“Oh, I know you could. I also know that you, Jonathan Pace, are all talk.”
Johnny winked. “Not when it comes to my lady.”
With a kiss on the back of her head, he left Lola standing at the curb. She slung the towel over her shoulder. The two cars took the pavement in a fury of screech and burn, and what followed was a rare moment of silence. Sunset Strip was always busy, but every year the crowd at Hey Joe thinned a little more.
Lola turned to go back inside. Everyone had cleared the sidewalk except one man, who was watching her. He stood by the door with a hip slightly cocked and his long arms straight at his sides, as if he’d been passing by and hadn’t meant to stop. Even in the dark, she was struck by his movie-star good looks—chocolate-colored hair styled into a neat wave, a jaw so sharp it could cut metal. She might’ve guessed he’d accidentally wandered over from a film premiere on Hollywood Boulevard, except that he was too buttoned up and stiff.
“You lost?” she asked.
He straightened his back. “What gives you that impression?”
“If you’re looking for happy hour,” she said, pointing west noncommittally, “try a few blocks down.”
“There’s no happy hour here?” He checked the lit, orange sign on the roof. “At Hey Joe?”
“Not the kind you’re looking for.”
He touched the perfectly done red knot of his tie. “It’s the suit, isn’t it? I look out of place.”
She moved closer, pulled by the deep lull of his voice. The LED beer logos in the window turned the lingering smoke multi-colored. His deep-set eyes were dark, his jaw abrupt in all its angles. She had to tilt her head back to look up at him. His attractiveness sank its teeth in her, more obvious with every passing second. “Not just the suit.”
“What then?” He ran his fingers through his stiff, rust-colored hair. He had so much of it that the gesture made some strands stand on end. “That better?”
It was that he was too much—his green, almond-shaped, watchful eyes, and his tall, straight back. He didn’t match the carefree laughs and imperfect postures of the people inside the bar. He turned them into commoners, with their round faces, round eyes, round bellies. It was that until that moment, she’d thought she knew what it meant to get butterflies.
But she couldn’t say those things. “We just don’t see a lot of suits at this end.”
“You work here?” he asked.
Lola stuck her hands in the pockets of her apron. “Not like I wear this thing to make a fashion statement.”
His loud laugh almost startled her. When he stopped, it echoed. He looked from her neck down, everywhere and all at once, as if he might reach out and touch her. His perusal made her feel exposed, and she was glad her apron subdued the cropped T-shirt and leather pants underneath it.
“You really did a number on that car,” he said, his eyes back at her face.
Lola didn’t embarrass easily, but there was no denying the sudden warmth in her cheeks. Wherever this man came from, people didn’t kick cars there. “You must think I’m a real class act.”
“Doesn’t matter what I think.”
“I guess that’s a yes then.” She shrugged, because he was right—he was a stranger. She did things like that all the time in front of customers, new and old. Then again, none of them had ever given her butterflies.
He turned his head toward the door so his profile, straight and clean like his suit, was backlit by the sign. A face as handsome as his almost seemed predatorily arranged to disarm prey. “That was your boyfriend?”
“Who, Johnny?”
He looked back at her. “Ponytail and Zeppelin T-shirt. Big guy.”
She shifted on her feet. “How do you know he’s not my husband?”
“You aren’t wearing a ring.”
She balled her hands, which were still in her apron. The man stared at her longer than was appropriate, but she wasn’t ready to look away. That was why she had to. “I should get back to work.”
He nodded. “So should I.”
She glanced around the block. There weren’t any offices nearby.
Before she could ask, he said, “I was actually on my way in for a drink with some colleagues. I’m here on business.”
“Here?” she asked. “This bar?”
He turned and pulled open the door. “This very one. After you, Miss…?”
Light slivered onto the sidewalk. From the bar came a soundtrack of snapping pool balls, glass bottoms on tabletops, men arguing. “Lola,” she said, then amended, “Lola Winters” because he looked like a man who dealt in last names.
“Lola.” He smiled up to his dusky-green eyes. “Beau Olivier. Nice to meet you.”
She didn’t move right away. She liked the closeness of him. “Sounds French, but you don’t.”
“I’m not. My father was,” he said. “I grew up here.”
“Was?”
“He passed away.”
“I’m sorry,” Lola said.
“It was a long time ago. C’est la vie.”
“C’est la vie,” she repeated.
He looked at her expectantly. For a moment, she’d forgotten they were about to go inside. She cleared her throat and walked through the door. Hey Joe’s interior was booths mutilated by cigarette burns older than Lola, and black and muddied-white checkered linoleum flooring. A neon-pink mud flap girl watched over the crowd from behind the stage. They were things Lola only thought about once in a while when she considered reupholstering, replacing or removing them. But she thought about them then.
“What can I get you?” she asked over her shoulder as she walked.
“Scotch, neat.”
“Preference?”
“Macallan if you’ve got it.”
She stooped behind the bar. “That isn’t on special, Beau,” she teased.
He smiled again. “I like the way you say my name.”
“Yeah, well. So does Johnny.”
Beau joined two other men at the bar—the ones who’d snickered on the sidewalk earlier. They were younger than Beau, younger than Lola even, in T-shirts and flannels, jeans and sneakers. She would
n’t have looked twice at them if they’d come in without Beau.
Lola made his drink, glancing at him from under her lashes. He’d loosened his tie. She noticed things about him she hadn’t in the dark—the early shadow of stubble forming on his cleft chin, fine lines around his eyes, dimples that hugged his smile like parentheses. He’d called Johnny big, but Beau likely surpassed him in height.
Beau walked back to her end of the bar. She gave him his Scotch.
“Is it just me, or does alcohol taste better on a Friday?” he asked.
“See those guys?” She nodded at Quartz and the others posted in their usual spot. “Tastes the same every day of the week to them.” She watched them as if looking through a window into her life. It didn’t matter the day, their conversations ran a loop of the same topics. That kind of thing was standard around there. “Bottomless glasses, arguing about bullshit. I still don’t know how they function day to day when they’re here drinking four, five nights a week.”
She turned back to Beau. He’d been staring at her profile and flinched when she caught him, but he didn’t look away. He lowered his drink on the bar.
“What?” she asked, busying her hands by filling the sink with dirty glasses.
“Nothing.”
“Not nothing.” She turned on the faucet and squeezed dish soap into the water. “I’ve seen that look before.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
She glanced up. “Looks like that lead to trouble.”
“Probably. I’m not good at keeping my opinion to myself, though.”
She paused. Warm water rose up her forearms. Instinct told her to ignore the comment. She’d done a good job of staying out of trouble since coming to Hey Joe. It’d been a while since anyone besides Johnny had looked at her that way, though. With some hesitation, she asked, “What’s your opinion?”
He squinted at her. “You move around this bar like you’ve been doing it for years. But something doesn’t quite click. I’m wondering how you got here.”