Sunset Beach(10)

“You used to work in a bar, so you tell me.”

Drue rolled her eyes, then discarded the paper umbrella skewering a maraschino cherry and orange slice garnish. She took a gulp of the Kinky Dolphin and immediately wished she hadn’t. It was both mouth-puckeringly sour and sickeningly sweet. “Mmm. If I had to guess I’d say antifreeze and Ty-D-Bol.”

He held up his own bottle of beer in a salute. “Come on. I want you to meet the rest of the Campbell, Coxe and Kramner gang. We’re at a table inside.”

She followed him under the tin-roofed porch toward a table around which a dozen people were gathered, trying to quell a growing sense of unease.

“Hey guys,” Brice announced, standing at the head of the table. “Quiet down, okay? I want you to meet my daughter, Drue. I’m thrilled to announce that she’s joined the Campbell, Coxe and Kramner team.” He gestured around the table. “Drue, meet the team.”

The music and hum of chatter from the growing happy hour crowd made it hard to hear as one by one, the “team” introduced themselves. There were Deanna and Priscilla and Sylvia in accounting; the two paralegals, Marianne and a woman whose name she didn’t catch; Geoff, the receptionist; and at the end of the table, two men, one a bespectacled ginger who said his name was Ben and …

“I’m sorry, what was that name?” Drue shouted, leaning in to hear.

“It’s Jonah. With a J,” the other guy said. He was what she and her girlfriends back in Lauderdale liked to call “frat-tastic,” meaning he was your typical entitled white college grad. Tousled dark hair with a high forehead, square jaw and full lips, he was a Ralph Lauren ad come to life. Totally hot, if you liked that type.

Ben, who was tall and gangly, stood up and pumped her hand. “What are you drinking?”

Before she could reply, Brice gestured at the server, a busty brunette dressed in a midriff-baring tee and shorts. “Bianca, can you bring my daughter another Kinky Dolphin?”

“No, no, no,” Drue said quickly.

“Okay, what do you want?” Brice said expansively. “Everything’s on me tonight. You want something to eat? They’ve got wings, burgers, grouper sandwiches…”

Her stomach growled at the mention of food.

“Maybe just some nachos? And an iced tea?”

“Iced tea?” Jonah scoffed. “Brice, I can’t believe your daughter is a liquor lightweight. Definitely not a chip off the old block.”

“You don’t want a drink?” Brice asked. “Doesn’t have to be the special.”

“Well, maybe just a margarita, no salt,” Drue said, relenting. She took the only vacant seat and looked around at the gathering. With the exception of the boss, she realized, everybody at the table looked to be under the age of forty.

Brice, she reflected, had always like ’em young.

“Where’s Wendy tonight?” she asked, turning to her father.

“Oh, she never comes to happy hour. Being the office manager and all, she worries that it’ll make people inhibited. This is supposed to be a team-building kind of event.”

“Team building.” Drue turned the phrase over in her mind. Before she could ask any more questions, though, her food and drink arrived.

The nachos were just gummy processed cheese melted over mildly stale corn chips, scattered with a representational amount of pickled jalape?os, chopped tomatoes and cubes of avocado, but she had to restrain herself from gobbling them down all at once.

Instead she sipped her drink and nibbled at the chips and nodded and listened to the conversations swirling around her.

“I didn’t even know Brice had a daughter,” Ben said, taking a swig of his beer. “Did you know anything about a daughter, Jonah?”

“Nope,” his pal said. “You live around here, Drue?”

“I do now,” she said.

“Where’d you grow up?” Jonah asked.

“I was born here in St. Pete, but I guess you’d say I grew up in Fort Lauderdale.”

“Cool,” Ben said. “I still haven’t even been over to the east coast yet.”

“So, what, you’re taking Stephanie’s old job?” Jonah asked.

“That’s what they tell me.”

His hazel eyes lazily flicked up and down, checking her out.

She returned his gaze, thinking, Dude, I’ve been checked out by way better than you.

“That’s awesome,” Ben said. “You’ll be in our pod.”

“Pod?” She turned toward him.

“Yeah, that’s what they call our group. We do phone intake, speak to potential clients, assess their situation, and if it seems they have a likely case, we work up their info and forward them on to Brice, his paralegal, or sometimes, refer them to one of the firms we partner with. I also do some of the firm’s basic IT work.”

“Okay,” Drue said.

“It’s not rocket science,” Jonah said. “But you’ll need a working knowledge of Florida law. You ever done this kind of work before? I mean, you did grow up with Brice as your dad, right?”

Drue took a long gulp of the margarita, enjoying the momentary brain freeze.

“No,” she said succinctly. “My mom and I moved to Fort Lauderdale after they split up. So there hasn’t been a lot of ‘contact’ until just recently.”