The bar grew quiet just as our drinks were delivered. I slammed mine back and ordered another round right as Jason Jones—or at least who I thought was Jason Jones—settled on the stage. It had to be him. I was a lover of women, but this guy was very good-looking. I shrank into my seat and sipped my whiskey while Jason crooned onstage. Thankfully, his eyes didn’t wander over to Samantha once. The whole time, he seemed to be singing to a beautiful redhead seated next to us.
“I think that’s his wife,” I whispered in Samantha’s ear, nudging her to look.
“I think you’re right. Look at how he’s looking at her! That is so dreamy. She’s glowing!”
“That’s because her hand is on her belly. Look! Either she ate too many hot wings or she is carrying his little rock star in there.”
“Oh my word! That is the cutest!” Samantha’s lips turned up in a smile that quickly faded. She gazed back toward the stage.
“Do you want children one day?” I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to me.
“I thought I’d have them by now, but it’s getting too late for me to have the big family I pictured. I want about five kids, which means I needed to start two years ago.”
I grabbed the side of the table as my body did some weird, involuntary convulsion.
“Sorry! Felt a tickle on my leg. Thought it was a spider! Must have been the table skirt.” I flagged the waiter down and ordered another whiskey.
“Do you want kids?” She turned to me.
Uh-oh. I could feel that this was part of the interrogation.
Don’t fuck it up. Don’t fuck it up.
I took off my jacket. The whiskey was making it unbearably hot in here.
“Ten. I want ten of those suckers.” I raised my brows and locked my eyes on hers. This whiskey was going to get me nothing but child support. Rum wouldn’t have done this to me—not Fleur-De-Lis.
“You are so full of it!” She laughed.
That was good. At least I had gotten a laugh … and maybe set myself up for a zoo of children or a family circus. Ba-dum-ch!
We watched Jason Jones sing for the next two hours while we ate, made small talk, and drank. Mostly me. It was me doing the drinking. Ever-so-proper Samantha milked her wine. I’d never dated a woman as smart as Samantha before, and here I was, calming my nerves by getting hammered with whiskey and quite possibly setting myself up for disaster. Spoiler alert: I was a disaster.
“So, what do you do in your free time? What has been keeping Ms. Masson busy?” I switched my drink to water and got the check. The energy in the room was too much for drunken Phantom Man. My forehead broke out in a sweat.
“I’ve been looking at homes lately. That’s what’s been keeping me busy.”
“Homes? As in you want to buy one?” I patted the napkin across my forehead.
“My apartment is old, and the walls are paper-thin. I want a place with a yard and preferably at least an arm’s length from a neighbor.”
“Where is it you’re looking?”
“Lakeview. There’re two there I’m debating on.”
“Lakeview? I own a home over there! Well, technically, it’s the family home, but I have access to it. I rarely go there though. Want to go check it out?” I hiccuped and took another sip of my water.
“Sure. As long as you’re good. You seem a little … drunk.” She grinned up at me.
I grabbed her palm and pulled it up, bringing the back of her hand to my lips.
“No worries. I’m fine,” I lied. Even I, drunky Victor Beaumont, was worried.
“All right, Voodoo Victor. Let’s apparate to Lakeview.”
“Isn’t that a Harry Potter reference?”
“Score brownie points for you! Your trial is going well! But if you puke on my shoes, that’s an automatic disqualification.”
She wrapped her arm around me as we walked back to the limo. I didn’t know if she wanted to get closer to me or if she was trying to keep me from falling.
Damn these nerves and damn that whiskey.
I let her crawl into the limo first, partly because I was a gentleman but mostly because I wanted to see her ass in the air. Her form-fitting dress hugged her curves in a way that should have come with a warning label.
“Your champagne is chilled and waiting on you, Mr. Beaumont,” the driver said before closing the door.
“Champagne? You got champagne?” Samantha asked, reaching over to the fridge tucked away on my side of the limo. “What kind is it? I was reading about champagne and about how not all sparkling wine can be called champagne. Did you know it has to be from the Champagne region to be labeled champagne?” She pulled the bottle from the bucket in the fridge. “Dom Perignon! You got Dom Perignon? I guess you really are trying hard tonight, aren’t you?”
“Just a special bottle for a special lady. Here, let me open it.” I took the bottle from her hands and twisted the cap off like my parents had taught me to do when I was twelve. Some things they hadn’t taught in school. I poured us two glasses, realizing I didn’t need any more to drink, but how could I let her drink alone? Also, I was still on her watch, and champagne made me fun and bubbly. Get it? I laughed to myself, hiccuping.
“You sure you want more to drink?” She lowered her voice and put her hand on my elbow before I poured my glass.
“I’ll be fine. Fine. I run a distillery! My tolerance is ridiculously high!” I hiccuped and continued pouring.
My tolerance was not high. I was not fine. I was three drinks away from being a dumpster fire, but I was under interrogation, and my pulse was beating in my eardrums. The only thing that was slowing down time, me, my inhibition, my logical thinking, and everything was my blood alcohol content. I should have eaten my feelings like I had when I saw her with Dude.
“Cheers to Lakeview!” I rolled down the partition and told the driver to head toward Lakeview.
Samantha chimed in the addresses of the homes she wanted to show me. She wanted my opinion—mine. As if I knew anything about homes other than what I’d been handed.
“You know, this night has been kind of nice. I appreciate it,” she said, reaching over to roll the partition back up. “You know what else would be a first for me?” She crawled onto my lap and popped her tits out of the top of her dress. “I’ve never made out in a limo before.”
My reaction time was slow, but even so, my face dive-bombed in between her big balloons, and I motorboated her like I was sailing my ass to China.
“Ha-ha-ha! That tickles! Here, try this.” She dipped a pinkie in her champagne and twirled it around her nipple, all the while smiling at me.
My voice caught in my throat, my dick jumped in my pants, and my heart fell to the pit of my stomach. I was going to marry this woman and have ten kids. I growled at her before taking her nipple between my teeth and licking the sticky champagne off of her breast. I made a mental note to purchase a few more bottles of Dom.
“You’re something else, Samantha. You’re … I’m just going to say it. Damn it to hell, I’m going to do it. Wasn’t it Brené Brown who said to be vulnerable? Put myself out there? Be courageous and go for it?” I tipped my glass back and finished my champagne. I gave a quick peck to each of her breasts, which were still gloriously hanging out in my face, and told her, “I like you. I really, really like you. Not just as a business thing.” I hiccuped. “But a girlfriend thing.” The champagne bubbles tingled in my nose.