ALPHA’S PREY

The bartender finishes with his last customer and comes to wait on us. He’s a big mountain man, not as big as Caleb, but cut from the same macho cloth. Normally I’d be scared shitless to come into a place like this, but with Caleb, the biggest badass of them all, it’s kinda fun.

I lean on the bar and give the man a friendly smile. “Are Joe and Joe here?” I chirp.

The bartender raises a brow and grunts, “Who?”

“The Joes who own the bar,” I say encouragingly.

“There’s just one Joe.”

“Oh, I didn’t know. It’s just the sign-” I point behind me at the door. “The apostrophe is on the outside of the ‘s’ and that means…” I coast to a stop. The bartender is looking at me like I have two heads. The rest of the bar stares at me, sipping their drinks and watching the show. I forge on. “It means it’s plural. Joe and Joe. Not… um… singular but plural possessive.”

“Babe,” Caleb mutters. His cheek twitches in a way that I can tell he’s trying not to laugh.

“Nevermind,” I mumble.

“Babe,” Caleb says again and hooks an arm around my shoulders, having my back in the most literally way. “Whatcha drinking?”

I squint around the bar but don’t see any menus, so I cock my head and ask the bartender, “Do you have any white wine?”

Someone behind me snorts. My cheeks heat and Caleb twists. I imagine he glared whoever laughed into submission because the room goes quiet again.

“No,” the bartender drawls with a WTF look on his face.

Crap. I’m not a big fan of beer. “Coors?”

The bartender takes my question as an order because he thuds two bottles down in front of us and moves on.

Okey dokey.

“Guess this isn’t the place to order white wine,” I mutter.

“You’re probably the only one to ever walk in here and order it.” Caleb grabs the beers.

“Probably.”

Caleb chuckles and guides me away. My disappointment lasts as long is takes for the trivia game host to stand up and announce, then have her volunteer pass out the scorecards.

“I’ll scribe,” I tell Caleb and fuss over the pencil, making sure it’s sharp, not broken, and the eraser is good. Caleb watches with his eyes crinkled up at the sides. He thinks my fussing is cute. I know this because he tells me.

The game host calls for silence and he leans close.

“You ready?”

“I was born ready.” I poise with my pencil to the scorecard, eyes on the host.

He chuckles and goosebumps rise all over my body. It’s nice, but it makes me want to pull him into the dim hall and smooch his brains out.

“You’re distracting.” I wrinkle my nose at him.

“Am I?” His lips curve and he takes a pull of beer to hide his smile. “I’ll shut up.”

His strong throat works as he swallows. “That won’t help,” I mutter. “Not unless you put a bag over your head.”

“Cute,” he says again, shaking his head.

“Shhh,” I focus as the questions start coming. Number one: what’s the longest continuously held running sporting event in the US? Kentucky Derby. “And away we go…”

We fall into a rhythm, me writing, him watching over my shoulder and downing his beer. First round is all sports questions, second is television. I thank my grandma for all those afternoons she babysat me by setting me in front of her old TV and putting on reruns.

“You are good at this,” Caleb murmurs, squeezing the back of my neck. Proving, once again, that he’s not intimidated by my brains or competitive nature. I flash him a smile.

“You drinking this?” He holds up my untouched beer.

I shake my head and keep scribing. I get the name of Charles Darwin’s pet turtle (Harriet), the color of giraffe’s tongue (black), the location of the world’s largest pyramid (not Egypt, Mexico).

“You sure about that, babe?” Caleb asks after the last one.

“Yeah.” I duck close to whisper in his ear. “Most people don’t know it’s the largest because it’s buried in a mountain.”

“Gotcha.” He turns his head, touches my chin to keep me still, and kisses me. He tastes like Coors. Luckily I like beer-flavored macho man just fine. The kiss deepens, and tingles shoot through my body, all the way to my toes.

Caleb breaks the kiss. I keep my neck outstretched, lips parted.

“Which South American desert is one of the driest places on Earth?” he asks.

“What?” I ask in a daze.

“Miranda, focus.”

I blink but his smile is all I see.

The host repeats the question and I return to reality.

“Right.” I write down Attacama Desert and glare at Caleb. “Distracting,” I mouth at him.

“Right,” he stands. “I see you got this.” Caleb grabs the empty beers and goes for refills while I answer a few more questions. Amazon. com’s first website address (Relentless. com), the town where mayors are chosen by picking names out of a hat (Dorset, Minnesota), and the fear of crossing bridges (gephyrophobia).

Caleb returns and peruses my work, pursing his lips at the last answer.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

“Don’t ask me to pronounce it,” I tell him.

At my elbow is a glass of white wine.

“Caleb.” I poke him in the side and point. “I thought they didn’t have it .”

“They didn’t, but the owner heard you asking for it and ran out and got some.”

“Awww, so nice.” I toast the grizzled guy behind the bar. “I shouldn’t drink white wine in the cold months, but I love it.”

“I’ll keep you warm.” He drapes an arm around me. Um, nice.

“And now for a lightning bonus round,” the host announces. “Put together by our own Joe of Joes’ Bar.” The grizzled man takes a bow.

“They should do a round on correct punctuation,” I grumble to myself.

“The category is collective nouns,” the host continues.

“What the fuck are those?” someone asks, but I surreptitiously pump my fist.

“You got this?” Caleb asks.

“Oh yeah.”

“What’s the collective noun for buffalo?”

“Herd,” I scribble. “That was easy,” I mouth to Caleb. He toasts me with a grin.