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“What do you expect? It’s a dive bar on the docks,” I blurted just as the song on the jukebox switched over to another one, my statement ringing out in the interim silence. The faces still turned in our direction simultaneously morphed into scowls. Shit. That sentence hadn’t come out exactly as I’d meant it, and I certainly hadn’t meant it to be overheard.
“The bathroom’s that way,” a female voice said tightly. “If you’d like to clean yourselves up and stop dripping on my floor.”
I turned my head to see who’d spoken just as a flash of lightning made the lights flicker slightly. The server who’d spoken was standing with her hands on her hips, lips pressed together as she stared at our feet. I followed her gaze to where the puddle beneath us was spreading. My friends started moving next to me, the rustle of clothing letting me know they were removing the matching nylon windbreakers Trent had brought us and that we’d all pulled on when the tire had blown, in an attempt to stay partially dry. But for whatever reason, I felt glued to the spot as I raised my head to look back at the young woman.
Jet-black hair pulled up in a ponytail with tendrils falling around her face. Light blue eyes framed by dark lashes and two perfectly peaked brows. Her full breasts pushed against the white cotton, long-sleeved henley she was wearing, cleavage peeking between two undone buttons.
My God. She was stunning.
I felt momentarily woozy as if I’d just stepped into some strange dream rather than a grungy bar in a small harbor town on the northern coast of Maine. Aidan bumped into me, and from my peripheral vision, I saw that the windbreaker was stuck over his head, his arms raised as he hopped around, struggling to remove it. The woman met my eyes, clearly waiting for me, as the only one currently not losing the battle with a wet item of clothing, to say something. “Food,” I managed, the word emerging on a croak. Was I suffering from hypothermia? All my systems seemed to be misfiring at once.
She tilted her head, measuring me, those pale eyes moving down my body and then rising slowly. Her lips were pressed tightly together as though she’d observed something about me that displeased her deeply. I wasn’t used to that reaction. I had come to expect that when a woman’s gaze traveled my body, the response would at least be appreciation.
Not…disdain.
I peered down at myself as though maybe something had changed since I’d last looked. Nope. Still me, but in a sopping, mud-streaked pair of khakis, Polo shirt, and windbreaker bearing the Harvard logo.
“Food?” she repeated. “Do we serve food? Is that what you’re asking, Ivy League?”
Ivy League. Okay, I deserved that after my insulting outburst that I hadn’t meant to be insulting or an outburst. Next to me, Trent had managed to get the windbreaker off and shook his head like a dog, water flying out around him and bringing me out of the odd dream-like space I’d been occupying since we walked in the door. Likely the sudden change in weather had caused my body to have to recalibrate in some way I didn’t know how to describe. I gave the woman a pleasant smile. “Yes. Are you still serving food?”
She sighed. “The kitchen’s open until ten.” She waved her hand in the general direction of the tables where people had gone back to their conversations, the ring of chatter and laughter filling the space.
“Great…” I moved my eyes to the name tag she had pinned to her shirt. “Cakes.”
She appeared confused for a moment, but then glanced down at her name tag. “The name of the bar is Cakes and Ale,” she clarified. I looked back at the name tag, noticing that the line above—likely her name—had been rubbed off, and apparently the words and Ale had worn off too. “The people here know me,” she said, presumably explaining why her name tag that featured no name was immaterial. She turned and headed away.
“Guys, let’s go get cleaned up in the restroom and then order some food. We can call for a tow and eat while we wait.” I turned back to the woman who had grabbed a roll of paper towels from somewhere, obviously to wipe up the small flood we’d caused in her entryway as the other guys walked toward the back to find the restrooms. “Can we take any table?” I asked.
She gave a succinct nod. “Jim Moseley might get out of bed to give you a tow,” the woman said as she bent to sop up the water. My gaze held on her cleavage, made even more visible from this vantage point. The tops of her breasts looked smooth and soft and I could even see the lacy edge of her bra. My body stirred, the waterlogged pants making the reaction less than comfortable. I cleared my throat, forcing myself to look away as she went on. “But the garage doesn’t open until the morning.”
“Oh. Well we don’t require a local garage. We’d need a tow to Claremont Landing.”
“I figured.” The woman stood and tossed the wet paper towels into a trash can sitting next to the bar and put the roll under her arm. She shook her head. “Jim doesn’t tow that far.”
“Okay. Then I guess we could get a tow from a company in Claremont Landing.”
She shrugged. “Good luck finding one that’s still open. Be right there, Ted.” And with that she went sauntering over to a table where three men were sitting.
I schlepped to the bathroom and joined the guys who were using napkins to wipe the mud that still remained and dry off enough that they were no longer dripping. The windbreakers had actually done a decent job of keeping our shirts dry despite sliding down a hill and then being submerged in a giant puddle so that was something anyway. “Damn, I didn’t know condom machines were actually a thing,” Grant said, pulling a few wet dollar bills from his wallet and inserting them in the machine. A few individually wrapped condoms fell into the tray and he plucked them out, tossing one to each of us in turn. “You never know,” he said with a wink. I rolled my eyes and stuck the red condom into my pocket and then continued drying my shoes the best I could as the other guys did the same. Luckily we were in a warm bar where we could order a shot of something that would also warm our insides. Not that it was chilly. In fact, we were all sort of…steaming.
Great.
“Hey guys, this is already funny. It’ll be a great story, right?” Trent said, clearly trying to redeem himself from the situation at hand. When the three of us only glared at him, he let out a weak chuckle. “Too soon, I guess,” he murmured.
We exited the restroom and walked to a table situated at the back of the room in front of a pool table and sat down.
“Damn it,” Grant said, wiping his phone down his shirt. “My phone won’t even turn on.”
I pulled mine from my pocket and attempted to turn it on. “Fuck.” I’d tried to protect my phone from the downpour, but the mudslide and subsequent submersion had obviously done it in. Trent had dropped his in the mud before we even went shooting over the rain-softened cliff, so we already knew his was a lost cause.
Next to me Aidan was holding his phone up with a similarly bleak expression. “Dead as a doorknob,” he said, dropping it on the table. “Maybe they have a bowl of rice here.” I rolled my eyes. These phones were far beyond a bowl of rice. I doubted they’d ever work again.
“What can I get for you?” the woman with the dark hair and incredible blue eyes asked as she came up to our table. A wave of mild dizziness overcame me again. She was beautiful, and those eyes…I’d never seen any eyes that shade of blue before. But I’d seen lots of beautiful women in my time. I’d dated many of them. And yet, I’d never become woozy in their presence.
“Gage? Gage, come back to us.”
I snapped to, realizing the other guys had ordered and everyone was waiting for me to speak. What were we doing again? Right. Ordering…“Food.”
