I looked down, considered whether or not I should wear normal socks tonight and immediately decided not to change my style to impress a woman.
Like the lunch, it wasn’t a date. Both Delaney and I were both just tagging along and would happen to be at the same bar. No big deal.
Then why did a wave of adrenaline rush through me, as if it was a big deal?
As if you don’t already know the answer.
11
DELANEY
“You’re wearing normal socks.”
Of all the stupid things to say first. With a few vodka sodas under my belt, though, it wasn’t surprising. Despite myself, I’d been tuned up all night, knowing I would see Parker again. At least I didn’t say what had run through my head when we walked into O’Malley’s and I first saw him. Making out with him was not on my to-do list tonight, even if I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“Every once in a while I like to mix it up.”
Pia and Mason were already heading to the dance floor as Jules found someone she knew at the other end of the bar.
“Help yourself,” he said of the empty seat next to him. “Mason won’t be back anytime soon.”
I sat. “He just doesn’t seem the dancing type to me.”
“Agreed. But I guess even big, tough military guys like to cut a rug every once in a while.”
“Sup, Delaney?” Beck interrupted us. “What can I get you?”
“Hi, Beck. Vodka soda. Tito’s, please.”
“Splash of cran?”
“Sure, why not.”
“Coming up.”
Parker’s hand wrapped around his beer bottle. His hands were big. Strong, I assumed, from working with them every day.
I swallowed, reminding myself for the umpteenth time today… no dating.
“So I hear the two of you have a history?”
Laughing, I tried to imagine what Beck had told him. “Hardly. We were”—I used air quotes—“boyfriend and girlfriend in middle school. Never even kissed. Beck,” I said as my old friend delivered the vodka soda, “was too much of a chicken shit to attempt it.”
“Hey,” Beck said as Parker quietly tapped the money in front of him and Beck took my drink payment, “it takes two to tango, Miss Delaney.”
“As if I would have ever attempted it. You know me better than that.”
Beck turned to Parker. “Delaney is much too nice. She’s like the female version of you, actually.”
“I’d say you got off easy,” Parker said to me.
“Oh, by high school, he found his groove alright. Thankfully, we just stayed friends.”
“Uh,” Beck said, as if wounded. “I would have made a great boyfriend.”
Smiling, I pulled the drink toward me. “I think we have different definitions of what a great boyfriend is.”
Beck winked and moved off to serve drinks.
