“I don’t like the idea of him being alone.”
I really don’t like the idea of you being alone, either was what I also wanted to say. That only would have made things more awkward. If I had any hope of her staying and hanging out, I had to keep it light.
I shoved a hand into my pocket and popped a shoulder. “Besides, bamboozling people is kind of the Michaels family specialty. There’s a door-to-door salesman on our family crest.”
She waved a hand up and down my body. “So you do come by this honestly, then?”
“Pretty much.” Fighting the urge to touch her, I bent at the knees to bring us eye-to-eye. “Come on. One drink. Your treat. I have to get the money you owe me out of you somehow.”
She glanced around, buying herself time more than actually looking for anything.
I bit my lips between my teeth and held my breath, waiting and preparing myself for her kick-in-the-pants no.
“Fine,” she said. “But only because I owe you for taking care of Aaron for me. Nothing else.”
A tsunami of adrenaline slammed into me and nearly knocked me back a step. Shit, I would have moved Aaron into my guestroom months ago if I’d thought that was all it would take. I laughed way more loudly than was smooth or cool. But fuck me, the relief was staggering.
Doing her best to quell a grin, she rolled it around her face, but that non-smile still gave her away. “Go grab us a seat. I’m hitting the front desk to ask for extra pillows. They had me sleeping on cinder blocks last night.”
I had plenty of extra pillows on my bed. She could have them, use them, or join me with them, but I wasn’t about to press my luck. “On it,” I replied, turning on a toe, heading straight to the bar.
The large rectangular bar in the open lobby had thinned out for the night. There were a few couches filled with drunken accountants debating the interpretation of the new tax laws, but besides that, I had our choice of location. In a completely non-friend-based decision, I picked the far corner for the most privacy, wishing on every fucking birthday candle I’d ever blow out that maybe, just maybe, we’d need it.
The young, pretty bartender walked over immediately. Grinning like a fool, adrenaline still spiraling inside me, I laughed to myself as I ordered our drinks. I could have gone for the safety of a New Zealand Sav Blanc, but where was the fun—or her precious spontaneity—in that?
I kept an eye on her as she waited in line at the front desk. While I was trying not to be the creeper who stared, I was incapable of tearing my eyes off her. It was still so unbelievable to me she was there in the first place. If it was a dream though, I never wanted to wake up.
And God, did she look like the embodiment of every dream I’d ever had as she walked back toward the bar—to me.
“What’s that?” Remi asked, sliding onto the barstool beside me. “Did you order me an appletini?”
It was then when I realized adrenaline wasn’t my friend. I’d been so fucking happy I hadn’t considered what I’d done. I was going for clever and flirty. But in the process, I’d fucked up on monumental levels.
She knew all about Sally. I didn’t have to watch every word I said, every action I made. There were no more secrets between us.
But just because Remi knew who she was didn’t mean she remembered.
Fuck.
“Um…” I pushed the drink away from her. “Don’t drink that. I’ll get you a wine.”
She caught the stem of the glass and slid it back in front of her. “Why would you order me an appletini out of the blue, Bowen?” Her eyes bored into the side of my face with an intensity that I swore seared my skin.
“Because I’m a dumbass. Just let me swap it out for wine. We can forget it ever happened.”
She slapped her hand down on the bar and leaned in close. “No, see, that’s the problem. I’ve already forgotten everything that happened. It’s why I’m on this whole solo journey. I can’t remember who I am, and nobody was willing to tell me the damn truth, so I’m having to figure it—me—out all over again.”
Fuck me. That had to be some kind of new record. From the highest of highs to rock bottom in one drink order. My stomach tanked, hating the turn we’d taken, but she wasn’t wrong.
“It’s what you were drinking when we first met,” I confessed, but the memory didn’t slash through me. It almost felt like the words freed something inside me.
She leaned away, her forehead crinkling. “An appletini?”
“It’s not actually an appletini.” I smirked and settled into the memory rather than trying to swat it away. “It’s a cosmo but switch the cranberry for sweet and sour and add an orange twist. I didn’t know it at that time, so I tried to buy you a drink and ordered an appletini. You never let me live it down.”
