Page 10 of The Wife
“Yes, I will happily buy you your first beer. Or wine. Or cooler. Whatever it is you drink.”
I shrugged. I didn’t know what I “drank”. Other than spiked punch and eggnog at Christmas, the only time I’d had a real drink was the day after the kiss… I meant the storm. The storm was the bigger event that day.
It burned my throat the whole way down.
The drink. Not the kiss.
“What if I like wine?”
“What of it?”
“You’re a beer guy.”
“So?”
Right. That was stupid. Just because he was a beer guy didn’t mean I needed to be a beer girl. It’s just that I always figured Jake would be the kind of guy to like hanging out with a girl who could sit back and drink beer with him.
Where a girl who drank wine he might consider snobby.
“What did Janet drink when you guys used to go out?”
He looked up at me like I was crazy. “Why are you asking about Janet?”
I shrugged. “I’m curious. When you guys went out, what did she drink?”
“She liked beer. Shots every once and a while, tequila. But mostly beer.”
See. Jake had previously been with a beer girl. I was drinking beer tonight no matter what.
He had a small smile around his mouth.
“What?” I asked.
“I think I always knew it,” he muttered.
“What?” I demanded.
“I think you’re a wine girl. I can feel it.”
“I’m not!” I insisted. Ridiculously. This was the stupidest conversation ever. AndIwas not the type of girl who drank something or ate something because the guy I was with liked the same thing.
It was horseshit. You were who you were, you liked what you liked.
“Okay, so maybe I am. I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see tonight when I try both.”
“That’s fine. We’ll see. But I’m still going with wine.”
I had the urge to stick my tongue out at him, but we were in a really fancy place and I was an adult now so I resisted.
* * *
Beer was gross. Cold white wine was delicious. I hated that Jake was right, but as I said I wasn’t going to change what I liked to match what he liked. After all Jake loved blondes, and at best my hair could be called honey brown. It’s not like I was going to dye it.
Wait, should I dye it?
Ugh. Boys. They messed with my thinking. Or at least Jake did.
We were at Pete’s and I have to say it was a little strange. When we walked in a lot of my friends from high school were there, but I sort of stuck by Jake’s side. I didn’t want to leave him to hang by himself and, well… I didn’t want to leave him. We were having a really nice night hanging out together.
