She'd talked about me?
"She didn't say you were hot, though," the second woman said.
"Camille!"
Ahhh.
The best friends.
"What?" Camille said. "I'm just saying."
"No more Slutwhisperers for you," the other woman-the one I presumed to be Lani-said, reaching for her glass.
Camille leaned over and slurped the last of the drink through the straw.
That explained the name of the cocktail.
"What are you doing?" Raven asked, stopping in front of them. "Cam? Your glass is empty. Let me refill that for you." She winked to the other girl as she turned around.
What was she doing?
She put her back to her friends and grabbed the tequila bottle. She tipped it over a cocktail shaker without actually pouring anything into it. My lips quirked up as she put together what was some pink juice or something and blended it with raspberries.
She poured the mixture into a glass with some vigor in front of Camille.
She'd made her a placebo.
"Made your choice?" Raven turned to me, holding onto the shaker.
"No." I spun the menu to face her. "What do you think I should have?"
Completely straight-faced, she said, "The Blue Balls."
CHAPTER THREE
Raven
Parker blinked his dark, brown eyes at me.
I thought my suggestion was valid, but whatever.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lani smile around her straw. Sure-I'd told them that my brother was in town with his best friend and that me and his best friend didn't get along, but there were a lot of things that I didn't mention about Parker.
Mostly that he was unfairly handsome these days, because I didn't know that myself until he walked out onto my parents' porch yesterday. I didn't know that his voice was deeper and sent a shiver down my spine. I didn't know that his strong jaw was now dotted with a five o'clock shadow that only drew attention to his annoyingly pink lips. I didn't know that he now spiked his thick, dark hair at the top and left the rest to sit normally.
I didn't know that I would be marginally attracted to him...Or that I'd have to lie about how attracted to him I was.
I didn't want to be attracted to him. The only thing I had going for me right now was that my dislike for him was still overwhelmingly stronger than that tiny speck of attraction that was tickling in my tummy.
"Well?" I asked him in my most innocent voice.
"I never thought I'd say this," he said slowly in that low voice of his. "But I'll have the Blue Balls."
"Coming right up."
A smile twisted across my face so quickly I couldn't hide it in the slightest. Judging by the giggles from my friends, they couldn't control themselves either.
It wasn't often a guy asked for blue balls, after all.
I switched out cocktail shakers with one hand and measured out one and half shots of coconut rum with the other. My eyes scanned the side for the blue Curacao as I poured it in, and I hadn't even finished the pouring when I grabbed the tell-tale bright, blue bottle. One shot of that and one shot of blue raspberry sours, and the sapphire-blue liquid reflected off the sides of the shiny shaker until I dulled it with lemonade.
I added more of the lemonade than usual, since I knew he had a good forty-minute drive to get back to his parents' place. I didn't want him to be halfway home and suddenly lose concentration-like its namesake, the Blue Balls tended to hit you when you least expected it.
"Eight dollars, please." I put the glass down in front of Parker.
He slid a ten across the bar until the note tickled my fingers. "Keep the change."
"Thank you." I smiled and went to the register. That was about as polite as I could be where he was concerned. But hey, he'd been nice, too. "What do you think?" I grabbed two empty glasses from the bar.
"This is good. Is it one of yours?"
I nodded as I put them in the glass washer. "All mine."
"Has your grandmother seen this menu?"
I bit back a laugh.
"You know her grandmother?" Lani asked. "How? Wait-never mind."
"By the time their reunion is over, the entire state will know her grandmother."
I turned in enough time to catch his smirk. "No, Yia-Yia hasn't seen my menu, and you're not wrong."
"What the hell is a Yia-Yia?" Camille asked, frowning. "Is that a rash or something?"
I laughed and leaned against the bar. "No. It's a rough translation of the Greek word for grandmother. She won't be called anything else."
"You're Greek?"
"Half."