Page 26 of A Certain Appeal
His smile spreads. “I look forward to it.”
Wickham is already at the bar when I arrive. He raises his glass, a Manhattan, if I had to guess, beckoning me over.
“Hold up.” He halts me with a high palm, then does a double take. “I’m sorry, I had a clever setup for conversation, but you’ve thrown me off with this—” He points to my dress.
I cast a glance at my reflection in the gold-framed mirror behind the bar. While the pale blue retro sundress was perfectly subdued with the cropped cardigan I had on earlier, I opted to go without the layer for drinks. Now the keyhole opening between the bust and the waistline is visible. Ditto the triangular patch of skin it exposes.
I press a hand to the knot at my bust. “This old thing?”
He lets out a low whistle of approval. “Damn. That’s all I can say. Now!” He knits his fingers together and rests them on the bar top. “Back to my clever conversational setup. What was the most valuable lesson you got from that phone etiquette video?”
“Angling for my secrets?” I take the seat next to him, then reach below the bar to hang my purse as I give the bartender my order. Ruin is known for their frozen drinks, dispensed from a giant slushy machine. Today’s offering is a mint-green gin concoction.
Wickham gestures to indicate the drink will go on his tab. I nod my thanks.
“Just one tip?” he asks.
“Smile during your greeting.” I grin for emphasis. “The caller will hear the smile in your voice. Even if you’re faking it.”
He claps, laughing. “I’m going to steal that. So, Liz Bennet.” He stirs his drink with his straw. “Short for Elizabeth, I presume?”
“One of my many names, yes. Thank you,” I say, accepting my drink from the bartender. “Cheers.” I raise my glass, and Wickham taps his to it.
He arches a brow as he takes a drink. “I’m sticking a pin in that ‘names’ business, because I have a feeling there’s a story there. Where are you from, Ms. Many Names? You carry yourself like a native New Yorker, though something about that doesn’t feel right. Maybe your willingness to fake a smile?”
This gets a real smile. “New Yorkers get a bad rap on the attitude thing. They prefer expedience. But you’re right,” I continue. “I’m from Colorado.”
“What brought you here?”
A pang of anxiety lances through my chest. “I needed a change,” I say, the reason accurate, if weak.
He nods. “Rocky Mountains to skyscrapers would be a contrast.”
“It would.” The thread of conversation snags on Jane’s insistence about opening up, and I let it pull up a qualifier.Be brave.“But I was in LA at the time.”
“Oh yeah? Nice. What were you there for?”
The anxiety winds through my rib cage, and I take a longer pull than necessary from my drink. I wince at the resulting brain freeze.Being brave is hard. No wonder it took Jane a controlled substance and a knock on the noggin. “Work, mostly.”
“Gracing another office with your excellent phone etiquette?”
Another out. This one grazes my pride, and I shake my head. “No. I was at an architecture and design firm. It’s what I went to grad school for.”
He leans away, looking me up and down as if to assess me in light of this new information. “You’re an architect?”
“Interior design. I won an internship my last semester and it took me to LA.”
“Nice. Are you just at Toby’s while you look for a design job, then?”
“The internship endedbadly.” The words come out more easily than I’d have expected, if I’d ever expected myself to say them at all.
A sympathetic tug appears between Wickham’s eyebrows, and the tension relaxes its grip on my shoulders. He aims a finger gun my way. “I have something for that. Shot?”
I feign horror. “On aWednesday?”
“It’s after five. And your face got so sad.”
“A reposado, then. Tonurse.”
