar for the second time tonight. I direct her to the employee parking lot out back, because the street has filled with cars now that everyone is home from work and school, ready to get a drink and kick back with some friends.

  I think about the fact that my dad’s bar, one of the most popular places in town for all the young people to flock to when they want to run away from their family, was, and is the place where I can’t escape mine.

  Mila flashes those big green eyes my way as she opens the car door. “Why do I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those incredibly uncomfortable situations where I watch you get pulled across the bar and kissed by old girlfriends all night?”

  Her smile makes me smile. “Didn’t I just get all sappy about how much I like you? If you see any one of them trying to sneak a kiss, you have my permission to go all psycho girlfriend on them.”

  At the word girlfriend Mila inhales a hissed breath, but all her upset is gone by the end of my sentence.

  “I’m so not a psycho girl type, Landry. How about this? If you really like me, you’ll find a way to wiggle out of having to kiss anyone else all night. And if you do manage, maybe we can kiss more later?”

  She doesn’t say it to be flirty or sexy, and that may be exactly why it’s pretty much the most exciting offer I’ve had in my life.

  “So is this like a bet?” I ask as I come around to her side of the car and take her arm, leading her in.

  Before she can answer, we step into a den of pure and utter chaos. Dad hooked up the karaoke machine, unfortunately. By the end of the night, my ears will bleed anytime Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” gets decimated by another half-drunk hottie planning on giving her boyfriend a lead up to some Christmas nookie.

  The dartboard is the focus of another huge clump of young, roaring beer guzzlers, and I predict the wall behind the target collapses from millions of infinitesimal holes pierced into every square millimeter of drywall.

  The pool table is a wide open humping ground. Pretty girls are boxed in by eager guys, who can’t wait until the next shot so they can lean over and press into their dates in the guise of mentoring new moves.

  As crowded as all these outlying locations are, it’s the bar that’s the showpiece of pure and total lunacy. I grab her by the hand, and glare at one of the old-timer regulars who’s sipping the last watery drips of a Jack and Coke.

  “Ronald, the lady needs a seat.”

  Mila’s eyes pop wide, like she’s either embarrassed that I just told Ronald to get lost, or not used to being called a lady. Or both.

  From down the bar, my father frowns at me as he refills glass after glass of beer. He’s told me a million times that our regulars are the bread and butter of this bar, but this is Christmas Eve…and Mila. I need this to go well, and I don’t give a shit what my dad thinks.

  All Ronald really wanted to do was ogle the girls gyrating to some young guy with a soldier’s haircut butchering Elvis’s “Blue Christmas,” and he can actually do it better from a vantage point across from his current stool.

  “Of course, m’lady.” He dips a drunken bow and starts to totter away, but I grab his glass and pour him a refresher.

  “Merry Christmas, Ronald.” I give him a quick smile and he raises his glass at me and shakes the ice before taking a long, loving sip.

  “You have a gift, Landry-boy. A true gift with booze.” He stumbles closer to the dancers, and I gesture for Mila to hop on his vacated seat.

  “That’s a girl.” I whip up two Tom Collins, working so fast it repeatedly seems like I’m a second away from dropping a glass or a bottle and smashing it all over the floor. But that’s the best pace to work at, in my opinion. Breakneck or bust.

  I pass one her way and lift my glass to her, ignoring my father’s irritated call to me from down the bar.

  “So, we were talking about me avoiding kisses tonight. How ‘bout that goes for you too, and if we make it to the end of the night with no kisses on either side, we make out hot and heavy in my parents’ basement later?”

  I raise my eyebrows at her and her laugh draws looks and instant smiles from across the entire bar.

  Her laugh is a sound that I want to record ju
st to playback when I feel like shit and need a reason to smile.

  “Well, if those are the kinds of offers you’ve been giving girls all this time, it’s no mystery why you have to beat them away.” She picks up her drink and bats her lashes at me slowly. “I accept your terms.”

  She tries to sound like she’s still just playing along, but her voice sticks a little.

  “To me proving that I only have lips for you and the promise of mad make outs,” I declare.

  She lifts her glass and says, “Cheers” as she clinks.

  “Cheers.” My voice is soft and low, and I love the way her eyes focus on my mouth as I throw the drink back in a single seductively fire hot sip.

  I don’t have to turn to know she’s watching as I stride down the bar to my dad, cuff my sleeves, and get to work mixing and pouring, refilling, closing out tabs, hopping the bar to fix the feedback on the karaoke machine, and making myself generally useful while avoiding my old man as much as humanly possible.

  I have a little bit of a hard time keeping my promise to Mila. Not because I’m fishing for kisses or anything else. I’ve never been so keyed up by a girl that all other girl’s kind of fade to the background like this, but that’s how it feels with Mila.

  But I may have a tiny bit of a reputation.

  Dad hated it, but it made sense for me to play my angle. He liked to jaw with the guys, get elbow deep in misery and complaints. He was mostly respectful to the ladies.

  I liked to hand the guys their drinks and share an assortment of winks, smiles, and thinly veiled romantic suggestions with the ladies.

  It was an art, and there were rules.

  No married shenanigans.

  No flirting with a girl who was clearly with a guy.

  But tons of single women—or women unattached enough that they were willing to show up in public on their own and on the prowl — came to the bar, and they tipped well. It was easy enough to lean over and oblige their rowdy demands with the occasional kiss.

  I have no problem turning the pretty young things down. There was no point playing with their hearts anyway.

  But the older ladies, the one who cooed and crowed about how happy my being back made them…not throwing them a little peck seems in opposition to the spirit of the season.

  But Mila watched me like a hawk, and she was a stickler for games and rules; I know for a fact she had a Dungeons and Dragons Guide and a multi-sided die in her room in Boston.

  I wanted to roll around with her in bed, and I knew I’d need to be on my best behavior to reach my goal.

  I did double duty with winks, slow smiles, and extra potent drinks in an attempt to satisfy my pouting regulars. Maybe it was a little slutty of me, but this business requires me to be part actor, part drink-maker, and I tried to embrace both aspects of the job.

  “You got the girls on the end with the sweetie drinks?” my dad asks over the roar.

  I look at them by instinct and salute the one girl who’s definitely using her cherry garnish to communicate sexy things to me. My tips will take a hit for all this toned-down flirting, but Mila is so worth it.

  The girl peeks her tongue out, and there’s the cherry stem, tied in a knot, and I chuckle under my breath and grit my teeth.

  “They’re all doing great, Dad.”

  “What about the guy who needed the brews for the pool players? He was here a minute ago…” He looks around distractedly.

  “Done with him. I got his order together while he hit the john. They’re all squared away.”

  “Shit!” Dad curses under his breath. “I forgot to give Bergin his holiday—”

  I grin at him. “You’re going deaf and blind in your old age, aren’t you? He snuck in half an hour ago. I found his envelope in the lockbox, and it’s all good. Take a breather.” I hold up a sopping wet, bleached white rag. “Look, we’re so caught up, I have time to wipe down the bar.”

  My dad reaches a hand out, slowly, and gives me a pat on the back. It’s kind of jerky and uncertain, but I don’t have given an asshole thought or response to it.

  It’s good.

  And, since I’m not naturally a positive person filled with happy, nice thoughts, I wonder if all of this has anything to do with the fact that all night, between every drink I poured and mess I wiped clean, after every refill and trip to the cash register, I got to look down the bar and see Mila sipping her drink, smiling wide, singing along to some of the ridiculous Christmas carols, and chatting up anyone who came over to her.

  I’m distractingly glad she’s here. I kind of wish I had enough money to employ her to sit at the end of my bar and keep me company on a regular basis, though it might make my bar ridiculously cheerful. Which has been the antithesis of my vibe thus far. I peddle in grumbling, strong old-fashioned drinks, and a misery-loves-company protocol.

  But I think it’s been fairly well established that I’m an unbelievable wanker in every way.

  I slide the rag down the bar and lean close to her, catching a whiff of her lavender-scented hair. “So, how goes it?”

  “Alright. I was kind of secretly hoping the girl trying to seduce you with the cherry stem choked on it. Not like Heimlich maneuver choking. Just a little embarrassing gagging, you know? Maybe I am turning into one of those psycho girls.” She chews on a piece of ice consideringly.

  “I like that side of you. Yeah, the girls can definitely get a little crazy, but my dad will get pretty scowly at anyone who pushes the boundaries too far, so don’t worry about that.”

  I glance down at my father, yukking it up with Rusty, who gives me a hearty wave and goes back to nursing his romance-laced tropical drink.

  “You and your father are the most adorable bartending duo I’ve ever seen in my life. Honestly. You really seem like you’re in your element here.”

  She looks around, and her eyes are all shiny and appreciative, like maybe she can’t see the cobwebs and general decay.

  “Yeah, well, I grew up with that old grouch in this old dump. I guess maybe I do have a soft spot for the whole scene.”

  I lean closer, willing her to lean back and kiss me again.

  “It’s not a dump.” She presses her eyebrows down over her eyes and looks around like she’s seeing something that makes her happy, something that’s not a totally sad example of the ultimate dive bar. “Maybe the carpet is a little old. And weird. And it needs a good handyman to give it a once-over. But it’s homey. It’s warm and full of good energy and happy people, and you can tell that’s its usual state. This place has that kind of Field of Dreams vibe going, right? Like, I bet your grandpa just built this and people came.”

  Thinking about my grandpa usually fills me with guilt over the whole inheritance fiasco.

  Right now, though, it fills me with a weird happy/sad cocktail — like a 4 Horsemen Shot, all the best and strongest things, all mixed up.

  I’m happy because Mila is dead-on, and I know my grandpa would have loved her theory—and her. Not to mention, he always had a serious thing for brunettes. And he was always telling me that I didn’t have a shred of sense when it came to picking girls.

  I got it, and just thought he was being old-fashioned.

  But now?

  Now I know he was trying to tell me to wait. To wait for her.

  “C’mere and kiss me,” I demand, but Mila pulls back and her look is all teasing, gorgeous flirt. I don’t know how I never noticed the fact that she could flash that kind of hot-as-hell sexiness mixed in with her general sweetness, but now I can’t tear my eyes away.

  “I don’t want to give up on the romance of our futon make-out session later on,” she says, her voice husky.

  I refresh her drink and watch her take a slow sip, shocked at how much envy I can muster for a glass. “Look, I bet I can slide out now that the worst of the crowd filtered through and—”

  But the door bursts opens and a slew of people crush in, snowflakes flecking their hair, the girls’ hips already swaying and the guys’ fists pumping to o
ld regular Lucy’s crowing rendition of Brenda Lee’s “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree.”

  “Looks like we’ve got a live bunch. But I’ll take care of them quick and, no fear, I’ll have you on my futon soon.”

  I point a finger at her and waggle my eyebrows, and she giggles into her ice, flushed with good drinks and bar warmth.

  I go back to my station ready to show off for Mila a little. My dad gets up from talking to one of the regulars, but I wave him back. I’m happy to and more than capable of taking care of the crew, a few of them familiar faces from high school I don’t mind seeing on this trip back home.

  “Landry!” A familiar voice breaks through the gaggle and Toni is standing in front of me, her mouth twisted in a knowing grin, her long blonde hair glistening with melting flecks of ice and snow. She leans in, and I know Mila’s eyes are on me, so I dodge her kiss with a friendly hug instead. Toni doesn’t even attempt to press for more. “You look good. Can I ask if there’s a reason?”

  I look down the bar and she follows my gaze.

  “Oh, Landry.” She draws a quick breath in. “You took my advice?” She slides a hand across the bar and grabs mine for a minute, her shiny, manicured nails contrasting with mine, which are bitten down to nubs. “Get me a wine, please, anything white. I’m going to talk to her.”

  I pop the cork on a fresh Riesling and scowl at Toni.

  “No funny shit, Toni. I know I was sucking your face the other day and all crying to be in your arms, but you were right as hell. I was ignoring what was staring me in the face. And I don’t plan on continuing to fuck up. So go easy. Please.”

  She holds her delicate hand up to stop me from saying anything else.

  “I’m completely happy for you. Honestly, I just want to talk to her a little bit. Just see if she’s as awesome as she looks. But I’m an excellent judge of character, and I get the feeling she’s amazing already.”