(for disclaimers, etc. - see 1.)

6. Kiss The Bartender
'Verse: AU, in which Zoe & Wade never met before
Date/Timeline: December 2010

Wade Kinsella never saw himself living in the big city and certainly not up north. He was Alabama born and raised, a small-town boy with no big ambitions to speak of, but when his buddy George Tucker offered him the chance to come stay with him a while in New York, he couldn't quite resist. Six months later, he was tending bar in one of the Big Apple's hottest night spots on Christmas Eve, making more money in tips than he had ever seen in his life, surrounded by women who, for the most part, just couldn't wait to throw themselves at him. Wade could not have been happier, or so he thought, until she walked in.

Pretty girls had been a dime a dozen in Wade's life, most especially since he started working in this particular establishment, but this was no average pretty girl. This was a seriously beautiful woman. More than that, he overheard talk amongst her friends and co-workers that she was smart too, a surgeon-in-training, the next big thing in medicine and all. She was practically a goddess in Wade's eyes and he wanted to know her so bad. He was trying to figure out an easy in, when suddenly she was the one who called out to him, surprising him just a little.

"What does a person have to do to get another drink around here?" she asked, waving an empty Martini glass in his general direction.

"All you have to do is ask, doc," he told her, completely with winning smile. "You are a doctor, right?"

"That is true," she said, smiling across at him. "Dr Zoe Hart, cardio-thoracic surgeon."

"Wade Kinsella," he told her in return. "Expert bartender and quite possibly the answer to all your prayers and sweetest dreams."

"Wow. That's... You really do think a lot of yourself."

"Not just me, sweetheart. I think a lot of you too, or at least, I have a feelin' I'm going to now that I met you," he said, leaning on the bar closer to her.

"That's sweet, I think," she said uncertainly, making a face like she actually wasn't so sure. "But I'm still waiting on my Martini," she pointed out, waving the glass again.

"Comin' right up," he assured her, taking said glass away and finding a new one to fix her a fresh drink in record time, placing it on the bar before her with a flourish.

"Thank you," she said, seeming to lean in awful close to him all of a sudden. "Don't move," she said then, one hand going behind his head and pulling him closer, until finally she was kissing him.

Wade didn't argue, not one bit, kissing her back for just as long as he could before suddenly she pulled away, laughing along with her friends who were also whooping and hollering some. It took him a second to get his bearings, and even then, he hardly knew what to think about what just happened, until Zoe's friends all started pointed above his head, smiling too widely.

To say he felt stupid would be an understatement, as Wade looked up and saw what he just now remembered was there - the banner proclaiming one free drink per customer in exchange for a mistletoe kiss for a bartender.

"And here was me thinkin'..." he muttered, turning away, until Zoe called his name.

He was surprised to see money in her hand when he glanced back at her.

"What's this for?" he asked, reaching to take it from her. "You got the drink for free."

"Would you believe me if I told you I never even saw that banner until now?"

The look on her face was such he actually did believe her. Wade smiled widely once more. Maybe it was going to be a real merry Christmas for Wade Kinsella after all.