The Bar Next Door Page 10

  “Does that happen a lot?” I ask Julien as I take the little rod with our number clipped to it back to the booth and set it on the table.

  Julien slides into his seat after whipping the cap off his head, but not before he ushers me to take my seat first. “Does what happen a lot?”

  There’s something so effortless about his old world manners. I’m all for female empowerment, but chivalry is my guilty pleasure, and Julien has it in spades. He’s the rare kind of gallant that doesn’t feel affectatious or stifling; he holds the door for me and takes my arm on staircases like it’s all part of a graceful dance he’s asked me to join him for.

  “Young women getting flustered by your charms,” I answer him.

  He looks confused for a second and then glances between the counter and me.

  “Oh, no. Non, non, non. She wasn’t flustered because of my charms,” he protests. “She was just nervous because—”

  He falls silent.

  “Because?” I prompt.

  “Um, never mind. Maybe it was my charms.”

  I squint at him. “You’re acting weird, Bordeaux boy.”

  “I’m just overcome by your beauty. You do look extremely adequate in that shirt.”

  My squint turns into a glare. “Don’t try to fluster me with your charms. It’s not going to work.”

  His smirk gets deadly. “Would you like me to prove you wrong again?”

  A few steaming plates get carried past us to the next table, and once more, the smell of the food distracts me from all else.

  “I think this might be my favourite meal in the whole city,” I announce before he can have a chance to make good on his offer. “Their recipe is perfection. Just goes to show you that you don’t need a fancy exterior for a quality dining experience.”

  I’ve been playing with our table number stand, and I point it at him now like a teacher jabbing a ruler at an unruly student. While I really was dying for some Portuguese chicken, my motivations for bringing Julien here weren’t solely based on the meal at hand. I may not have realized it when I first suggested the restaurant, but I later saw the potential in making a lesson out of this date. Julien may not see anything of value in Taverne Toulouse, but maybe that’s just because in all his years of being business savvy, he’s never had anyone sit down and show him what really makes people fall in love with a place.

  “Is that so?” he asks, looking way too cocky as he reaches up to stroke his beard.

  I don’t know what the hell is up with him tonight, but it’s definitely more than simply being ‘overcome by my beauty.’

  Our food arrives like a mirage in the desert, glistening with the promise of untold culinary delight. At this point, if they asked me to trade one of my fingers for a mouthful of those golden brown, pan-seared garlic potatoes, I’d probably consider doing it. The plates are barely on the table before I’m digging in.

  “Fuck yes.” I can’t help groaning after the server has left. “This was a good decision. Good job, Monroe. Oh, and look, they’ve outdone themselves this time!”

  I point at the herbal garnishes and tasteful arrangement of the salad on my plate. An intricate mise en place is not usually Frango Tango’s priority.

  “So they have,” Julien retorts, not bothering to hide the fact that he’s snickering at me. He hasn’t even touched his plate yet, choosing instead to watch with bemused fascination as I devour mine.

  “You’re missing out,” I tell him as I go in for more potatoes.

  We focus on our dinners for the next few minutes. In between bites, I get Julien to admit that the chicken is possibly the best chicken he’s ever tasted, and at least the best chicken he’s had in Montreal.

  A familiar face appears at our booth when we’re nearly done, though I doubt he remembers me. He does, however, seem to recognize Julien.

  “Monsieur Valois, Madame,” he says in Portuguese-accented French, dipping his head at each of us. “I’m sorry I didn’t come out sooner, boss. How is your meal?”

  “Perhaps you should ask the lady instead of me, Bento,” Julien replies with a smirk. “She’s the guest here tonight.”

  Bento turns to me just as I’m wiping a glob of sauce off my face with my finger. His eyes light up with recognition.

  “I know you, Madame! You used to eat here all the time, didn’t you?”

  “That’s me,” I admit.

  Boss? What the hell did he mean by that?

  “I hope you still find the food just as good?”

  “Better, even,” I reply. “It’s fantastic, Bento. Thank you very much.”

  He nods his acknowledgement of the compliment. “I have a good team.”

  He and Julien exchange a few comments about how business at the restaurant is going. Bento stands with his spine straight, his words delivered with the caution and deference of a private addressing a general. By the time he leaves, I’ve figured out exactly what’s going on here.

  “You own Frango Tango.” I hurl the statement at Julien like an accusation, slapping my palms down on the table on either side of my plate.

  He raises his shoulders in a guilty-as-charged shrug. “And I truly appreciate all the lovely things you’ve had to say about it.”

  “Don’t make me throw this potato at your face,” I fume. “God, you are such a...a...maudit connard de chriss.”

  He screws his face up. “That insult does not even make grammatical sense.”

  “The Québécois are not concerned with grammatical sense when it comes to swearing.”

  “That I will agree to.” He grabs his drink and shifts back from the table, watching me with a mixture of smugness and very justified fear.

  “Have you enjoyed making a fool of me?” I demand.

  He starts shaking his head, the smugness falling away. “I haven’t made a fool of you. If anything, you’ve made a fool of me. I’ve known Bento for years, and I had no idea how much this place means to him. I knew he was a hard worker and good at his job; that’s why I made him manager and let him hire whoever he wants. I didn’t know Frango Tango was the whole reason he’s been able to make a life for his family in Canada.”

  “And that matters to you?” The question slips out before I realize how rude it is, no matter how business-obsessed Julien might seem. I instantly feel like an asshole.

  He doesn’t answer right away. I drop my eyes and poke at what’s left of my salad with my fork.

  “It matters,” he finally says, leaning forward so I’m prompted to look up at him again. “I don’t know who you think I am, but that does matter to me. Thank you for making me aware of it. I know Bento would never tell me himself.”

  I don’t know what to say. I feel like I’m staring into a mirror, one that’s forcing me to confront just how over-critical of him I may have been. Julien doesn’t seem to expect a reply; he pops the last few potatoes on his plate into his mouth and downs the last of his water.

  “You mentioned a bar?” he prompts, the lightness back in his voice.

  “It’s not far.” I lay my knife and fork down on top of the few remaining pieces of lettuce on my sauce-streaked plate and slide out of the booth. “Should we get the bi—Oh, right. You own the place.”

  He grins as he shifts his ball cap back into place. “Has its perks.”

  He holds the door for me once again like the perfect gentleman scholar, and it’s only when we’re about to enter the dim little dive bar up the street that I realize I haven’t even asked him what he has to tell me about Taverne Toulouse.

  Nine

  Julien

  BOUQUET: The sum of the individual aromas and fragrances that make up a wine’s scent

  She’s killing me in that outfit. I’ve appreciated her curves before, but the way that shirt is just loose enough to turn them into soft hints beneath the silk is driving me mad. Her jeans, on the other hand, leave no room for ambiguity; every decadent swell of her hips and thighs is on full, cardiac-arrest-inducing display.

  I’m so caught up in
memory of her shimmying out of her coat at Frango Tango that I don’t even notice the name of the bar we’re walking into. We step inside a dimly lit space with just enough room for a wood-topped bar running along the entire left-hand wall, flanked with tacky leather barstools only a few feet away from the handful of rickety tables tucked against the opposite wall.

  I’m surprised to see most of the seats are occupied. Monroe leaves her jacket on the coat rack beside the door and leads us over to the one remaining table.

  “What do you think?” she asks once we’re settled.

  I take another look around the place. The walls are so full of mismatched paintings and old photos that the effect is claustrophobic. There’s a string of Christmas lights woven between the bottles on the liquor shelf behind the bar.

  “It’s...a dive bar,” I reply.

  “One of the best dive bars in the city,” she corrects. “When I was a student, I liked to study here. During the afternoons, it’s actually quieter than any of the cafes near campus.”

  “Monroe!” the burly barman calls out. He doesn’t have to shout very loud; we’re hardly more than an arm’s length away from the bar. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in years.”

  Monroe tilts her chair back so she can see him better. “I think it really has been a year since the last time I was in. How are you, Kevin?”

  “I’m still standing, aren’t I?” He points over at the beer taps. “The usual, I take it?”

  Monroe nods. Kevin jerks his chin at me. “And for him?”

  Apparently it’s not necessary that I receive an introduction.

  Monroe let out a laugh. “He is Julien, and he’ll have the same.”

  Kevin is quick to pour our drinks, and Monroe jumps up to grab them from off the bar before I can have a chance to do it myself.

  “This is called a pint,” she says sarcastically as she sets my glass down in front of me. “It’s what beer comes in.”

  “How crude,” I joke.

  She taps the side of her glass. “What you are about to taste is one of the finest amber ales in North America. This is the only place you can get it in Montreal. It’s brewed just outside Boston, and they don’t usually export it up here. Kevin’s cousin co-founded the distillery, and they ship it to the city just for him.”

  “You seem to know a lot about the places you eat and drink at,” I comment.

  She shrugs. “People tell me things. I listen. Kevin knows more about beer than almost anyone I’ve ever met. This bar doesn’t look like much, but the real die-hard beer fans know it’s the place to go. It’s how I got so hooked on craft beer in the first place—too many chats with Kevin when I should have been focusing on my books.”

  I scan the room with a new sense of interest. It’s still not my idea of an ideal place to spend an evening—there’s a cow hide on the wall, for god’s sake—but I can picture Monroe here, hunched over a table with a pile of textbooks in front of her, chewing on the end of a pen. I don’t even know if that’s a habit of hers, but I can see it so clearly it’s almost like a memory, one that lies just out of reach when I try to grab it with my hands.

  “Taste it.”

  I focus back on the version of her that’s sitting in front of me now. The buttons of her shirt are spaced wide enough that I can catch a hint of pale flesh in the gaps between them when she shifts forward.

  “Go on. Taste it.”

  The words suddenly take on an added heat. My whole mouth seems to go dry, and I feel my tongue dart between my parched lips. I wrap my hand around the glass. Our eye contact doesn’t break as I bring the beer up to take a sip.

  The liquid is cold, cold enough to make me realize just how warm I’ve gotten as the beer hits my taste buds, frothy and flavourful with the malted finish of ale. It doesn’t seduce the way wine does. It’s not a hooked finger or an arched brow; this beer is the slap of skin on skin, the exhilarated rush that comes from falling back on drenched sheets in a satisfied tangle of arms and legs.

  It’s the taste of a good, sweaty fuck.

  I watch Monroe’s attention slide to my throat as I swallow.

  “Not bad.”

  I swear I see her blush.

  She does her best to continue a normal conversation after that, asking me a few questions about Frango Tango and telling me more about the beer they serve here. I see how much she’s affected by the sparks jumping between us, though. She worries her lip between her teeth, and I can feel the vibrations of her knee bouncing under the table where it’s only a few inches from mine.

  “You had something you wanted to tell me,” she blurts when we’re halfway through our pints.

  “I was wondering when you’d bring that up.” I lift my glass a few inches. “Were you hoping to get me drunk beforehand?”

  “I have a feeling it takes far more than one beer to get you drunk, you wino. You probably have the tolerance of a Yeti with all the wine you must spend your evenings tasting.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Why a Yeti?”

  “I was trying to think of something that’s big.”

  “Are you saying you think I’m...big, Madamoiselle?”

  Now I’m sure she blushes.

  “Just tell me what your damn idea is already.”

  “My idea,” I begin, dangerously pleased with how easy it was to put her on the defensive, “is that once my as-yet-unnamed wine bar has been opened and becomes obscénément successful in an astoundingly short period of time, as it is destined to do—”

  She groans and rolls her eyes before taking a gulp of beer.

  “At that point, I’m thinking about expanding on my original plan,” I continue. “I wanted to create something intimate, something that felt exclusive, where the focus was on savouring the small-scale details of the experience, but I think if I buy the bar next door, this has the potential to be...bigger.”

  Another eye roll.

  “You’ve inspired me, Monroe. Maybe there is a benefit to—what did you call it? Hominess? With the extra space, I could make the wine bar concept more social: a stage, maybe, for small concerts, a few communal tables—since those are so popular in the restaurant world right now—and an expanded menu at a more accessible price point. It might even attract some of Taverne Toulouse’s current crowd. Of course we’d have to overhaul the place entirely. It’s dingy at best. Even you have to admit that, but we could preserve some of the spirit of what it is now, and with a new manager on board—”

  “You don’t want to preserve it,” she interrupts, dark eyes flashing a warning. “You want to change everything about it. Do you think any of these people would come back here if they put in crystal chandeliers and replaced Kevin with some slick young guy in a suit? If they started serving smaller beers for higher prices? It’s called gentrification, and it destroys the things people love.”

  “It’s called adaption,” I correct. “It’s called business. Things change. They evolve.”

  “And what about people like Kevin? What would happen to him if this place evolved?”

  “If he can’t evolve too, then he’d have to find another job. That’s how it works. It’s not personal.”

  “But it is,” she insists, growing more and more agitated. “Kevin is almost seventy. He’s not going to find another job.”

  “Then I guess he’d retire.”

  “What if he can’t? What if he’s broke?”

  “Then—”

  I cut myself off when I realize how hard she’s gripping the edge of the table. For me, this is a conversation, a debate about the nature of business. For her, it’s clearly something else, and I was too caught up in making my point to notice.

  Your head is too big, and your heart is too small.

  “Monroe,” I try in a softer voice, “I understand what you’re saying. I’m used to thinking like a business owner, and sometimes I have to take personal concerns out of the equation when I’m making decisions. I’m used to being calculating. It’s a necessary skill, but...”

&
nbsp; Now I just sound pedantic, and her expression clearly says she thinks the same.

  “I’m sorry. I’m being an ass. Let’s discuss something else.”

  She lets me change the subject, and it isn’t long before we manage to regain a sense of ease. I grab us another round once our first beers are done, and somehow we make it to the bottom of those and start on a third before it feels like any time has passed at all.

  We talk about all sorts of things. Monroe wants to know what it was like to grow up on a winery. I fill her in on my life after Cambridge, how I killed some time waiting tables in Paris before taking a restaurant management course that prompted Papa to request I take over the winery’s dining options. I leave out the details about meeting Fleur in Paris.

  She tells me about growing up in the suburbs of Ottawa and how she’s always been a bit of a book nerd. No surprises there; she speaks like someone who reads. It’s one of the first things I noticed about her. The way she puts sentences together is straight out of a Cambridge lecturer’s mouth—although hers is much more alluring.

  Far too alluring. I’m not as much of a Yeti as she thinks when it comes to alcohol; halfway through the third beer, the background sounds of the bar start to blur. The warmth of her leg so close to mine gets harder and harder to ignore. I start to focus on the swoop of her eyelashes, the play of the lights on her hair.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” she asks after I’ve been staring a few seconds too long.

  I know I’m no longer sober when I start contemplating just how many of history’s great love affairs have started with those very words.

  “I’ll get the bill.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “It’s my pleasure,” I say with a smile as I get up to head for the bar.

  I look down at myself and realize I completely forgot I’m dressed like an asshole who doesn’t own anything not fit for the gym. It’s no wonder Kevin gives me a shifty-eyed once-over before sliding the bill across the bar. I let Monroe know I’m heading to the washroom before we leave, no doubt giving Kevin an opportunity to tell her how much better she can do.