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“Enjoy the rest of your trip,” the attendant says.
“Thank you,” I say as evenly as I can muster and then slip through the door before anything else can stop me.
It’s like stepping into a different universe. Gone are the tacky hotel-carpet-green shades. Gone are the suspiciously stained seats. There isn’t a child in sight.
The first class car is populated by men and women dressed nicely, sitting in comfortable leather chairs. The train even seems to be moving more smoothly. My headache, before pounding a beat on my brain like a monkey on a conga drum, disappears. Now this is more like it.
I consider sitting in my seat (which is unoccupied!) and working on my pitch, but I change my mind and head toward the bar car, this time in celebration rather than to seek a numbing agent.
The bar car is right out of my most decadent fantasies. Wood-paneled walls, brass lighting fixtures, shiny glass bottles in neat, level rows. Stools run the length of the bar and there’s only a single man sitting there. He’s wearing a suit and has his face buried in a magazine, a glass of dark liquid sitting in front of him.
The bartender is wearing a vest and bow tie, and he greets me with a smile. “What would you like?” he asks.
I’ve slipped and fallen into the lap of luxury. Ha! Take that Brent.
“Can I have a cranberry—” I pause and consider if I want a recurrence of earlier, only this time with a bright red liquid. “Actually, no. I’ll take a vodka martini.”
The bartender nods and leaves to make it. I relax onto my stool, put a foot on the rail, and smile for the first time since boarding. Okay, now this is the tone I want starting off this trip. I’m racking up all kinds of good energy that’s hopefully going to buoy me through my pitch meeting tomorrow. Madison Enterprises has a reputation for being a demanding client and they’ve already fired three different agencies for the promotion of their new cruise liner, the Seafarer, a nine-hundred-foot behemoth that’s currently docked at the Manhattan cruise terminal and has been, by all accounts, a nightmare of a project.
Is it just self-flagellation that’s prompted me to volunteer to try to snag this account for my firm? I suppose so. We’re a small but prosperous advertising agency in Boston, massively different from the high-powered firms that Madison Enterprises has hired in the past. I hope that’s a positive. It’s at least been enough to get me in the room with the CEO himself.
I’m confident in my pitch. I’ve worked hard on it, and honestly it’s been the one thing that’s provided adequate distraction from the dumpster-fire that’s been my life over the past month.
The bartender sets a gorgeous-looking martini in front of me and nods. I smile back and take a little sip.
The hairs on the back of my arms stand up. A shiver runs up my spine. My heart rate surges. But it’s not from the drink. It’s because, suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I’ve noticed a man. A drop-dead gorgeous man who looks like he stepped straight out of a cologne commercial. A man who’s staring directly at me.
The martini catches in my throat and it’s all I can do to not sputter. I hope I look as calm and collected on the outside as I absolutely do not feel on the inside.
The man is the one who was sitting there when I came in, only now the magazine is not obscuring his face. He has slicked-back brown hair, cut well, and a clean-shaven face. His eyebrows are thick and masculine. His lips are as deliciously curved as his cheekbones. He’s a goddamn smoke show, and great now I’m gawking at him.
Of course, he started it.
“Hello,” I say at last, just to break the tension. It fails spectacularly. He’s still looking at me the way a panther looks at a deer, deciding whether or not he’s hungry enough to give chase.
Finally, after several long, agonizing seconds, the man stands, practically unfolding from the barstool. He’s tall, easily six foot four. The suit he’s wearing is fitted perfectly to every powerful inch of him. He walks down the length of the bar, pulls out the barstool next to mine, and sits. Up close he smells like cinnamon and whiskey, which typically brings to mind Fireball and frat houses to me, but he’s totally making it work.
“Nick,” he says.
“Evelyn,” I reply and then cringe at my own formality. “But everyone calls me Evie.”
He offers a hand and I take it. His grip is firm, his skin warm.
“I suppose you get this a lot,” he says. Those deep brown eyes are serious, contemplative.
“Get…?”
“Attention,” he says. “You’re quite striking.”
Wow. I feel myself blush. I’m not that good-looking, not enough to warrant a line like that.
“Is that your go-to?” I ask, deflecting in my awkwardness. “I’m a little disappointed, I’ll be honest.”
Now it’s his turn to be thrown. A dark eyebrow quirks. “My go-to?”
“Pickup line,” I say.
“You were expecting better?” he says. “Maybe something that starts with ‘hey girl’?”
