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"I know. And I don't treat you that way. You know that. But you'd do the same for me."
She tilted her head and it made her look cute. Like a teenager. He liked when she did that. "I don't interfere with you and what you do in a parking lot anymore. Remember?"
Jake laughed. "It was a bucket list thing."
''Twins?"
He wasn't going to admit they'd just been goofing off and not really having a three-way. He'd become legendary after Eva and Monk Lewis had caught him with the Bertrand twins messing around in the back of his pickup truck. Okay, so the twins had stripped down to their underwear and they'd all been a little drunk. The whole thing had ended there, and he'd never even scored with either one of them that night... but Eva didn't know that. "It's every guy's fantasy."
"You're sick, you know that?"
"But you love me anyway," he said, slinging an arm around her neck and tugging her into a noogie.
"Stop, Jake, you're messing up my hair," she shrieked, elbowing him in the ribs, trying to keep hold of her beer.
He let her go, grinning at her. Her slick-backed hair stuck up in big mounds. "Looks better.”
She tugged the rubber band from her hair, and thick brown locks tumbled around her shoulders. "Now look what you did. I don't have a brush with me."
Her hair had honey highlights that caught in the parking lot lights. She looked pretty with her hair down, softer and more like a woman. "I like it like that. You should wear it down more often."
Eva's lips turned down. "Gets in the way."
"But it makes you look pretty. Keep it down. You'll have a better chance of getting lucky tonight." Even as he said the words, he wanted to reach out and snatch them back. Eva was his friend, but even so, he didn't like the idea of her with another guy. Which was stupid.
She snorted. "With who? Do you ever look past the regular ladies in Ray-Ray's? It ain't exactly brimming with available guys… who have all their teeth."
"Then why are you here?"
Eva started toward the entrance. "Because I'm tired of watching reruns. Nothing on TV. And Jenny wanted to get out. She's on the rebound. The banker broke up with her."
Jake rubbed his hands together. "Perfect."
Eva turned around and pressed a hand into his chest. "Don't."
"Why?"
"Because youcanbe a nice guy, right? Dance with her. Buy her drinks. But don't prey on her, Jake."
Something in her tone punched him in the solar plexus. "That's what you think of me? Jesus, Eva, I don't screw everything in a skirt."
"No, you screw everything in a skirt, pants, and shorts. I've been around you for a few years. I know you." That tone again. Eva thought he was nothing more than a gigolo, spreading himself around town. But he wasn't. Well, not really. He'd never sleep with someone who couldn't go toe-to-toe with him.
For the first time in forever, he felt embarrassed about the way he lived his life. At the hands of Eva. She never made him feel lacking. Eva was always on his side.
Her censure surprised him.
"Maybe you don't know the real me," he said, his words soft as the night gathering around them. Eva's face glowed in the light cast from above them. She looked so different with her hair down that he wanted to touch her.
Which freaked him the hell out.
This was Eva, his best bud. The person who complained about him using all the toothpaste and eating all the yogurt. The woman who left a nest of hair in the drain and beat him at Scrabble every single time they played at the station. This was the one woman he'd never let himself have the slightest attraction for.
So, yeah, freaked out.
Eva bit her bottom lip, and Jake found himself really looking at her lips for the first time. They were perfectly proportioned-not too big, but not thin. Pretty lips covered in a creamy lipstick the color of plums.
Weird.
