Luca took a tentative sip of the gin and tonic. Given his previous experience, he’d mentally prepared himself for the liquor to burn. So he was shocked by how smooth the drink was.
“That tastes like…” He took another sip, trying to nail down the unusual flavor, but he couldn’t figure it out. It was very mild, but not sweet.
“Juniper? Cucumber?” Selene supplied.
“Juniper. That’s it. How unusual.”
“Like it?” she asked.
“Very much,” Luca said, taking a larger sip.
Oscar downed his gin and tonic in one quick swig, clearly not as impressed as Luca. “That’s okay for a start, but this is a real man’s drink.”
Oscar tried to take Selene’s glass, but she held on to it and hissed at him. Luca relinquished his glass and Oscar rinsed out their glasses, joking he didn’t want the gin to taint the flavor of his masterpiece. Grabbing another glass for Selene, he then poured Crown Royal and Coca-Cola into the glasses. He lifted a jar of maraschino cherries to show them. “Found these in the pantry. My secret weapon.” He added a couple cherries to each glass. “Since we don’t have Cherry Coke. Give that a try, Luca.”
Again, Luca was surprised by how easily Oscar’s drink went down. “That is delicious.”
Selene sipped her drink and gave Oscar a one-shoulder shrug, clearly not willing to admit how much she liked his cocktail. He liked the casual way she had a glass in each hand.
“Perhaps it’s just vodka that I do not like,” Luca said.
“Two iterations are not enough of a test,” Selene declared.
“Nice try, Luca,” Oscar said, uncapping the Grey Goose. “You’re still doing a vodka tasting.”
Selene considered their options, then consulted with Oscar. “You could go for the classic,” she suggested. “A screwdriver.”
Oscar shook his head. “Feels too safe, too boring.”
“I thought that was what the orange juice was for?” Selene stuck a wooden spoon in the pitcher and gave it a quick stir.
Oscar grinned. “I just like to have options. I mean, there’s amaretto here too, and there’s nothing like OJ and amaretto.”
“Amaretto?” Luca picked up the bottle, read the label, and brightened up. “Oh. I love almonds.”
Selene ignored him, reaching for a different bottle. “There’s a little thing of Bacardi. OJ isn’t pineapple juice, but maybe with a cherry in it.”
“Too tropical for the middle of a fucking blizzard.”
“True,” Selene agreed with Oscar.
“What I’d really love to make him is a Bloody Mary, but there’s no tomato juice. Damn,” Oscar said after a few minutes. “There’s not much here. It’ll have to be simple.” He returned to the refrigerator and pulled out a tiny plastic lime.
“Seriously?” Selene asked. “There was lime juice in the fridge and you didn’t bother to tell me?”
Oscar gave her a shit-eating grin. “Didn’t feel right wasting it on a G and T.” He cracked open a Sprite, pouring that and a splash of the lime juice over the vodka.
Selene scowled. “But you’ll waste it on a vodka and Sprite?” Her question was laced with outright disgust. “Is there Seagram’s? A seven and seven—well, seven and Sprite—is more blizzard appropriate.”
“Says the woman who started with a G and T and suggested Bacardi and OJ.”
“Crown and Coke? That was your life-altering suggestion?” Selene scoffed.
“I added cherries,” Oscar said hotly.
Luca was starting to feel warm, thanks to the alcohol. Warm and…happy.
He was happy.
Unable to contain it, he started to laugh, enthralled by these two wonderful people. They were so open and honest with what they thought and felt. He’d spent his life hiding. From others. From his own emotions. They, in contrast, could bicker and argue, then smile and laugh together.
They stopped arguing when his laughter continued, Oscar tilting his head and leaning closer to him.
“Drunk?” he asked Selene, though it was Luca’s face he was looking at. “I mean, he’s only had two drinks. Talk about your lightweights.”
“I’m not drunk,” Luca said, still chortling.
“You might be a little bit drunk,” Selene pointed out.
“Is that why I feel…happy?” Luca set his drink down. “In that case, I want to always be drunk.”
Selene’s expression softened. “You haven’t been happy very often, have you?”
“No.”
Oscar put a thumb on Luca’s eyelid and pulled it up, staring at his eyeball. “Not drunk. Tipsy.”
Selene knocked Oscar’s hand away from his face. “Leave his eyeball alone. You’re not a doctor and you can’t diagnose levels of drunkenness like that anyway.”
“Walt’s a doctor. I absorbed some of that med school shit by sibling osmosis.”