One part Bacardi. One part simple syrup, but not the crap Jai had bought. Lisa hated over-the-counter simple syrup. Something about the processing gave it an aftertaste she couldn’t stand. Her first boss had taught her to make her own each and every night. Simple syrup was easy enough to make. During her break, she’d gone into the kitchen and met the cook, retired Staff Sergeant William Batten. He’d been more than happy to let her use a sauce pan and his stove top. She’d noticed that a few of the girls had come through looking for snacks and he’d treated even the mostly naked ones with the kindness of a father to his wayward daughters. He would shake his head, avert his eyes, and pass them the sandwiches he’d made.

“Rosie said any woman who can walk in those shoes belongs here,” Whiskey replied.

Her sad, hand-me-down Louboutins reduced to stripper shoes. Although now that she looked at what the other ladies were wearing, she suspected that perhaps Mr. Christian himself was a strip-club fan. She cut a lime in half, shoving it into the juicer and squeezing with a practiced hand. “Good to know I have proper footwear. And the thing about the daiquiri is it’s a little like a test. You know how chefs test each other?”

Whiskey shook her head. “No. Wait. Do they go at each other with knives? Because that’s how my uncle Antony did it and he owned an Italian place back in the day.”

She couldn’t help but smile even as her feet ached. It made her realize how much she’d isolated herself over the past six months. Since the debacle with Vallon, she’d been holed up in her apartment feeling sorry for herself. She was an extrovert. She needed the energy of being around people to thrive. And she was kind of a weirdo, so the odder the people she was around, the better. “No, not like chef fight club. When chefs test cooks coming in, they tend to ask them to cook an omelet. It’s seemingly simple, but easy to screw up. The theory is if you can’t cook an egg, you can’t cook at all.”

Whiskey placed the beers on her tray with a nod. “Ah, you’re saying the daiquiri is a test. It’s like the omelet.”

She shook her simple three-ingredient drink and poured it into the cocktail glass. “Yep. And it’s an old enough style drink that I’m surprised anyone would ask. Most people these days want some kind of daiquiri, not the base drink.”

“Oh, you know my momma loves her strawberry daiquiris,” Whiskey replied.