Forever Summer - Melody Grace Page 0,92

than take that stick out of your ass and actually be a decent human being!”

The man stared at her like she was a crazy, ranting idiot. Which, to be fair, she was.

Jules’s temper melted away as quickly as it had come. Way to make a fool of yourself, she cursed. It wasn’t his fault she was in this mess. No, that was all on her and her legendary bad taste in guys.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she sighed, resigning herself to that wet, muddy hike. “Like I said, it’s been a bad day.”

“Then the last thing you need is that lousy excuse for a cabernet,” the man replied. Jules watched in surprise as he moved to join her behind the bar, rummaging around in the back of a shelf for a few moments before pulling out a bottle of something amber-colored. “Forty-year scotch ought to do the trick.”

He poured two glasses and slid one over to her before lifting his own. “To spectacularly bad days,” he said—and gulped it down in one.

Jules blinked, thrown by his sudden change of tune. She took a sip—and then another. “Wow, you’re right, that is better than the wine,” she said as the liquid rolled down the back of her throat, warming her from the inside out.

“The twenty ten is a mess,” he said in response, nodding to her abandoned bottle of wine. “And the twenty eleven. And pretty much any vintage from the last ten years.”

“So you do work here,” Jules said, intrigued. “Although, some friendly advice: your sales pitch could use some work.”

He gave a wry chuckle. “I guess it could.”

“I’m Jules, by the way.” She stuck out her hand.

The man paused a moment before taking it. “Reeve.”

“Nice to meet you, Reeve,” she said, enjoying the warmth of his hand and the blue of his eyes now that they were up close. “So why are you having such a bad day?”

He refilled his glass. “Long story,” he said, with a rueful smile. And even though his lips barely lifted at the edges, it was enough to transform his face and make Jules forget about the cold water dripping down the back of her shirt.

Wow.

“Try me,” Jules said, moving to sit on one of the barstools. “Because I bet you a million dollars, it can’t be worse than mine.”

“A million bucks, huh?” Reeve asked, looking amused. “If you’ve got that kind of cash to throw around, there’s an eighty-nine Haut-Brion in the cellar with your name on it.”

Jules laughed. “Afraid not. Because as of this morning, I’m out of a job. And a boyfriend. And since his name was on the lease, I’m out of an apartment, too.”

“Ouch.” Reeve refilled her glass. “That’s careless of you.”

“Of me—” Jules spluttered, before she saw he was kidding. “Ha ha, very funny,” she said, taking another gulp of scotch. “But I suppose it was. I knew something was off when he went on this latest business trip. We usually go together, make a vacation of it, but this time, he was just … squirrelly.”

“Squirrelly?” Reeve repeated.

“You know, just a tiny bit evasive, but not enough to really be a big deal. So I would look paranoid if I asked about it.” Jules sighed. Reading that man’s mixed signals had become an art form. “Anyway, I had a feeling something was up, and sure enough, I look online, and Becky has checked in at the same hotel, and oh yes, Becky’s tagging him in all the fun drinks photos, and then they posted identical sunset pictures just minutes apart. Didn’t you used to have to hire a private investigator to figure out if your partner was cheating?” she asked, bitter. “Now, it’s all right there in their Facebook feeds.”

Of course, there was something horribly poetic about it: she was the social media maven, after all. Rory hadn’t known his livestream from his likes before she came along. She’d set up his profiles, built his following … and then had to sit there, clicking through the evidence of his betrayal.

“He denied everything,” she added. “Swore it was just professional. But that’s almost worse! He hired her to replace me.”

Yes, she was babbling about intimate details of her life to a total stranger, but she couldn’t help it. She should get a pass, just for today. “Enough about me,” she said, fixing her gaze on Reeve. “What’s your long story of woe? Girlfriend run off with your buddy? Dog get hit by a train? Come on, you can’t be more pathetic