Hope on the Rocks by Annabeth Albert
One
Adam
“You picked the wrong night to be bad at drinking,” I teased the sole patron sitting at my bar on the sleepiest of Monday nights.
“I’m not bad at drinking,” the cute doctor protested.
I still thought of him as new in town, but he’d lived here well over a year at this point. With all the newbie vibes he was giving off, he’d likely never planted his ass on a barstool prior to tonight.
“Yeah, you are.” I kept my voice light and friendly but honest. He wasn’t my personal doctor, but I’d seen him around the Rainbow Cove urgent care clinic on more than one occasion. He seemed like a good guy, always attentive and detail-oriented, with an easy smile. The kind who might not take too much offense at me being typically blunt. “You looked at my drink menu for a good ten minutes before you ordered a rum and Coke, no preference as to the rum. You drink like a college kid tiptoeing through the liquor aisle. And worse, you don’t particularly seem to like what you chose.”
“Not sure I like much of anything tonight.” His mouth twisted, none of his usual smile at all. And proving my point, he winced as he took another swallow.
“I can make you a drink you’d like.” In the decade I’d spent doing various bartending gigs, I’d learned there were a lot of problems I couldn’t do a damn thing about. But I could rescue people from awful beverage choices. “It offends my soul to watch you force yourself to drink that. If it’s a buzz you’re after, I can get you there in any number of tastier ways.”
“You’re rather confident.” The doctor tilted his head, considering.
It was a nice head, full of dark-brown hair a week or two past needing a trim, the sort of shaggy Hollywood stars paid good money to achieve. He was maybe five or six years older than me, making him mid-thirties, but his face was still boyish enough to get him carded if someone hadn’t ever seen him with his white coat and stethoscope. His slim build and shorter stature made him look younger too, and his hipster glasses and preppy polo made me think of a debate-team captain all grown up.
He licked at his lower lip, and heat bloomed in my gut. Attractive patrons were fairly common, but something about this particular hot nerd absolutely worked for me. My reaction to him made it even more of a pleasure to try to coax him into a better drink choice.
I put a little extra swagger into my grin and voice. “I’ve been accused of being cocky more than once. But I come by it honestly. I recently won a bartending contest in Portland for a new distillery. Ask Mason. I got some great new spirits for the menu, and it was awesome publicity for us here.”
“Can’t turn down publicity.” Shrugging, he glanced around the almost empty restaurant. Two couples were lingering over dessert at tables near the window. Outside, it was a dreary night, colder and wetter than the early June date might suggest. Tourist season was supposed to be in full swing, but business at our little LGBTQ+ welcoming establishment could be wildly unpredictable.
“What do you say? Let me show you my award-winning skills?” I winked at him, and his cheeks colored like he wasn’t used to casual flirtation, which was damn adorable.
“I guess you can make me something different.” He pushed his barely touched drink aside and pulled out his phone, all but waving me away.
But sadly for him and his plans to drink in peace, he was the best distraction I’d had all day. Flirting with him felt good on a level I didn’t want to overthink, but I also wasn’t about to blow my chance to impress him.
“Hey, no phone,” I said in a half-teasing, half-scolding tone. “You gotta answer some questions first.”
“Do I?” He pursed his mouth, but his curious eyes said he’d play along.
“Yep.” Leaning forward, I dropped my voice like we were sharing secrets. “Now, I know you like sweet things—”
“How do you know that?” Forehead wrinkling, he gave me a comical double-take.
“Doc, I have eyes.” I was used to being underestimated, and that was okay. People never appreciated how much I saw from behind the bar. And I’d definitely noticed the doctor the couple of times he’d been in, both on his own and with coworkers from the clinic. “Every time you come in, you order something with lots of green stuff. Healthy. But you look at that dessert menu like it’s the key to a new truck. And then you sigh and pay the tab without ordering anything from it. But you want to.”
I’d been tempted on more than one occasion to comp him a treat, but there was a line between flirty bartender and weirdo stalker that I tried not to cross. Much as my body loved sexy, smart nerds like the doctor, they tended to be a little out of my league. Besides, Mason, who owned the place along with me, Logan, and Curtis, had definite opinions about trying to pick up customers. So I didn’t, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t been acutely aware of every damn time the doctor came in.
“You’re observant. I’ll give you that much.” He sighed like admitting I was right cost him more than he wanted to pay. “Yes, I like desserts. But not too sweet.” He pointed at his abandoned drink. “This is almost cloying. Not sure how I stomached it in college.”
“See? Bad at drinking.” I laughed as my brain raced through possibilities he might enjoy more. “So sweet but not too sweet. Where do you stand on coffee?”
“Hook me to a caffeine IV. Especially after I just pulled four twelve-hour shifts. However, I drink it black unless it’s truly terrible brew.”
“Admirable.” I wanted to unravel all his restraint in the worst way, indulge him. Someone like him who worked long, hard hours needed spoiling. “Life’s too short to not sprinkle in a little sugar if you ask me. Where do you stand on citrus?”
“It’s fine.” He made a vague gesture that said more than his words.
“In other words, it’s not chocolate and not your favorite. Don’t worry, Doc. I’ve got you.”
“You can call me Quinn, please. I’m off duty until Thursday.”
“Lucky you.” My own days off were few and far between, a hazard of the tavern still being relatively new, with a tight profit margin. “And I’m Adam. I think I have what you need. Give me a sec here.” I started assembling ingredients before pausing to look up. “Any nut or other allergy I should know about?”
“No. But thanks for asking.”
“No problem.” I retrieved a few things from the bar fridge. “Wanna tell me about your bad day while I mix this up?”
Quinn made a startled noise. “How did you know?”
“Observant, remember? And you’re bad at drinking, which tells me you don’t make a habit of this. I’m betting the strongest thing you have at home is red wine. Must have been a hell of a shitty day to have you here and throwing it back to your college days.”
“Maybe I just felt like a change.” Expression mulish behind those hipster glasses of his, he tilted his chin stubbornly.
“Uh-huh.” I wasn’t buying it. Prepping his glass, I kept my voice conversational. “I have a pretty strong stomach. I hunt. You can tell me if it was something gruesome while on call.”
“It’s not work.” Quinn groaned, then shook his head. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Ah. You have come to the right place then.”
Yup. I’d been correct. From the moment Quinn had slunk in and sat down, I’d pegged him as having some sort of heartache. The way relationship troubles frequently drove people to seek solace at the bar was a big reason why I tended to avoid anything long-term. I liked my drinking recreational, not medicinal.
I slid the cocktail toward him. “Here you go.”
“What is it?” He studied the glass.
It was a minor work of art, in my admittedly biased opinion. The martini glass was rimmed with sugar and cocoa, the sides decorated with two colors of chocolate syrup. After pouring the chilled vodka and liqueur, I’d finished it with a small liqueur truffle on a skewer.
“Dark-chocolate hazelnut martini. You’ll think you’re being all kinds of naughty and letting yourself have a brownie, but it’s got a nice kick too.” I waggled my eyebrows at him because, yeah, I had Quinn’s number. He wanted to indulge far more than he apparently allowed himself. I wondered what else he craved that he didn’t let himself have. More of that delicious heat gathered at the base of my spine. “And it’s not too sweet. I make the hazelnut liqueur myself from local ingredients. Good stuff. Cheers.”
He took a cautious first sip. “Oh. This is good.” His next taste was much bigger.
“Careful there. Like I said, it’s strong. Want to order something from the appetizer menu to go along with it?” It was late, and the kitchen would be closing for the night shortly, but I figured I could wheedle some truffle fries out of Horatio, who was manning the grill since Logan took an early night. Food would slow down Quinn getting drunk, giving me more time to get my flirt on.
“I’m good with the drink hitting fast.” He took another determined swallow.
“If it’s a major buzz you’re after, I’ve got a dark-chocolate White Russian recipe I’ve been perfecting lately as well. I might try that one on you next if this one doesn’t do the trick, but first, how about you tell me your plans for getting home?”
“Home?” He frowned, then licked a stray bit of chocolate on his lower lip. That curious pink tongue was slowly killing me here. “I don’t want to go home.”
“Yeah, I got that. But I can’t get you toasted and let you drive.” I had absolutely no problem helping people get smashed if that was their aim, but I drew a hard line at drunk driving.
“Oh. That makes sense.” He gave a sheepish smile. “I walked. Little farther than I thought it was, but I needed the air anyway.”
“Good job planning ahead.” Chances were very high that I’d chase down a ride for him later. Letting him stumble his way home through Rainbow Cove wouldn’t sit well with me.
“I try. Sometimes I fail.” He shook his head sadly. “Sometimes, being the one who does all the planning sucks.”
“I hear you.” I occupied myself with wiping down the bar rather than give in to the temptation to pat his hand. “This is why I try to roll with life more. Planning is an opportunity to wind up disappointed.”
I could be more honest with him than I might be with a friend because he likely wouldn’t remember specifics of our conversation.
“Yup.” After taking another long swallow, he got more insistent, tapping the bar. “I’m done making plans.”
“Uh-huh.” I highly doubted that. Anyone smart enough to make it through medical school and hold down a doctor job was not the type to suddenly become free-wheeling overnight. But I nodded because my job was to be the sympathetic bartender, not his life coach. Besides, if his change in mindset kept him from going back to whoever had caused the heartache, so much the better.
“I am,” he insisted before draining the rest of his cocktail. “Spontaneous bad decisions from here on out.”
He gave me a speculative look, almost like he was seeing me for the first time. Undoubtedly, even I looked better through vodka-soaked lenses. His lust might not be real, but my ego still liked the appraisal in his eyes, the slow way his gaze crawled over me as if he wanted to catalog each muscle group. Blood rushing south, my body was more than ready to volunteer to be the first of those choices he’d regret later, but sadly, my personal code of ethics also blared loudly. He’d already suffered some sort of emotional blow. He didn’t need a new set of reasons to hate himself in the morning. Quinn wasn’t my responsibility, and any bad decisions he wanted to make weren’t my business, yet something about him made me strangely protective, even if that meant protecting him from himself.
