“Because you just blew it with our girl,” Cinco explains.
“How’s that?” His brow furrows. “I haven’t done anything.”
“It’s what you said, not what you did,” Hooter chimes in.
“What?” Cinco asks. “Now you’ve lost me.”
“One,”Hooter answers, “when her twang hangs out like that, she’s either drunk or pissed, and she’s not drunk.”
“Why would she be pissed?” the lost little sailor asks the guys like I’m not even here, even though he’s looking right at me. Which is odd to say the least—that, and I don’t like being discounted.
“You lied.”
“She doesn’t know me. How would she know if I was lying or not?” This mysterious guy is not mad or douchey; it’s like he genuinely wants to know what he did to fuck things up two seconds after walking over to our table.
“Because we’re with the F-35 squadron,” Hooter replies as he circles his finger around our table, indicating the three of us. “And we’re the pilots.”
“Oh shit,” the big guy says, his baby blue eyes go comically wide like a drunken cartoon character.
“You got that right,” Hooter agrees, his smile spreading across his handsome face.
“My bad.” The guy cringes and has the balls to look chagrined. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say with a tight smile. “I’m not really in the mood for company tonight, so why don’t we just chalk it up as a mulligan and move on. I’m sure those women who just walked in would be more likely to believe your tall tales.”
“Sure,” he says quietly as he looks around like he’ll grab onto any out he can find with both hands. He’s desperate for an excuse to move on. “If you’ll excuse us….”
And then the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on is gone. Just like that.
Chapter Three
Kyle
Well, fuck
Well, fuck. That did not go well at all.
All I wanted was an anonymous night out where the women weren’t looking for frogmen conquests. So that I could cut loose and have some fun, blow off some steam, and I ended up screwing the pooch big time.
“That could not have gone worse.” Sean laughs from beside me at the bar.Thank you, Captain Obvious.
I roll my eyes. I’m glad he thinks my crash and burn is so funny. I’ll remember this moment when the tables are turned. And they will be turned some day because karma is, as they say, a bitch.
“Yeah,” I say, looking at him from the corner of my eye. “I kind of got that when her friends laughed in my face.” At least he has the good manners to wince at that.
“Too bad about that one,” he mumbles as he orders another beer from the bartender. “She’s hot as fuck.”
I slap him on the back of the head, which is a little bit of a reach for me, because he’s freaking huge. But still. That was uncalled for.
“What was that for?” he grumbles.
“Don’t talk about her like that,” I say and take a sip of my beer. He turns around and looks out at the room, letting my comment go. It’s not like me to be quick to lay claim to a woman, any woman, but there’s something about this one that called to me from the minute I saw her. I don’t know what it is or what it means, but I can’t bat it away as easily as Sean did my comments.
“What about that one who just walked in with her friends?” he asks me, and I look over my shoulder to see a dye bottle redhead eyeing me like a prime rib. She’s got a great body, I’ll give her that, and she does little to hide it with her black lace bra, white tank top, and cut-off shorts, but there’s something about her that just doesn’t click for me. She’s too obvious when I’m in a mood for understated. I can’t help but compare the see-through tank to the layered tanks and skinny jeans that the blonde from earlier is wearing—showing off her curves without giving it all away. Or the way gold hoops winked in her ears from under the mess of blonde curls. The entire package was sexy as hell and has my body tightening in unexpected ways.
I don’t want fake red when real blonde just slipped through my fingers.
“Nah, man,” I tell him. “You go for it.”
