Malignant Virtues

II

"When you said you'd buy me a drink, I didn't realize you meant wine in your living room. I'm not sure this really counts."

The apartment was dark and quiet; they'd walked through the front door just in time to see Gretta's older brother yawning and shuffling his way to bed, grumbling something about an eight o'clock meeting at the office. He'd given Taz a disapproving once-over and a stern frown, but otherwise had said little more than a brief good night, leaving Taz and Gretta to uncork a bottle of wine and settle themselves on either end of the couch with their respective glasses.

"It counts," Gretta said.

Taz narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm really not sure it does," he said. He raised his wine glass to his lips to take another sip, but pulled it away, frowning, and held it out to her for a refill.

"It does. I said I'd buy you a drink, and I bought this bottle of wine. Totally counts." She leaned forward to grab the bottle from its place on the coffee table, raising it to inspect the remaining contents in the dim light of the lamp sitting on the end table beside her. "Well," she said, sighing as she stood, the empty bottle in her hand, "so much for that bottle."

"See, that bottle wasn't even full when we started," Taz said, turning in his seat to watch her as she crossed the living room to inspect the empty wine rack sitting on the end of the bar. "So it definitely doesn't count as buying me a drink."

"Well, we don't have another bottle... how about something a little stronger instead?"

"That counts."

Gretta laughed and stepped behind the bar, her red hair disappearing behind it as she stooped to fish around in the cabinet for a pair of clean glasses. "What do you like?"

"I'm not picky."

She straightened and set the glasses on the bar, narrowing her eyes at him as she surveyed him across the room, considering. "Vodka? You look like a vodka kind of guy."

"I'm not completely sure what a 'vodka kind of guy' is supposed to mean, but yeah, a vodka cranberry would be all right."

Gretta snorted and rolled her eyes, turning to retrieve several bottles from the counter behind her. "Vodka cranberry, honestly..."

"You said vodka. Lemon drop?" he tried, giving her a hopeful smile.

She turned back to the bar with an armful of bottles, setting them on the countertop as she shook her head, frowning. "Look. I'm just going to make you something. I promise you'll like it. Do you actually want vodka, or do you want something else?"

He considered for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "Fireball."

She rolled her eyes. "You're getting vodka."

"No, no, how about gin?"

Her expression brightened considerably. "Gin, really?" she asked, turning back around to retrieve another bottle of liquor. "I can do gin. I've had something I've been wanting someone to try for a while, actually..."

He settled back against the couch cushions and watched her measure out shots from a variety of bottles and dump them into a tumbler, shaking it thoroughly before dividing the contents between the two glasses and garnishing them with lime wedges. She picked them up and carried them back to where he was sitting on the couch. "Here you go," she said brightly, holding out one of the glasses.

Taz accepted the glass and swirled it, eyeing the contents suspiciously.

"It won't kill you," she assured him, laughing as she took a sip of her own drink to demonstrate. "It's just something I came up with a while back. I'm not a big gin drinker, so I wanted an expert opinion on it."