He did? When?
I decided not to ask and informed him, “I don’t drink lager.”
“What?”
I dipped my head to the beer. “I said, I don’t drink lager.”
“What do you drink?”
“Ale, bitter, stout.”
“So, you’re sayin’ you don’t drink American beer, you drink English beer.”
“There are lagers that aren’t American. Heineken. Stella. Beck’s. In fact,” I went on informatively, “I think lager was invented by the Germans. In fact, I think beer, on the whole, was invented by the Germans.” I didn’t actually know this for a fact, I was just guessing.
“Jesus,” he muttered, dropping his head.
“What?”
He looked back at me. “Duchess, you can argue about anything.”
“No I can’t.”
“So, now you’re arguin’ about not arguing?”
I decided to be quiet.
Max twisted and shouted, “Trudy!”
Trudy turned from the table she was standing at, hands up, notepad in one, pencil in the other, table of tourists interrupted in mid-order and she shouted back, “What?”
“You got any ale?” Max asked and I shrunk into the booth.
“Ale?” Trudy asked back.
“Ale.”
“I think so, sure.”
“Get the Duchess here one, will you?” he called, dipping his head toward me.
Her eyes slid to me, she smiled and shouted, “Sure thing.”
At the same time I leaned forward and hissed, “Max!”
He turned back to me and asked, “What?”
“Don’t call me Duchess in front of Trudy.”
He grinned and replied, “All right, you tell me how old you are, I won’t call you Duchess in front of Trudy.”
I looked at the ceiling and asked, “Why? Why me, Lord? What did I do?”
My body went stiff and my chin jerked down when I felt Max’s fingers curl around the side of my neck and I saw that he’d gotten close. Not only did I see he’d gotten close, his face had grown soft and he looked amused and the combination was phenomenal. So phenomenal, I held my breath.
His eyes dropped to my mouth and my lungs started burning.
“Christ, you’re cute,” he muttered.