Page 15 of Handful

“Something I don’t have to share with a newborn. Dealer’s choice.”

I built her a French 75 — champagne, gin, lemon, simple — because Indira had always liked things that looked elegant and hit hard. She took the first sip and closed her eyes.

“Mmmm, I’ve missed this place.”

“This place has missed you.” Indira and I had known each other for — what, four years now? Five? She’d been doing marketing for Velvet’s parent group when I’d first started here, running brand campaigns for the portfolio of bars and restaurants they owned across three states. We’d bonded over a shared suspicion of men who used the word synergy and a shared appreciation for cocktails that didn’t apologize for their alcohol content. She’d moved on to other work after a year, but the friendship had stuck — drinks every couple of months, the occasional lunch, the kind of low-maintenance connection that worked because neither of us needed it to be more than it was.

It was the reason I’d said yes when one of her colleagues had asked me to be his plus-one at her wedding. I knew the bride. The groom’s world was something else entirely, but I’d figured an open bar and a woman I liked getting married was worth it.

I hadn’t figured on him being there. I smiled to myself as I remembered giving him a fake name just to make him stop. Ruby.

“How’s Maya?” I asked as I prepared another drink order.

“Perfect and terrible. She sleeps in ninety-minute intervals and she’s a total daddy’s girl — screams when she’s with me, shuts up the second Dutch walks into the room. He walks her in circles at 3 AM singing — and I use that word loosely.” She took another sip. “He’s a good father. Annoyingly good. I’d complain but I love watching him with her.”

“And you?”

“I’m sitting in a cocktail bar on a Wednesday night, drinking champagne, and talking to another adult. I’m incredible.” She smiled, tired at the edges but solid underneath. “How are you? How’s the bar? Derek still convinced the world is ending?”

“Derek is consistent in his pessimism.”

“He’s consistent in everything. That’s why he’s good at his job.” She looked around the room, taking it in. “Busy for a Wednesday.”

“It’s been a good month.”

“It always is when you’re running the bar.” She said it matter-of-factly, the way Indira said most things — not as a compliment but as an observation. “Speaking of which. Any movement on the—” She stopped. Her eyes had found the end of the bar.

I watched her register him. The cut. The book. The stool he’d made his own over two and a half months of showing up.

She looked back at me. One eyebrow up. Nothing else.

“Don’t,” I said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was about to drink my cocktail.” She took a very deliberate sip. Held my eyes over the rim of the glass. Set it down. “How long has that been going on?”

“Nothing is going on. He’s a customer.”

“A biker in your cocktail bar reading?”

“People read in bars. It’s a thing people do.”

Indira set her glass down. “Austen.”

“Indira.”

“I’m going to finish my drink. I’m not going to say a word about him.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She picked up her glass. “The French 75 is perfect, by the way.”

We talked for another forty minutes. The bar. Maya. A distribution problem with the parent group’s new wine supplier that Indira still had opinions about even though she hadn’t worked with us in years. The apartment I was looking at across town — bigger kitchen, better light, a lease I could sign for more than a year.

She didn’t mention Handful again. She didn’t need to. The eyebrow had done all the work it needed to do.