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Another waitress appeared at the table. She noticed Vaughn and never looked at me. “Can I get you something?”
“What are you drinking?” he asked me.
“Oh, I’ll take another Cosmo.” I had a rule about not switching liquors during the night. Three Cosmos put me on the wrong side of alcohol consumption, but I couldn’t turn him down.
“A Cosmo for her and a bourbon and coke for me.” He stared at me while he ordered the drinks, dismissing the server.
“Got it,” she responded.
I swore the waitress winked at him.
He pushed forward on the table. “I’m not crashing a date or anything am I?”
“A date? Oh no.” I shook my head. “My roommate was called into work and had to leave.”
“I was wondering why a pretty girl was in here alone. Something didn’t add up.”
Pretty? He thought I was pretty. Had the man seen a mirror? I tried not to stare at his features, but there was something strong and confident about him. Maybe it was how the lines of his face made perfect angles. He had a solid jaw and sharp cheekbones.
I knew the line made me blush. “I could ask the same thing.”
“Are you calling me pretty? Because that might be a first.” There was something serious about the way he flirted. Maybe it was the low tone of his voice.
I immediately glanced at my drink to escape how he made me feel.
“I just wrapped a meeting with some co-workers,” he explained.
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I’m in lending.”
“Oh.” I tried not to sound disappointed. I don’t know where that came from. I expected him to say he had some kind of fascinating position I’d never heard of.
He smiled at the waitress when she handed us our drinks.
“Yeah. Not really that exciting,” he admitted. He must have noticed my reaction.
“So was that a line about being in a dangerous line of work? Do you secure death-defying loans?”
He chuckled as he kicked back the bourbon. “You’re a smartass.”
I wasn’t going for smartass. I was going for flirty and self-assured. I bit my bottom lip. I wanted him to see me as confident. As confident as he was.
“It wasn’t a line. I used to do dangerous. Not anymore. I gave it up you could say. Let’s call it retirement.”
I felt my pulse race again. There it was. The thrill of something reckless and different.
“What did you do?” I twirled the lemon twist on the surface of my drink.
“I don’t talk about it much.”
“And what keeps you from talking about it? What were you? Some kind of special operations trained killer?” I giggled at my own joke, but I saw the way his midnight eyes cut into mine.
“Oh,” I whispered.
His stare was intense. I had pressed too hard. We were strangers. I didn’t have a right to pry into his personal life. I took a sip of my drink, trying to ignore the excitement that ran through my spine from the way he answered me.
A few seconds passed before Vaughn spoke again. He seemed comfortable with the silence.
