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“Just a water with lemon for me,” I tell the server as soon as she reaches our table.
We’re in a bar not far from Declan and Abby’s building. Rook took the lead and headed straight here. When he held the door open for me, the man behind the bar called out his name in greeting.
I guess that means he’s a regular, or maybe he’s only been in once before with Declan.
Rook is a hard man to forget, after all.
Rook studies my face as the server studies him. Her eyes take in all of him, including how the fabric of his sweater strains over his broad chest.
“I’ll have two fingers of scotch.” He finally glances at her. “The best you have.”
“Neat,” she says, and I have to wonder if she’s asking if he wants ice or just commenting on his drink order.
“No ice.” He nods his head.
She tosses him a smile and tilts her chin. Her eyes are rimmed with dark shadow, and even darker mascara coats her lashes. She’s stunning, and with the tight T-shirt she’s wearing with the bar’s name emblazoned across her chest, she must make bank in tips.
“I got it.” She taps her forehead as if she’s committing our order to memory. “We serve a limited selection of food in the afternoon. Wings, mini tacos…”
“Just the drinks,” Rook informs her, shifting his gaze back to me.
“Just the drinks,” she repeats quietly before she walks away.
As soon as we rounded the corner headed toward this bar, I debated turning around and sprinting back to Abby’s apartment. I know why we’re here, and although I’ve worked hard to rebuild my ego after it took a brutal beating when I was eighteen, I’m still vulnerable in some ways.
This impending discussion about my virginity will leave me exposed, but it needs to happen. I want the subject to be buried forever, and since Rook obviously remembers my confession, I have to face it head-on in order to put it behind me.
“Carrie,” he starts, his voice has a tender note woven into the deep richness that is always there.
I never noticed how the rough timbre of a man’s voice could spark something inside of me until he first said hello to me in my sister’s office months ago.
“Let’s wait for the drinks,” I say, with a plea woven into it that I hope he can’t hear. If I can grab another minute or two to steel myself, I’ll take it. “I don’t want her to interrupt us.”
“Right.” He nods. “That’s smart.”
I’ve heard that word on an almost daily basis all of my life in one form or another.
“You’re the smartest girl alive,” my mom would say before every test I ever took.
“You’re too smart for your own good,” one of my middle school teachers playfully warned me with a wag of her finger after I aced a test.
“Smart girls don’t have the same choices as pretty girls.”
That’s the one that haunts me. It cut into my self-esteem like a sharp-edged knife on the worst night of my life.
It doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes before the server returns with our drinks in her hand.
She sets mine in front of me before pivoting her entire body toward Rook to set his down. “Two fingers of scotch. No ice.”
He doesn’t gaze at her. His only acknowledgment is a curt nod.
She’s expecting more because her feet don’t move, so I help them along. “Thank you. If we need anything else, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
She tosses me a look and then, surprisingly, a small smile. “You’re welcome.”
She heads to the only other occupied table in the bar. Three women are sitting there, their heads crowded together as they study something on one of their phones.
Rook samples his drink, his eyes closing briefly as he does.
