Page 13 of Single Malt

I was far from a whiskey connoisseur, but I had sampled some a time or two. Alcohol in various forms showed up in cultures all across the world. Understanding that aspect of a country’s culture was more important than a lot of people realized. When I first realized that whiskey was on the list, I’d thought that I’d need to do some research for this particular product, but Dr. Ipres had surprised me by providing a name.

“Shannon’s,” I said the name out loud.

I wondered where the name came from. Could’ve been a wife or mom or girlfriend, or the person who’d named it could’ve named it after herself. Or himself. While not common in America, Shannon could be a guy’s name. I’d satisfy my curiosity later, though. Dr. Ipres had the number written down too. Wherever she’d found this Shannon’s, it’d made quite an impression on her.

I dialed the number, and since Aline was at a meeting with her advisor, I put the phone on speaker.

“Good afternoon, Shannon’s. How may I help you?” The woman’s voice was bright and professional, a good combination.

“Hi, my name is Freedom Mercier, and I’m calling on behalf of Stanford University.”

“Oh!” The excitement in the woman’s voice surprised me. “Let me get Mr. McCrae on the line. He’s been waiting to hear from you.”

Even if she’d waited to put me on hold, I was too confused to be able to think of a single thing to say. I had no idea who this Mr. McCrae was or why he’d be waiting to hear from me. My mind raced, trying to figure it out, so I wasn’t off-balance when Mr. McCrae came on the line. Perhaps Dr. Ipres had mentioned something to him about reaching out for an event or two in the future. That was the only logical answer I could think of.

“Freedom?”

I froze. All of me. Every single cell. Including my brain. I couldn’t think because I didn’t want to think because that would mean I’d have to actually acknowledge what I’d heard.

“Freedom?” The man I couldn’t possibly know cleared his throat. “Miss Mercier?”

The hesitation in his voice helped me regain some sense of equilibrium, at least enough for me to speak. “Mr. McCrae?”

Not that I had anything intelligent to say, apparently.

“You can call me Brody.”

Shit.

His voice was even, not a hint of emotion in it, and I knew it was because he wasn’t one hundred percent positive that I was the woman he’d screwed. The odds were in his favor, of course, since I didn’t have a common name and I’d said I was from Stanford. Maybe he didn’t want to make the assumption and be wrong…or maybe he was giving me the choice about whether or not we’d acknowledge that we knew each other.

I wasn’t going to let us both be awkward or have to tell Dr. Ipres that I couldn’t get the whiskey she wanted because I was too cowardly to face someone with whom I’d had two sexual encounters.

“I’m okay with using first names if you are,” I managed to say.

“All right.” There was relief in those two words. “I have to admit, I’m a little surprised to hear from you. I wasn’t aware you worked with Dr. Josephs.”

I frowned. “I’m not following. I’m calling on behalf of Dr. Cicily Ipres. She’s having an art exhibit and gave me the name Shannon’s as the place to order whiskey for the event.”

“Huh.” After a brief pause, he spoke again, “I was at the New Year’s Eve party at the invitation of Dr. Josephs because I’m trying to negotiate a contract to be the whiskey provider for any university functions.”

I suddenly remembered how that first kiss had tasted like fine whiskey.

Shit.

“She and Dr. Josephs are friendly, so that’s probably how she has your name.” I pulled myself together. This was business. That was all. “Shall we discuss the art exhibit?”

Nine

Freedom

I glaredat the offensive wall and wondered if Dr. Ipres would be opposed to me taking a sledgehammer to it. Accent walls were a thing. I understood that.Thiswall, however, was less of an accent and more of an assault.

What had, up until last week, been a perfectly average space with tasteful ecru walls was now three walls of a decent burnt orange color…and one Pepto-Bismol pink. Personally, I thought the orange was too dark for the space, but at least it wasn’t, well, hideous.

“Is this an American thing?” Karina asked as she sidled up to me. She had a two-hour break between her morning and afternoon classes and had decided to ‘help’ me with the art exhibit preparation.

Lucky me.