“You don’t want that to be you.” Hmmm. The bartender had hidden depths. Ambition.
“Something like that.” She pushed the glass back toward him. “So thanks anyway. I’ll comp you this one.”
He refrained from saying that he didn’t think Edward would appreciate her comping him a forty dollar glass of scotch. “Well, it’ll be here if you change your mind.”
“You know what you want to eat?” she asked.
He looked down the bar at Alana, who was texting so fast her fingers were a blur. “Why don’t you go do a shift on ant patrol, and I’ll decide by the time you come back?”
When she returned, the bar was filling up, both with customers and with servers placing and fetching drink orders. Because Cassie was busy—and so was he, he reminded himself—he ordered quickly and tried to lose himself in his work.
She didn’t interrupt him, just slid his dinner into an empty spot among his papers and smiled in response to his thanks. She appeared a moment later with a wine bottle. “May I recommend a medium-bodied Pinot with your meal? It’s a limited edition.”
“Thank you,” he said, appreciating her ability to pour the perfect amount freestyle, just as she had yesterday with the water for his scotch. He glanced down to the other end of the bar, which Alana had long since vacated. “Ants all sorted out?”
“Yeah,” she laughed. “She’s the owner’s daughter. I help her with math sometimes.”
And then she was back to work. She looked like a dancer, executing each movement, whether it be opening a bottle of wine, wiping up a spill, or making an elaborate girlie drink with a dozen ingredients with efficiency and grace. Orders and requests came steadily at her, but she never lost track of what she was doing. It was a different view of the restaurant from here. There was a vibrancy, bordering on frenzy, at the bar that one didn’t see in the dining room. And Cassie was the eye of the storm, pivoting, pouring, smiling.
The buzz had an oddly calming effect. Or maybe that was the scotch—it really had been superb. Either way, he found himself able to tackle the rows of numbers in front of him with a focus he usually lacked. Working steadily, he made it halfway through April—he thought. Well, only eight and a half more months to go. And, Jesus, that was just this year. When he thought of it like that, instead of breaking it down into finite tasks he needed to perform, he got that clawing panicky feeling. It started in his stomach, just like it always had. He could close his eyes and be back in third grade, clutching a piece of chalk and staring at a blackboard that might as well have been covered in Chinese for all the sense he could make of it.
“Can I bring you anything else?” Cassie’s appearance pulled him back to the present. The bar was empty. The din he’d noticed earlier had fallen off dramatically. He glanced down at his watch. Nearly eleven thirty—more time had passed than he’d realized.
“I’m not keeping you here, am I?” he asked. “But, no, because you just up and leave when you’re ready, right?” he teased, thinking of last night, when she’d left seemingly in the middle of a shift.
She looked embarrassed—she was easy to tease. “You’re referring to my untimely departure last night.” He dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I had a final exam this morning. I’d arranged with Edward to take off early last night. He’s good that way.”
Not a lifer. “What are you studying?”
“Math. At the University of Toronto.”
“Ah, the ants.” Damn. A mathematician. A hot mathematician. Rules, he reminded himself.
“Yeah! Well, at the rate I’m going, I feel like an ant myself.”
He raised his eyebrows, hoping to encourage her to continue.
“Let’s just say it’s taking me a long time to get through school. I can only go part time. Extremely part time. I’m practically a senior citizen compared to some of my classmates.”
She didn’t seem that old to him. Not an eighteen-year-old fresh from high school, no, but she had an air of innocence about her he suspected most university students—even those younger than she—did not.
“Well, good for you.” He eyed her as he gathered up his papers. She did look tired. Not that she looked bad, far from it, just that more of her hair was out of her bun than in it, and her white shirt was stained. Disheveled was the word, really. She looked like she’d worked hard tonight, like she needed a foot rub and a stiff drink. An image flashed unbidden in front of his eyes—why did this keep happening?—of her reclining on his bed, eyes closed in ecstasy, sipping a scotch while he kneaded the soles of her feet.