Grace

I collect the two-dollar tip on the bar, sticky from sitting in a ring of spilled beer, and notice a phone number jotted on the back of one of the bills. I know it’s fresh because next to the number is the name “Gregg,” and the guy who sat here and drank three Bud Light drafts was named Gregg.

Question: Do guys really think that works? Like, can you find one and ask him for me? I can’t imagine a bartender—or beer mistress, as I like to call myself—who would be wooed by a sopping-wet single covered in blurred ink from “Gregg,” or any other guy angling to get a date.

Let’s say I call him. Let’s just imagine that scenario for a minute. Let’s pretend I bite my lip, shivering in anticipation. Let’s set aside the likelihood that Gregg leaves his number for every other bartender in this city. The man spent over twenty dollars and left me a crappy tip, and wants to take me out. Little old me! I’m overjoyed! I call. He answers. I introduce myself as the redhead from McGreevy’s Pub who received his phone number on my tip. He remembers me. In our fantasy world, let’s imagine a best-case scenario: Gregg asks me out to a restaurant, actually pays (except you know I’m going to have to slide extra money into the black book for a tip), and then tries to get into my pants all night long.

I’m not opposed to sex on a first date, but Gregg, who occupied my bar seat for the last two hours, most certainly didn’t leave an impression on me. He was average-looking and dressed casually. I remember that. But his facial features? A blur of attributes on an otherwise blah face.

Do I sound bitchy?

I don’t mean to. And anyway, I prefer “jaded.” No! How about “experienced”? Worldly. I understand a cold, hard truth most women refuse to believe.

There is no such thing as Mr. Right.

Hell, sometimes there’s not even a Mr. Right Now.

If you thought otherwise, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If you’re with a guy currently who seems perfect, I don’t begrudge you your happiness. Enjoy it for as long as it lasts, but know this: Every relationship has an expiration date. We’re not Twinkies. We’re more like Bibb lettuce. A relationship’s shelf life is short, and I operate like the end is nigh because, well, it is.

I could blame my divorce-lawyer parents (who themselves are divorced), but that’s another can of worms. Let’s get back to me.

I’ve been beer mistress at McGreevy’s Pub downtown since the beginning of summer—a handful of months now—but my experience behind a bar is extensive. So much so, that I can predict, with a scary level of accuracy, what a couple on a date will order to drink. Most often the girls have the sweet pear cider on draft, and their male counterparts order the bitter IPA. There’s a lesson in there about coupledom in general, but I digress.

Bob over there always has a shot of bourbon and a light beer. Shawn orders two Budweisers and takes both of them to the dartboard, where half his throws end up in the plaster. And then there’s Davis Price.

Davis, who comes in here damn near every day. Davis, who requests the television be set on CNN rather than sports. Since he’s the most common of our regulars (he has a seat at the bar he claims is “his”), one of our three TVs is always tuned just for him. He orders a bottle of Sam Adams and keeps his eyes glued to the television in between trading barbs with me.

I can handle him. It’s his version of dipping my pigtails into the ink to get my attention. But here’s the kicker.

Lately he has more of my attention than I’d like him to have.

Remember when I described Gregg and couldn’t quite put the pieces of his face together? Davis Price is another beast. You could blindfold me and I could describe him to one of those artists who draw criminals, and it’d be like looking at a photo of Davis when he was done.

See? Too much attention.

The coping mechanism I’ve chosen is antagonism.

“Another?” I sweep by him, clean glasses in hand, and set them upside down on a shelf behind the bar. The key is to pretend that a shiver of awareness didn’t just shock the air between us when I swept by.

“Yeah,” he answers, eyes on the TV. Despite his fine visage being burned in my memory, I take advantage of his averted attention to check him out while I uncap his beverage.

He wears his standard attire: a pressed, expensive suit. He’s tall yet fills out the jacket with a set of deceptively strong shoulders. I’ve seen them for myself on the rare occasion when he slips that jacket off—the way his rounded muscles press against a crisp oxford shirt. I’ve never considered myself a “shoulder girl,” but laying eyes on his physique has a way of making me wonder what he might look like not wearing pressed cotton.

Not wearing anything.

Davis’s hair is in sandy brown disarray like someone just ran her fingers through it in every direction. Given that he’s not shy about taking a woman home from McGreevy’s, that’s not surprising. But I’d like to think he did it himself, while hunkered over his office desk, working hard to crunch the numbers as a…whatever he does with stocks. I glance at the television and the scrolling numbers.

Gibberish to me.

I plunk the beer bottle down in front of him. I don’t ask him if there’ll be anything else, because if there is, he’ll yell. I’ve made it halfway to the sink when I hear him do just that.

“Gracie Lou!”

That’s not exactly my name. Grace is my name. He added the flair. Gracie Lou has a cute dinerish sound to it, doesn’t it? The nickname has the added bonus of reminding me why I don’t see Davis as even a Mr. Right Now. The expiration date with us has already passed. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

I turn to look over my shoulder and find his full lips pulled into a frown. His thick, dark brows center over smoky gray eyes. This grouchy expression does little to dampen his attractiveness.

When he doesn’t say more, I sigh and pace back to him. That’s new. I never go to him unless it’s on my time.

Or maybe I’m overanalyzing.

“Your hair’s different.” He’s still frowning.

“So?” It takes everything in me not to reach up and touch the ringlet I can see out of the corner of my eye. I don’t need Davis’s approval just because I bought a new curling iron and soft-hold hairspray I wanted to try out.

“So?” He tilts his head and his frown deepens. “You have a date or something?”

Ah, this will be fun. I give him a slow, devil-may-care blink and smirk. “Maybe.”

I don’t have a date unless I give Two-Dollar Gregg a call. I go on dates every once in a while. The men I date stick around at least twice as long as Davis’s flavor of the week, but he’s got me lapped in frequency.

Davis nods, sips his beer, and rakes a glance down my rhinestone T-shirt and tight black jeans. The rhinestones match the glinting diamond stud in my right nostril. Oh, and there are a few tasteful, usually hidden tattoos.

Even if Davis and I had more than a passing curiosity about each other, I know for a fact that Suit & Tie prefers his women in pearls, not rhinestones. Loose pastels, not skintight black skinny jeans; and without ornamental piercings or ink.

Oh well. At least Gregg liked me.

Davis

Excitement is overrated.

Wait. Hear me out.

Excitement has a way of hiding in sheep’s clothing. It manifests itself as a charge of recognition in the air, revving your pulse. Tingling your balls. Promising a damn good time. But underneath that damn good time there’s danger.

Which is exactly what makes excitement so exciting.

Grace Buchanan excites me.

I don’t like that Grace Buchanan excites me.

Let’s say I’ve had a brush with that type of danger. I’m not looking to get burned again. It’s like the one time you try to light the grill using too much kerosene. The reward for your stupidity is no eyebrows. So, if you’re smart, you don’t go there again.

I’m smart.

I date. A lot. The women I date are…not exciting. This is a recent epiphany, so bear with me. When I first started dating for sport, there was excitement. Then the challenge fizzled out, and what was left was predictability. Predictability is a lot of things—I’m a big fan—but predictability could never be mistaken for excitement.

The women I date are blond. They’re sophisticated and fun. They have goals and dreams and wishes and desires. But our handful of nights spent together aren’t about scratching the surface of what makes them tick. The women I date want an itch scratched, just not that one. It’s the naked, horizontal kind of itch.

I don’t get to know them and they don’t get to know me, and most of the time things end amicably—oftentimes before they get started. That’s the way it’s been for several years and it’s completely fine.

Or I should say it was completely fine.

Along came Grace and suddenly “fine” is starting to look a lot like “routine.” Routine, like predictability, isn’t negative. Routine is how I measure and live my life on a day-to-day basis. Routine I understand. Routine I can control.

I shake my head as the redheaded bartender pulls a beer tap and throws a casual glance toward the door, purposely looking past me. There’s nothing controlled or routine or predictable about that one.

Her hair is always red, but sometimes it’s auburn, other times Crayola red, other times carrot. Her clothes vary from rock-and-roll to retro to casual jeans and tee. I take that back. There are a few things about Grace that do not change. The diamond in her nose that’s too tiny to notice until it catches the light just right, and the tattoo I’ve spotted on the back of her right shoulder, trickling down her biceps on her right arm. Roses. Pink and red intermixed with a symphony of green leaves.

She’s wearing a shirt that covers every inch of the ink—

Wait.

She shifts and the corner of a leaf makes itself known. If there are more tattoos hidden under her clothes, I’ve yet to catch a glimpse of them. Unless they’re in spots inappropriate to share in public.

Fuck, that’s a nice thought.

I’ve tried convincing myself that Grace is nothing but a collection of perfect physical attributes. From shapely thighs to a mouthwatering pair of breasts to the feisty glint in her eye. Mark my words: She’s a girl who chews men up and spits them out for fun.

Grace is hot in such a way that a man could be blind in both eyes and still notice her. It’s impossible to ignore the way she carries herself. Confidence straightens her back as her gaze finds my eyes, challenging me to a staring contest she knows I’ll refuse to lose. Nothing’s as attractive as the way her voice dips to a husky alto when she’s serious or lilts into laughter when she’s not. Like when she’s giving me shit for an offside remark I lob at her.

To cope with the obvious sexual tension, we’ve devolved. She’s not interested in a stiff suit who watches CNN, and I can’t take her home. That means we can’t pound out the tension brewing between us in a marathon of sweaty, no-holds-barred sex, so instead we pick at each other like competing fowl.

Why can’t I take her home for a sex marathon, you ask? The short answer: self-preservation. The shallow answer: I don’t date redheads. I did once and decided never to go there again. DO NOT ATTEMPT may as well be tattooed across Grace’s smooth lower back. It’s not. I checked.

I’m not one of those guys who has a “type.” I understand that hair color does not the woman make. Let’s call it a preference. A component of the routine. It’s worked well for me, so why break stride?

As I think this, my eyes venture back to Grace. I never thought of myself as a superstitious guy, but for this “black cat” I’ll make an exception.

As fun as it would be to let her devour me like a praying mantis postcoitus, her brand of fiery excitement and unpredictability could disturb the smooth surface of my carefully maintained Zen. That I can’t allow. I play by my own set of rules and have for some time.

Call it a precaution that I only date blondes.

I’ll settle for skipping over the fun part of my and Grace’s relationship (sex) and bantering with her like a couple who are sick to death of each other. The problem is the banter is starting to feel a lot like foreplay, and her brand of seduction has the other girls I date paling in comparison. The last girl who shared my bed? Boring. Bo-ring.

Grace strikes me as a woman who couldn’t be boring if she tried—even if she were doing her taxes while attending a talk about investment logic for sustainability.

On second thought, I love numbers. I might find that kinky.

She struts by me again—she has to since my seat is in the dead middle of her bar—and I continue where I left off. “Where is your date taking you? Tell me it isn’t that jerk-off who wrote his phone number on the dollar bill.”

She flicks me a glance beneath a slick of black eyeliner that makes her irises appear an explosive shade of green. Or maybe it’s me who brings out that particular shade. I smile at the thought.

“Do you really think I’d date that guy?”

I don’t. She deserves better and we both know it.

“So. Where is your mystery date taking you?”

“Guess.” The catlike curve of her lips tells me she wants to play. I’m the mouse in this scenario, but what the hell? I’ll give chase.

“Domaine.” It’s the fanciest restaurant I can think of.

“Nope.” She pops her P and I watch her red mouth with a hint of jealousy for whatever louse she’s going out with tonight. I bet Gracie can kiss.

“So not a classy guy, then.” I take a drink of my Sam Adams and glance at the TV.

“If by ‘classy’ you mean uptight, no.” She surveys my suit and tie with a sneer. “Definitely not the business type.”

I smirk, plotting my comeback.

“You’re more a fan of the guy living in Mom’s basement, then? Is he taking you to a free concert at Bicentennial Park? Do you have to pay for your own drinks?”

A super slow blink precedes her comment: “Wrong again.”

She shakes her head, sending a rogue curl brushing one round, delicate cheek. I really like this look on her. Typically she wears her hair in big waves that brush her shoulders, but her curls are more pronounced today. And the way they move when she moves suggests they feel like silk.

Don’t go there.

“He lives alone,” she helpfully clarifies.

I narrow my eyes, trying to think of where to guess next. There are several options, but one stands out the most, and I don’t like it. At all.

“His house?” I grumble.

“Bingo!” She grins. “There’s nothing quite like a man who can cook, is there? I mean, unless it’s a man who knows what he’s doing”—she winks, black lashes hiding one clover green iris—“in the bedroom.” She wiggles away in a pair of black jeans hugging her ass. I grind my back teeth together. I bet every inch of her creamy, smooth skin tastes like cotton candy.

“I can cook,” I mumble as a surge of competitiveness rolls through me. I was the one who built a wall between Grace and me in the first place. It wasn’t too long ago that my buddy Vince and I were sitting here at this very bar and he told me to ask her out. Of course he had to know I wouldn’t. He assumed the obvious: redhead. But Grace’s hair color is an excuse.

It’s the rest of her that’s a risk.

Risk isn’t something I shy away from in business. My livelihood is the volatile vocation of stock analyst. I frown at my competing thoughts.

I watch Grace walk, the rhythmic sway of her hips and the gentle curve of her small shoulders producing infinite images of what she looks like out of her clothes and, say, on my lap.

She isn’t a safe risk. Something tells me if I took a shot with her, I’d ride her all the way down until I was hollow inside.

Been there. Done that. Don’t need a repeat.

“Be careful out there, Gracie Lou,” I call, but I keep my eyes on the screen overhead as the stocks scroll across the bottom. “Men are predators.”

“Aw, that’s sweet, Davis.” I like the way she says my name—in a familiar, warm way. There is something about her that suggests she’s fragile beneath her “I am woman” exterior.

She continues stacking glasses upside down on the shelf at the back of the bar, her voice going hard. “You should know better than anyone that I can handle myself.”

I do know that. I’ve seen her thwart many an advance. She’s good at it, and typically the bonehead trying to take her home doesn’t realize he’s getting a professional brush-off. Sometimes she uses the boyfriend excuse; other times she changes the subject so swiftly the dolt doesn’t know what hit him.

One hour later, I’m wondering which blow-off she’ll deliver to the braying jackass a foot from my right elbow.

“Gracie Lou,” I interrupt, waggling my empty bottle.

She’s leaning on the bar, cleavage between two perfect C-cups on display. She slides me a glance before returning her attention to the blocky guy standing in front of her. I don’t care that she’s flirting, but I don’t like being second place to a man of such low caliber.

“Gracie Lou. That’s a pretty name,” the jackass tells her, his hands gripping the bar.

“Just Grace.”

“Okay, Just Grace. I’m Just Tim.”

Of course he is. What a fucking moron. My hand tightens around the empty bottle.

“I have a bet with my pals over there”—he gestures to the dartboards, where three chinos-and-button-downs stand with their fancy IPAs in hand—“that you can tie a cherry stem into a knot with your tongue.”

“You don’t say.” Grace’s eyes flash the subtlest warning, but Tim doesn’t pick up on it.

“I say you can, and they say you can’t. If you can, and you show me right now, I’ll go over there, collect my winnings, and split them with you fifty-fifty.”

Another glance at his buddies tells me he’s lying. They’re not watching him at all, which means there’s no such bet and Tim is an asshole. Grace tilts her head as if she’s considering, but her eyes flick back to his pals. She’s figured out the same thing I have. I smother a smile with the mouth of my beer bottle and turn my attention to the TV.

Tim leans in and drops his voice, which I assume is an effort to increase his sex appeal. “There’s an even bigger tip in it for you if you do it nice and slow.”

All right. That’s it.

I’m off my barstool so fast, Tim doesn’t see me coming. He rocks in place, leaning away from my height, though he’s got me in width.

“How about she ties your dick into a knot and I’ll double whatever you’re offering?” I say, unable to take his jackassery any longer.

Tim holds both hands in front of him as a shaky smile finds his mouth. “Hey, buddy, I didn’t know she was your girl.”

I don’t confirm or deny, but I do lean closer, hovering over him until he gets my point.

“Grace, my apologies.” Tim clears his throat and tries to ignore me, which he finds challenging since I’m invading his personal space. “Just the drinks, then.”

She uncaps two bottles and he hands her a twenty-dollar bill, which Grace stuffs into the cash register, coming out with eight dollars in change. She puts the cash on the bar in front of him. Tim shifts away as he takes his beers and wisely mutters, “Keep it,” before hustling back to his friends.

I earn a smile from Grace for my bravery. We lock eyes for a lingering moment, which makes every second of that interaction worth it. When she blinks, I return to my seat. “Now can I have my beer?”

“I didn’t know I was your girl either.” Grace chuckles and serves me another Sam Adams. “I could’ve handled him.”

“The sooner he went away, the sooner I could get a refill,” I explain as I tip the bottle to my lips.

Her coy smile suggests she knows my refill wasn’t the only thing on my mind. Part of me has started to think of Grace as mine—at least in a superficial sense.

I fix my eyes on the TV, not giving her confirmation that she’s figured me out.

“Thanks, Davis.” I hear the smile in her voice.

I wait until she walks to the other end of the bar to reply.

“You’re welcome, Gracie.”