Page 41 of The Locked Door

The waitress returns at that moment with my Old Fashioned. She places the drink down on the table in front of me without much fanfare. I can’t help but notice how she smiles at Brady and even touches his shoulder as she says hello. He’s polite to her, but clearly not that interested. I don’t know why he seems so focused on spending time with me when he could have any other girl in this bar.

I reach for my Old Fashioned and take a sip, aching for that warm, good feeling. But instead, I nearly spit it out.

“Ugh!” I say out loud. “This is awful!”

The waitress overheard me because she’s still lingering nearby, trying to talk to Brady. She looks over and shrugs. “Sorry. That’s how the new guy makes them.”

“It’s too bitter.” I push the glass away from me. “He made itincorrectly.”

Brady smiles crookedly. “No worries. I’ll make you a new one.”

“You don’t have to do that,” the waitress tells him. “Your shift is over.”

“I don’t mind.”

Before I can say another word, he has whisked my glass away and he’s behind the bar. I watch him talking to the bartender, explaining how to make the drink. I wonder where he learned how to mix drinks. He seems pretty good at it, considering most of his career was spent working in Silicon Valley.

A minute later, he returns with a new glass and places it down in front of me. He waits for a moment while I take a sip. Naturally, it’s perfect. Perfectly sweet and bitter.

Just the way my father used to drink it.

“Thanks so much,” I say.

“My pleasure.”

He nods at me, then he turns and starts walking towards the exit. I bite down on my lower lip hard enough that I’m certain I must be drawing blood. I know I’m making a mistake, but I call out, “Brady!”

He freezes. Turns around. “Yes?”

I take a deep breath. “Actually, I think Iwouldlike some company.”

A slow smile spreads across his face. Without any hesitation, he comes back to the booth and slides into the seat across from me. “I was hoping you would say that.”

I allow myself to smile back. “For the record, I’m pretty sure you could go home with that waitress anytime you want.”

“Maybe.” He keeps his eyes on me, without looking at the waitress. He knows what I mean. “But I’m much more interested in you.”

“I see…” I take a sip of the Old Fashioned. He made it even better than last time. “So you like a challenge then.”

“No. That’s not what it is.”

“Then what?”

He picks up the napkin in front of him and starts playing with it. “I just never entirely stopped thinking about you since college.”

I laugh out loud. “Oh, come on.”

“I mean it! The one that got away, et cetera, et cetera.”

“We only dated for three months.”

“Yeah, but…” He makes a little tear in the napkin. “I know we didn’t seem to have a lot in common. I mean, I was a computer dork and you were gung-ho premed. But I just feel like weconnected. I know that sounds silly, but that’s how I felt.”

Right, and what does that say abouthimthat he connected with someone like me?

He lifts a shoulder. “I never really felt that way about anyone else after we broke up.”

“Never?”