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"How do you figure?"
"Because you're into me."
A pause.
"What?"
"It was my picture on the dating site. I'm the reason you came out here." His hands moved to his slim hips. "A few years back, I might have fucked around with you anyway. Not cared that it would hurt Joe. But we've all got to grow up sometime, right?"
Both my eyes and mouth were wide open. Maybe even perfect circles, such was my surprise. "Just to check: This is you grown up now?"
"My brother's a better man than I'll ever be. And I'm not just going to stand around, let you mess with him," the idiot declared. "You know he's worked with our dad, doing the carpentry. Keeping the old man happy all these years with his dreams of Collins and Sons when I turned Dad down. When I needed money to buy into the bar, Joe lent it to me. He hasn't talked interest or pressured me to pay it back even once in three years. And from the moment I told him about accidentally knocking up Nell, he was there for me. He's been nothing but supportive. There've been plenty of times when women wanted me and I played that up. Made sure he knew he came second. But those days are over. That bullshit behavior is over. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Good. So, you're cute in a weird, geeky kind of way, but ... I'm not interested," he declared, winding up his speech. "My brother's a good man and he deserves the best. Go home, Alex."
I had nothing.
Luckily, Eric didn't require a response. He wiped his hands on a cloth and wandered off into the restaurant, leaving me to sip the whisky sour and stew over his words. I couldn't dismiss them completely, as nice as it would have been.
"Everything okay?" The golden boy leaned across the bar. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail, making it much easier to see his face. I liked that. A lot. Sweet baby Jesus, I was liking a whole lot of things about him lately. And sitting here slowly getting tipsy while watching him move about the bar with such efficiency and ease wasn't helping to dull my libido any.
"Ah, yes." I resettled in my seat. "I'm drinking a whisky sour."
"How's that working for you?"
I took another sip. "Not bad."
"I've been watching you," he confided.
"You have?"
"Yep. You've talked to at least five real live breathing people that I've seen. Face-to-face, even. Not on the Internet. Good work."
"Oh. One guy was just apologizing because he nearly spilled his drink on me."
"Nope," said Joe. "Dude was trying to hit on you. Your elbow sort of got in the way and then I guess he lost courage. Ice hitting your crotch will do that to a man."
"Really?" My brows rose. "My human interaction radar must be on the fritz."
"Sitting there in your tight black jeans and sweater, looking hot." He grinned. "Thinking no one would notice."
"You think I look hot?"
Joe studied me in silence. "Friends aren't allowed to think friends look good?"
"Hmm. I guess that doesn't break pal privilege." I smiled. "You've got a customer."
With a rap of his knuckles against the bar he wandered off to serve the latest comer. When he bent over to get a drink out of the fridges under the bar, the denim of his jeans outlined his ass in a very nice way. The backs of his thighs too. And when he reached up for a bottle of liquor off the top shelf the sleeve of his Dive Bar tee stretched around his ... whatever all those muscles were called at the top of the arms just below the shoulder. Shit, what was the word? I knew it, I did. Great. Now his attractiveness was making me stupid. Stupider. Whatever.
Also, I had a feeling these drinks were encouraging me to take pal privilege too far. Ah, alcohol. The ultimate in social lubrication leading to suspect decisions. Especially when it came to members of the opposite sex.
He looked my way as he turned back around, giving me a quick smile. Next, a beautiful brunette with long flowing locks approached him. She set her hands atop the bar, gave him an award-winning smile, and leaned forward. As various women were wont to do. Words were exchanged and Joe poured her a craft beer from a tap. Then he took her money and put it into the till, gave her a nod. Transaction done. The beautiful brunette returned to her table of friends. Much flipping of hair ensued.
Meanwhile, Joe pulled down another bottle, mixing up a new drink. The ink on his arms danced when he shook up the concoction in the cocktail shaker. Cool. Then he poured it into a glass, garnishing it with a slice of lemon and a cherry.
"Ninth," I said when he returned to my end of the bar, placing a fresh whisky sour in front of me to replace the now empty glass.
"Ninth, what?"
"That's the ninth set of breasts you've been presented with since I've been here. And thank you for the drink."
He laughed.
"I'm serious." I stood, setting my hands on the bar and leaning forward. "You know they intentionally do this. How could you possibly miss it? Of course with me, you have to imagine I'm wearing a low-cut blouse, and that I have something to fill it."
His gaze jumped from my chest to my face. "Do that one more time for me, Alex."
"Haha." Demonstration completed, I sat back on the stool and consumed a healthy mouthful of my drink. I'd reached the fun stage of alcohol consumption. You know, when your body feels a little loose and sadly, so does your tongue.
"Thank you for calling me hot," I said. Not meeting his eyes, because there was just no need to get all emotional.
"Thank you for noticing the women hitting on me."
"Nine pairs of breasts versus one guy who wound up with ice on his crotch. Not much of a competition." I popped the cherry into my mouth and started chewing. Sugary goodness. "I'd understand if you wanted to disappear with one of them. Or a set of them."
Not that I'd like it.
He stopped, stared. "I'm a guy so it's kind of hard to tune out breasts when they're right there in front of me," he said. "But if you think any other woman here tonight has my attention besides you, you're an idiot. We're hanging out together. That was the agreement."
I blinked.
"Okay?"
"Relax, Joe. It's not like I was jealous or something." And I blinked again, my suddenly leaden tongue going nowhere. He did not mean that the way I thought (just for a moment) he meant it. But still. Whoa. His smile, holy shit. White teeth, pink lips, and golden beard. It nearly knocked me off my seat. There was definitely wobbling.
"Are you getting tipsy?" he asked.
"No." I laughed. "I'm just slightly happily inebriated. Totally different."
"Right."
"I won't get sloppy. Promise."
"You can do what you like. It's good to see you relax." He leaned in closer. "Between you and me, you can be a little high strung sometimes."
"Which is completely cool and super-desirable, thank you very much."
"Abso-fucking-lutely." The laughter in his eyes was beatific. Delightful. Much more of this and I'd write the guy a sonnet or something, sing him a love song. "I was just about to say that."
"Just as well." I fluffed up my hair. "I wouldn't want to have to get rough with you."
"Oh, I think I could handle you getting rough with me," he said with a sexy-ass smile.
For one long loaded moment, we just looked at each other. Neither of us said anything, but mostly I was just confused. Then without another word he walked away to chat with Eric.
Motherfucker.
What was that? No, seriously. I hadn't even begun to drink enough alcohol to deal with this sort of shit. The two brothers talked about whatever they had to talk about, then he turned back to me, rubbing his big hands together.
"We're good to go," he said. "Unless you wanted to stay a little longer?"
"No, no. Fine with me."
Mind reeling, I climbed down off the stool and gathered my things. We waved goodbye to Lydia and Nell and so on as we wound our way through the maze of tables toward the door. Outside, the crescent moon was high, the stars bright and the air cold.
"Have an okay night?" he a
sked as we walked toward his truck.
"Yes."
"Good." He unlocked the passenger-side door and held it open for me.
"Thank you." I climbed inside, the seat chilling my ass despite the layer of material supplied care of my pants.
"You're welcome."
In no time at all, we were cruising through the dark quiet streets of Coeur d'Alene, heading toward the hotel. The heat blasted, warming my hands and face. Which reminded me ... "Nell said her place still had no heat."
"Yeah," he said. "It's okay. I'll crash on the lounge at home. Think I've pushed your hospitality far enough."
"I don't mind."
"Sure you don't want some privacy?"
"Nuh, I'm good. Keep me company."
"All right." He smiled.
I watched the streetlights cast shadows on the angle of his cheekbone, the furrow of his brow. Strange how his manly beauty had grown on me, redefining or rather stretching my usual boundaries. Perhaps some people's allure came from the inside out. A good thing. Their ways and their words did the wooing instead of their physical appeal. Not to diss Joe's impressive physique. As nice as a pretty face was, though, the personality, the person beneath the skin, should matter more. Anything else was pretty shallow and unlikely to last. Guess that was the difference between my scratching an itch with a stranger and the way this man had me tied up in knots. And not even neat, sea-worthy knots. I'm talking, haven't washed or brushed your hair in forever and there's a big old mess back there.
Shit.
At the bar, he'd flirted with me. Full-on flirted with me, his supposed platonic friend who was not his type. No way did I know what to do. Normally Valerie would be first on my hit list of people to call. But she'd just tell me to jump him, regardless of what else was going on, or any possible consequences. Plus, with him beside me it would be kind of uncool. But a couple of whisky sours or no, I was pretty certain I hadn't imagined his interest.
As Mom had always said, however, best to be sure.
