Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,67

stressed.

He’d been wondering if she wanted to call a truce and watch the Crystal Palace first match of the season, which was coming up, but he wasn’t about to ask her in front of Holden. In fact, he wasn’t about to ask her at all. She was the one who initiated truces. Because truces were about her using him for his app and his big TV.

“I’ll leave you to it.” He made his way back to Brie. “Let me ask you a question. What are your thoughts on White Claw?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Yuck.”

“Right, but people keep asking for it. Should I not stock it because I don’t approve? Is that snobbery? I’ve always wanted this place to be good but not snooty, you know?”

“Well, I think what I would do in your place is stock it, but also make my own version. Infuse some vodkas yourself. You could do lemon, but make it really lemony. Maybe add something like basil. Then do a berry one. Don’t you guys have a raspberry festival?”

Wow. That was a great idea. He leaned in.

“Make up batches of vodka,” she went on, “in big mason jars you keep visible. You can label them with the number of days the vodka has been infusing and create an assembly line of batches. That will pique people’s interest. You can get jars with spigots at the bottom, so to serve, you fill a glass with a shot, add soda, garnish, and voilà, homemade White Claw.”

“That is genius,” he said, delighted with this idea.

“You can’t actually call it Homemade White Claw, though—that’s copyright infringement. But you could call it something kind of funny that everyone will get. The town mascot is a mermaid, right?” Wow, she had really done her research. “Maybe White Fin?” she mused. “White Tail? That needs work, but something along those lines. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. No need to use top-shelf vodka for something like this, and that way you can keep the price down on the finished drink.”

Well, this was a no-brainer. “Look, I’m going to level with you. I kind of think your talents will be wasted on this place, but if you want it, the job is yours.”

“Who is that over there with Benjamin?” Maya asked Carter when he came to check on them. Carter looked over to where Benjamin was huddled with a woman Maya didn’t know. He was leaning way over the bar, his attention riveted. Every once in a while he would smile and shake his head as she talked, like he couldn’t quite believe the amazing and delightful things coming out of her mouth.

Sheesh, you disappear for a couple weeks and everything changes.

Maybe she shouldn’t have stayed away. She just felt so weird after their dinner in Bayshore, like he felt sorry for her. She could handle pretty much anything from Benjamin except pity. So it had been easy to just “be too busy” to pop into the bar like usual. It wasn’t even that much of a lie. She was busy willing Holden into remembering his lines.

“No idea,” Carter said.

If the woman was a customer Benjamin had been casually chatting with, why had he gone directly back to her after he’d come over and served them?

And one more question: Why was she so pretty? Her blond hair was twisted into a perfect chignon, and her delicate features were lightly made up—that was the kind of makeup men always thought was “natural” but actually took an hour.

She looked like a Banana Republic model, basically.

“How’s the play coming?” Pearl appeared on her other side, pulling out a stool.

“Do you know who that is over there with Benjamin?” If anyone would know, it would be Pearl.

She followed Maya’s gaze. “Nope.” She turned her attention to Maya. “Why?”

“Just wondering.”

Pearl got out her phone. “We haven’t done Tinder for a while.” Maya and Pearl, who were both all talk and no action on Tinder, occasionally swapped phones and swiped for each other. It always made for some interesting DMs after Pearl had had possession of her phone.

Maya started to say she couldn’t right now, as she was working on lines with Holden, but what the heck. Maybe there was a boy Banana Republic model just waiting for her to swipe right.

“You’re on Tinder?” Holden asked.

Maya initially thought he was asking Pearl, as everyone always thought it was funny that such an old woman was on Tinder—everyone was ageist, basically. But he seemed to be directing the question to