31

Alistair

The afternoon sunlight poured through the windows of the Hard Rock taproom as our mixology session began.

We were making final adjustments to the beer cocktails before we left for Colorado the following day to present our concept to the Avalon team.

We didn’t need the agency here for this, but I had invited Liliana anyway. I was glad she decided to come. She was more easygoing today, more open to my flirting. I wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol, or something had changed the last time I saw her.

“Are you drunk?” I asked Liliana with a laugh as she sipped the drink Aaron had made for her.

“Who, me?” she said, her cheeks a little pinker than normal. “Noooo.”

She wasn’t actually drunk, but she was starting to get slightly tipsy. Even just one sip from several cocktails added up over the course of our meeting.

“What do you think?” Aaron asked after she tasted the cocktail.

“Delish,” she declared with a grin. “This might be the best one yet. What is it?”

“Our signature Hard Rock ale with their best tequila and a splash of lemon-lime soda to add to the tart citrus taste of the lime juice.” Aaron looked so proud as he said it.

He and Shayna had been brainstorming cocktails for days, testing out different recipes for this mixology meeting.

Benedict tasted everything along with me and Liliana.

“Hardrox Margarita!” she said, gleefully enough that I was sure that the hard liquor was getting to her, just a little.

“Water time,” I said, pushing an icy glass in front of her. “Don’t want you dancing on the tables before the night’s over,” I whispered, leaning in.

One of her perfectly groomed eyebrows cocked.

“You don’t?” she asked, her half-grin almost too damn adorable to take.

I smiled back and pushed the water into her hand.

Aaron and Shayna had gone through all the drinks they’d worked out, so we all sat drinking water to get our equilibrium back.

“You might have missed your calling, Liliana,” I said, motioning at all the cocktail glasses.

“Should have been a bartender?”

“No, a barfly,” I teased.

She slapped my arm and shook her head.

“I’m serious. What if I paid you to sit in the taproom drinking all day, being friendly to people who came in? You’d be like the town welcoming committee.” I leaned a little closer. “You’d certainly bring in the male clientele. Even the ones who don’t drink a drop.”

She smirked at me, but I could tell by the way her face reddened that she liked the compliment. Then she straightened and sipped more water.

“Maybe I should take you up on that. Between us, we’d have it covered. Because you certainly bring the female clientele in the door.”

I scoffed, but she put her hand up. “Oh yes. I saw that loud woman when I was here the last time. She looked like she was about to climb you like a tree. Maybe if her pants were a little looser so that she could move her legs, she could have tried.”

She laughed at her own joke, and I had to admit it was funny because it was true.

“Okay. You got me. My milkshake brings all the girls to the yard, I guess.”

She snorted at my bad joke, and I found myself next to her, our shoulders pressed together while we laughed and chatted.

The more we talked, the more I realized it wasn’t the alcohol that had changed Liliana’s attitude toward my flirting. Enough time passed with us sitting and talking that we were both completely sober. But we were still flirting and laughing.

“I still feel like we need something to round it out,” Aaron said. “We’ve got frozen drinks and light alcohol drinks, but not really anything with whiskey or stout . . . nothing very dark. At least one drink like that would give the whole collection a better profile, don’t you think?”

Shayna and Benedict nodded, and I agreed. “Yeah, I think so. But you guys have worked so hard on this already. You should take off and let me handle that one.”

As they packed up to head home, I stood and stretched. Carl had gone into the other room with Benedict, so I turned to Liliana. “I’m going to go look in the storeroom to see if I get any inspiration.” Before I walked by her, I made a quick decision. “Want to come and help?”

I wasn’t ready for the evening to be over, not with her seeming so happy and lighthearted.

To my surprise, she slipped off the stool.

“Sure,” she said, then she walked with me to the elevator that took us to the basement level.

We went into one of the stockrooms with a collection of dark liquors and a random assortment of lagers and stouts.

“Stout Embers,” she said, holding up a bottle of stout and a bottle of single-malt whiskey, still as playful as she’d been all evening. “Stout, whiskey, tequila, and malt liquor! It puts hair on your chest and the soles of your feet or your money back!”

“That would be a hell of an ad campaign,” I said with a laugh.

We continued bouncingflavor combinationsoff each other, unaware of how much time had passed. Being with her like this felt...natural. Easy. Right.

Our bodies would touch as we joked about the drinks and sometimes looked at them seriously, trying to figure out what would be a good addition.

Then she turned to face me when we were between two shelves set close together.

Liliana’s back was against the shelf, her arms behind her.

“If we can’t come up with a good dark liquor cocktail, I still think what we have so far is fantastic. Unless I screw something up, I’m sure they’re going to go for it.”

Our bodies were only a couple of inches apart, but she stood there, unflinching, when I moved closer.

“You’re not going to screw anything up, Liliana. You’re obviously very good at your job. I’ve had a front row seat for that over these last few weeks. I ought to know.”

She smiled shyly at me and looked down. When I moved closer, she lifted her face again.

“I wasn’t sure this was going to work. But Alistair, I’m glad you showed up at Donague. This is a really great opportunity for me, and I feel like I haven’t really thanked you for that.”

Oh, those blue eyes. The way she stood there, staring up at me. It would have been so easy to kiss her.

“You don’t have to thank me, Liliana.”

“I know. I’ll thank you by doing the best job I can. But still. Thanks.”

I reached up and brushed my knuckles under her jaw.

Was this my chance? Or was I taking advantage of her good mood and pushing my luck?

“Liliana,” I said softly.

When she didn’t move away, she just kept staring up at me, I leaned closer.

The stockroom lights went out. Liliana gasped.

“Did the electricity go out?” she asked, looking around.

What timing. What terrible God damn timing.

“I’ll bet Carl just left and turned on the automatic shut-off. I’ll go reset it.”

The room was dimly lit by the moonlight through the small windows near the ceiling.

She followed me to the door. I turned the handle, but it was stuck in place. I jiggled it, then I put all my might into twisting it before I realized what had happened.

Carl must've assumed we all left and locked up for the night already. I patted my pockets to call Carl, but my phone was on the table in the taproom. I’d had it out looking up liquor varieties.

“Can I use—”

Liliana was already shaking her head. “My phone’s on the table next to yours.” She tried the handle herself. “We’re really locked in here with no phones to call anyone for help? Maybe he’ll see our cars and come back inside? He’ll realize we’re still in here?”

“I’m here a lot after he leaves. He’s not going to know we’re locked in.”

“What are we supposed to do?” she asked, her voice sounding a little nervous.

She wrapped her arms around herself.

“Hey,” I said, pulling her close. “Everything’s okay. When the staff comes in in the morning, somebody always comes through here to eyeball the stock. And we even have a bathroom, through there.” I pointed to the back door of the room that led to a small toilet and sink. “Bottled water in the corner back there. We’ll be fine.”

“But it’s pretty chilly in here, isn’t it?” She sounded less flirtatious than before, maybe a little scared.

I pulled her even closer, wrapping my arms around her.

“I can take care of that, too,” I whispered into her ear.