Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,5

drink. But her appearance always caused his brain to peace out of its surroundings for a second and run a little movie in his head—a movie called Maya’s Nineteenth Birthday.

He’d been behind the bar, chatting idly with her brother, Rohan, who’d been home for the holidays. Law was six years older than Maya, so they hadn’t overlapped in high school, but he was only three years older than Rohan, and they’d been on the track-and-field team together. Rohan had gone on to become a big-shot business exec in the US, but at that point he’d only recently graduated university and moved to Chicago, and they were chatting about how he was finding it.

The funny part was, if you had asked Law then if Rohan Mehta had a sibling, he’d have had to think about it. He knew Rohan, and he knew Rohan’s dad, who owned A Rose by Any Other Name. Law’s dad and Mr. Mehta had been active in the chamber of commerce when Law was a kid. And yes, he vaguely knew there was a little sister, the gangly theater girl who staged plays on the town green. He had never been to one at that point, though. He was already putting in a ton of hours at the bar helping his dad, and between that, school, and track, he didn’t have time for much else. He wasn’t even sure he’d known Maya’s name at that point. She just hadn’t registered in his brain.

But that day, she did register in his brain. Oh boy, did she ever.

It had been a quiet December afternoon. Law was working alone, his dad having moved into semiretirement, and there were only a handful of customers in the bar. When she arrived, both Law and Rohan turned to look at her, and Rohan grinned and got up. “Happy birthday, kid!”

“Hi, hi!” she exclaimed as she hugged him. “And thanks!”

“You been to the store yet?”

“Yeah, I dropped off my bag there. I told Dad we’d meet him there at six. We’re going to the White Rhino in Bayshore.”

“What a shock,” Rohan deadpanned.

“Shut up. It’s my birthday. I’m the boss. And I love that place.” She shrugged off her coat. She was wearing skinny jeans and a fitted T-shirt that read “Drama Queen.” Nothing about the outfit was revealing per se, but it did make Law wonder how he had ever thought of her as gangly. She had her hair in this big messy bun almost but not quite on the top of her head. It made him want to know how long her hair would be when it was down.

There was just something about her, though it was hard to say what. She wore no makeup, and that, together with her casual clothes and almost-messy hair, should not be having this effect on him—“this effect” being that he couldn’t stop looking at her. Her light-brown skin was all glowy, and the smile she gave her brother was almost blinding even from Law’s vantage point to the side. “It’s your birthday?” Law said.

She swung around to look at him for the first time, and her eyes were the exact same color as the honey cream ale from Bayside Brewing they had on one of their permanent taps.

He wasn’t sure why he was noticing all this stuff about her. Comparing her eyes to beer? Come on. She was pretty, for sure. But he was a bartender. Every subcategory of humanity had been through Lawson’s Lager House, including “pretty,” and he was generally indifferent. He would provide a friendly ear if one was wanted, but he didn’t hit on customers. Especially the little sisters of old acquaintances—the key word there being little.

How little, though? He hoped not too little, because he could not deny that he was, suddenly, perving on Maya Mehta.

Until she started talking.

“Nineteen today,” she said in answer to his question, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Nineteen was the drinking age, so he felt less gross for admiring her than he would have if she’d been younger. Not that he was going to do anything about it, but still.

“Hey, congrats. Nineteenth-birthday drinks are on the house. What can I get you?”

She kept staring at him, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she didn’t like what she was seeing. After an uncomfortably long time, she said, “I can pay for my own drink, thanks.”

“You sure? Because—”

“I’ll have a white wine, please.”

“Any preference?” He’d recently talked his dad into expanding the wine list. It used to