Ruby Grace laughed. “Oh. Yeah. That old thing.”
She swayed from foot to foot, grimacing a little as she eyed the barrels.
“Are you okay?”
Her face twisted again as she shifted her body weight to her left foot. “Yes. Sorry, it’s just these stupid shoes. I told my mom I didn’t need to wear heels to inspect whiskey barrels, but she was not having it with me wearing boots.”
For a split second, I pictured her in said boots. I wondered if the brown leather would cap off under her knee, if her thighs would have been even more exposed in the shorts she would have paired with those boots. Or would she have worn jeans, covering her legs altogether?
Stop thinking about her legs, Becker.
“Take them off.”
Her brows shot up, eyes widening as they found mine.
“What?” She asked, laughing. “I can’t just take my shoes off.” She threw her arms up, gesturing to our surroundings. “We’re in an old, dirty warehouse.”
“You act like you weren’t born and raised in an old, dirty town.”
“Yeah, well,” she said, crossing her arms. “I wasn’t exactly working in the distillery or out raising cows on the outskirts, now was I? A little bit of a different setting when you’re the Mayor’s daughter.”
She tried to smile, but a soft curse left her lips when she shifted her weight again.
Without hesitation, I reached back for the collar of my t-shirt and ripped it up over my head, laying it down on the ground at her feet.
“Here,” I said, holding out my hand. “You can stand on that. It might not be a freshly polished marble floor, but your precious feet should survive.”
Ruby Grace was gaping, her jaw completely unhinged as her eyes crawled over my abdomen and chest. “I…”
“Shoes. Off.” I pointed at her feet. “You do that, and I’ll let you taste a few barrels. Just don’t tell anyone, least of all your parents.”
She chuckled, but finally stepped out of her heels. They fell on their sides as a relieved sigh slipped through her lips, and I watched her polished toes curl on my t-shirt.
“God, that feels so much better.”
I shook my head, reaching back behind the first row of barrels for the tasting glasses we housed there. “Are you always so stubborn?”
“I wasn’t being stubborn.”
“I guess that’s my answer,” I said, pouring a tiny splash from one of the barrels before holding the glass toward her. “Here. Take a sip.”
“Oh, no,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “It’s okay. Like you said, I’m underage.”
“So you’ve never had a sip of alcohol in your life?” I challenged.
She bit her lip. “I mean… I have, but not whiskey. That’s a man’s drink.”
At that, I full on belly-laughed. “What the hell kind of talk is that? Whiskey is a man’s drink?” I shook my head. “It’s whiskey. It’s expensive whiskey, at that. And I assure you, it’s delicious — whether you have tits or not.”
Ruby Grace blushed, biting her lip against a smile. “God, sorry. I sound like my mother. More and more every day now, actually,” she mused, glancing down at her toes before her eyes found the glass in my hand again.
I pushed it toward her. “Just a sip. You’re not even going to get close to feeling a buzz. But this way, you can taste the difference between a few barrels that were aged in different ways.” I swallowed. “You can pick out the perfect one for your future husband.”
She hesitated, but her hand reached forward, taking the other side of the glass. Our fingertips brushed just slightly, just enough to make me jerk my own hand away.
“And, hey, bonus,” I continued, shaking off the awkward tension. “You can be as ‘unladylike’ as you want here. I won’t judge. You can even burp, if you’re really feeling frisky.”
Ruby Grace laughed, eyeing the whiskey like she still wasn’t sure before she shrugged and tilted the glass in my direction. “Oh, what the hell. Bottoms up.”
She took a sip, and then promptly grimaced and stuck her tongue out as soon as she’d swallowed.
“God, that’s awful.” She shook her head, shoving the glass back in my direction. “Definitely not doing that again.”
I laughed, rinsing the glass with a splash of water from the bottles we kept nearby before filling it with the same whiskey.
“Okay, that was my bad. Maybe I should have told you how to taste it first.” I handed it to her again, though she eyed it like it was poison. “Smell it first.”
She did as I said, uncertainty shading her face as she looked my way again. “I’m not sure I’m doing it right.”
“You’re not sure you’re smelling right?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You know what I mean. I don’t… I don’t know anything about this stuff.”
“It’s okay, that’s why I’m here.” I stepped closer to her, taking the glass from her hand, and when I inhaled to demonstrate, it was her I smelled instead of the whiskey.
She smelled like lavender, like an open field in the heat of summer.
“Watch,” I said, taking another breath, this time focusing on the whiskey. “You smell it first, and ask yourself what you smell. Oak? Vanilla? Honey? Maple? Every whiskey is different, depending on how it’s aged, how the barrels are charred and toasted. See what notes you can detect first. And then,” I continued, taking my first sip. I let it linger in my mouth, swirling it a round before swallowing gently. “Taste it. I mean, really taste it. Does it give you different flavors on the tip of your tongue than it does on the back? Does it burn going down, or is it just warm? And what’s the aftertaste?”
Ruby Grace watched me, fascinated, her lips parted softly, eyes falling
