Dare Me

by Jo Leigh

  Her voice was animated and the people at the table were either interested or too stunned to stop her. When she finished her explanation, instead of asking if she could get anyone anything else, she asked, “Any questions?”

  He wanted to kiss her. Right now. In front of everyone.

  As if she could hear his grin, she turned. “You’re here already. I thought you’d be in the kitchen longer.”

  “I’m just the guy with the recipes. Everyone else does the real work around here.”

  “So did you guys go to school together or something?” someone asked.

  Cam aimed his flashlight around the table and found Manuel and Rita, bikers who’d made The Four Sisters a home away from home. “Nope. She’s a wine expert. A master sommelier, in fact. If you were smart, you’d stop drinking beer and ask her to pick you out a nice red. You won’t get better advice.”

  Rita looked up at Molly. “You got something good that’s not expensive?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the cellar.”

  “I’ll show you.” He took the pitcher from her and asked the table, “Anyone else want a glass?”

  Two other women at the table said they did. Cam was sure that said something telling about his gender, but he wasn’t going to try to figure out what tonight. “We’ll be back. Also, the power’s most likely not going to come on till morning, so don’t plan on riding out if you can’t pass the Breathalyzer.”

  This time, the bitching and moaning were about him, not the power outage.

  * * *

  MOLLY ENDED UP serving more wine than she had since she’d worked at Barndiva as an assistant sommelier. The selection of reds was good for a brewpub, but she had some ideas as to how they could make it great without it costing them an arm and a leg.

  As she made the rounds, checking on the patrons, she talked mostly about wine, which was easy for her. But she also talked about other things. Not just the lights being out, either. Maybe small talk was easier in the dark.

  She’d made a whole table laugh, and the joke had been spontaneous, about Cam. She hadn’t been mean. She wouldn’t. But everyone at the table had known him for years, and they were telling her things, and her joke just...fit.

  It wouldn’t have occurred to her that people would stay and drink during a power outage. It was hotter inside than outside, which she discovered only when Cam pulled her out the door.

  “There’s a breeze,” she said.

  He wasn’t holding her, but she knew he wanted to. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “No.”

  “Late. You should have been asleep hours ago. I haven’t looked at your schedule, but I think you’re booked from seven-thirty in the morning on tomorrow. Right?”

  “Yes, you’re right,” she said. “But it’s okay. Nobody expects a huge blackout.”

  “Let me take you upstairs, put you to bed.”

  She lifted the hair off her neck and cursed her foolishness for not putting it up ages ago. “You’re not staying with me?”

  “I want to, but there are too many drunken people for me to leave.”

  “Then I’ll stay, too. And we’ll make sure everyone gets home safely.”

  He touched her. His hand on her arm. Sliding up to her shoulder, the back of her neck. “It’s almost one. We probably won’t close for at least another hour. There’ll be taxis to call. Someone’ll probably need to drive folks home in the van, and I won’t let my dad do it, so...”

  “I’ll stay,” she said. “I’ve done all-nighters before. I didn’t die.”

  “Yeah, but anything you don’t finish tomorrow you’ll add to the pile you’ve already got for the next day. You can’t work like that. I’m worried you’ll fall over in the middle of a meeting and I won’t be there to catch you.”

  She pulled his hand down and held it. “Thank you, but I don’t think I can sleep right now. I’m too wired. You realize you’re going to have to restock your wine stores. And did I tell you I had them pay for every glass? I had to make change, but Ruby helped. I think Amber’s pissed because Ruby was supposed to be helping her. Also, um, I’m pretty sure Ruby’s drunk.”

  He laughed. “I heard you were telling jokes about me. Do I want to know what you said?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Okay. Nothing’s sacred around here anyway. Thanks about the money. I hope they all tipped you well.”

  “I kept those in a separate pocket, so we can give them to the staff. I only saw a few of them leave. Are they always this loyal?”

  “They’re family. We stick together—in baseball, in blackouts. Anything beginning with a B.”

  She raised his hand to her lips. “We’ll see the night through, and I’ll cancel my first meeting. It’s with Roxanne, and everything’s going to be wonky tomorrow anyway. She won’t mind. I’ll ask her to lunch. Voilà. A solution.”

  He touched her face, lightly drawing a map across her features, and then he kissed her. Perfectly centered on her lips, his tongue slipped inside her mouth and they stood there for a long while, rocking in the faint breeze with actual, visible stars in the sky above them. God, she liked touching him. She didn’t even care that by gripping his fine ass with both hands, she was giving him a burgeoning erection.

  “What if the lights come on all of a sudden?” he said. “Everyone will know what we’ve been doing out here.”

  “It’s their own fault for staying so late. Don’t these people have jobs?”

  “Ah, now we’re talking Queens logic. The whole neighborhood will milk this blackout to death. Half of them won’t go to work today, and the other half won’t get any work done because they’ll spend the whole day talking about the blackout. Except we’ll have to work, because most of them will come in for a cold beer to hash it out again. That or they’ll stay home making babies, and there’ll be a huge uptick in births nine months from now.”

  “I see. It’s very complicated to live here, isn’t it?”

  “Not so much. Mostly, we’re a bunch of regular joes, and then there are the outliers. Great people who came from humble beginnings.”

  “Like you, you mean?” She kissed him again, didn’t want him to stop talking, though.

  “No, I mean like Simon and Garfunkel. Johnny Ramone. Lucy Liu.”

  “You’ll be on that list someday, and I’ll name-drop you every chance I get.”

  “The hell with the bar,” he said, his voice lower and closer. “Let’s go back upstairs.”

  She wanted to. But going back inside had its appeal, too. She still had her neon yellow necklace on, and that made her staff. That made her family. At least until the lights came on.

  17

  MOLLY HADN’T SEEN Cameron since the blackout. Today that would be fixed, because he was not only coming to the station to watch her radio show, but they would both be going back to her apartment for a couple of hours afterward.

  As predicted, staying at The Four Sisters through the outage had done a number on her, but she’d worked feverishly to catch up on her work since then, and finally, finally she’d be getting her reward.

  Cam had let her know he was going to arrive about fifteen minutes after the start of the show. He was so excited about being in the studio, she’d had to warn him that he’d probably get bored five minutes in.

  It didn’t mean a thing that she’d gotten dressed up, either. She always tried to look professional and nice, but this morning she’d been especially careful with her makeup, had worn her slinky green dress that made the red in her hair stand out and was even wearing the small diamond earrings Phillip and Simone had given her when she’d achieved her master-sommelier certification.

  She got herself settled in her booth and waited for things to get started, but clearly time had decided to slow to a crawl just to spite her. So
she occupied herself with wondering if Cam would be free to accompany her to the Food & Wine Festival in October. The magazine was hosting a suite at the Marriott, and Donna had said she’d be willing to let Molly stay there, even though it was Donna’s year to claim the right.

  A fancy suite in a big hotel with plenty of fantastic wine to see them through the night? It sounded like heaven.

  When she got her first call, she was still grinning. “Hi, Trisha. What kind of food are you looking to pair with wine?”

  “Wow, you sound happy, Molly.”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah. Have you been doing some wine tasting out there at WNYU?”

  “No, but great idea. I should keep a few bottles on hand. Sip away during the program. Imagine how interesting the pairing ideas would get by the end of the show.”

  Trisha laughed and Molly joined in, which wasn’t her style. In fact, Roxanne and Bobby were both staring at her as if she were drunk. Molly didn’t give them a second glance.

  “I’m having people over for fondue,” Trisha said. “I got this ancient set from my parents. I think they used it in the ’70s for parties, so I’m hosting a theme night. I should probably serve white wine, but I don’t know what kind to choose. For dessert I’m doing chocolate with fruit and marshmallows. The cheese fondue has Swiss and Gruyère cheeses, as well as white wine in it, so I’m not sure if I’m supposed to serve the same wine I cook with. And the recipe also calls for kirsch, and I don’t know what kirsch is.”

  “Is that the only savory fondue you’re making?”

  “No, I’m also doing a hot-oil one with beef and fried potatoes.”

  In the reflection of the window between her studio and the booth, Molly saw the door open behind her. Cam came in and closed it very quietly, then moved over to the couch. She couldn’t acknowledge him now, but she wasn’t able to stop her smile. “Sounds fabulous. Okay, first, kirsch is a clear fruit brandy traditionally made from double distillation of dark sour cherries. As for the wine in the cheese fondue, I’d go with a nice American Sauvignon Blanc. To serve with that, you might want something fruitier. Off dry, like a Riesling or a Chenin Blanc.”

  Molly made it through the rest of the conversation without screwing up, which was amazing, considering she never looked away from Cam’s reflection.

  When they finally went to commercial, he waited until she gave him a nod, then he spun her chair around and gave her a kiss that would fuel Bobby’s fantasies for a long time.

  Not that she wanted to think about Bobby’s fantasies. The rest of the program seemed to fly by, and even though she wanted to hear Cam’s reaction to the show, they barely spoke the whole distance to the subway. They were both too busy just being happy.

  * * *

  DRESSED ONLY IN his boxers, Cam was still too hot to put on the rest of his clothes. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to go out for dinner, but Molly had a craving for Thai curry, and there wasn’t a good place near her apartment that delivered. Hard to believe in this day and age, but if Molly wanted curry, she’d have it.

  While he waited for her to finish in the bathroom, he wandered over to take a glance at her whiteboard. His mood plummeted when he saw how little room for him there was on it. Needing a distraction, he popped open one of the cupboard doors above her bed. He half expected the door to be a facade, but it wasn’t. There was a real space behind it crammed to the hilt, mostly with toilet paper, but there were about five boxes of soap, a handful of toothbrushes in their packaging and a stack of toothpaste boxes.

  The next cupboard was equally stuffed with feminine supplies, shampoo, deodorant and cotton balls. Small as her place was, it seemed to him she’d gone overboard stocking multiples of everything. Even six bags of SweeTarts.

  He closed the cupboard doors and sat down on her bed as the revelation sank in. He’d seen this before. A friend of Emmy’s had been a foster kid and a hoarder. She used to sock away everything she could because at the group homes, the smaller kids were often left without because the older kids stole everything they could.

  He kept forgetting Molly had grown up without a family. Even given the absence of his mother, there’d never been a day in his life when he’d gone without. He hadn’t always gotten what he’d wanted, but he’d always had everything he needed.

  When his gaze traveled back over to her impossible schedule, written across the whiteboard that was the most important piece of furniture in the room, it made a new kind of sense. She wasn’t just ambitious for the sake of getting writing awards and good press. She was building a foundation for the rest of her life.

  Here he was, with choices everywhere he looked. A secure future with a major pharmaceutical firm. A guaranteed job working for the family business. He had access to excellent medical care, a retirement plan, a savings account.

  How much could Molly be making at each of her jobs? Enough to stock up on essentials, but not quite enough for healthy meals? Definitely not enough that she could afford to stand still for more than a few minutes.

  It was a hell of a wake-up call. He absolutely couldn’t ask her to change her plans so often. From this moment onward, she would call the shots, and when she had time for him, he’d be damn glad of it.

  The urge to rescue her was strong, though. To make sure she had enough money every week, to never let her go through another day being scared that she wouldn’t have enough.

  But she wouldn’t want that. Not charity. He just had to take one look at her work ethic. A person like her would be insulted at the very thought.

  But screw it—they weren’t going dutch anymore. No matter how much she insisted.

  The door opened, and his heart swelled seeing her walk out in her underwear. Nothing fancy. Of course they wouldn’t be fancy.

  * * *

  HER OFFICE AT Wine Connoisseur wasn’t really her office so much as a spare office, but it didn’t matter. They had few full-time employees, and most of them concerned themselves with the online side of things. Molly figured they’d soon stop publishing the print copies altogether, except perhaps an annual issue.

  She finished off her column about the Fairview South African Cyril Black Shiraz, and halfway through her second read, her mind switched to Cameron and the last time she’d seen him. It was only three days ago, but it had been a quickie lunch break at her place. Three days was too long. Even though they spoke on the phone every chance they had, it wasn’t enough.

  Catching up with work had been harder than she’d expected, mostly because she was having trouble focusing. It wasn’t just the lack of sleep that sent her mind wandering. It was Cam.

  She missed him. A phone call would be wonderful, but she wanted to write at least one more column in the next hour, then grab some lunch on the way to her afternoon classes at NYU. It continued to get more difficult to shrink him, though. She’d long ago given up the idea of stuffing him away in her thought box, not since he’d become larger than life to her. That was a weird and troubling thought she had no time to analyze.

  The knock on the office door stole her attention. “Come in,” she said, expecting to see Donna.

  Instead, Phillip and Simone walked in, and Molly thought she must have fallen asleep. She had to be dreaming because they couldn’t be here. Not on a Friday morning in the East Village.

  “Surprise,” Simone said.

  Oh, God. Molly rushed to give them kisses on both cheeks. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’ve got some appointments in New York, and next Sunday we’re off to California,” Phillip said. “I’m going to tour some new vineyards on the North Coast. But we were hoping you could have lunch with us now. We’ve got things to talk about.”

  Lunch. Now. It would mean sending her copy to Donna quickly and skipping another column, which would seriously put a dent in her night, but there was no way she could say no. “Of co
urse. Let me send this column off and we can leave. Did you have anywhere in mind?”

  “We have reservations at La Birreria in twenty minutes,” Simone said, and it was so wonderful to hear her voice.

  “I’ll hurry.”

  After quickly tying things up in the office, she found herself in a taxi, hating that she was in the front seat and unable to hear what was going on in the back, but soon enough they were inside the huge gourmet marketplace that was Eataly. Another short, subdued trip in the elevator to the beer garden on the roof, and they found their table was ready. Of course, they’d made the reservation for three, assuming, rightly, that Molly would drop everything as soon as they invited her.

  “Where are you staying?” she asked, as Phillip looked over the wine list. She already knew that she’d have the soup and share the antipasto.

  “Mondrian Soho. But that’s not important. Phillip,” Simone said, “tell her.”

  “Un moment,” he said, his French pronunciation almost as good as Simone’s, then turned his attention to the waitress.

  Molly didn’t even hear his order, she was so curious about what it was they had to say. She couldn’t imagine what it could be. They wouldn’t be moving back to New York; the business was too successful in France. Perhaps they were going to give her a belated gift?

  Finally, they were alone again, and from the smiles the two of them kept giving each other, Molly’s heart raced with anticipation.

  “We’ve been very impressed with your last few columns,” Phillip said.

  She blushed. Phillip never bothered with flattery. Neither of them did. If something was good, they said so, and if it wasn’t, they let her know that, too. “Thank you.”

  “It was no surprise to us that you won the wine-writing award. We’ve also heard good things about you from some of our associates. Your radio show is very popular, and you’re becoming a sought-after speaker and judge.”

  Molly’s chest tightened and it was all she could do not to let the heat behind her eyes turn into tears. This was so much better than them sending a car for the banquet.