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“Have you had alcohol before?” Lyric asked, no sign of judgement whatsoever in her eyes.
I shook my head. “Just a glass of wine on two different occasions.”
She nodded resolutely. “Then we should start you off slow. Liquor would probably be a huge mistake. What about a beer?”
I shrugged. Not having a clue what beer tasted like, I didn’t really have much of an opinion. “I’m happy to try it out.”
Lyric turned back to Shane. “A beer for her, something light, maybe a little less hoppy?”
Shane smiled reassuringly. “I know just the thing. Be right back.”
“So, what’s pool?” I asked once Shane had taken off for the bar to grab our drinks.
“It’s one of your typical bar games,” Lyric explained, then went on to detail a game in which you used a long stick to hit a white ball into other colored balls, with the objective of knocking those colored balls into pockets. I couldn’t say I understood everything she’d said, but it was a new experience, and I wanted to soak up as many of those as humanly possible.
“Do they have it here?”
She sat up straight in order to see over the tops of peoples’ heads, and scanned the bar. “Yep. They have a couple tables right over there, but it looks like they’re full at the moment.”
I sat higher in my seat and twisted to look in the direction her gaze was pointed. I saw a couple tables, the tops of which were covered on a soft-looking green material. I watched as a man holding a long, polished stick bent forward, leaning on the edge of the table, and looked at the balls scattered about like he was studying them for a test. He had one hand situated near the skinniest end of the stick on the table, and the other was holding the thicker butt end, sliding it back and forth, back and forth. A second later, he stabbed it harder, and the balls went skiddingacross the green fabric with acrack!From my current vantage point, I couldn’t see whether or not one of the balls went into a pocket, but from the way he stood tall and shot a smug grin to the man at the other end of the table, I could only assume it had.
The man turned then, facing out into the crowded bar, and reached for a glass filled with a pale amber liquid sitting on a table close by. Recognition flashed as he took a drink of whatever was in the glass. Holton Clarke, the deputy I’d met after my first trip to the library. He’d been handsome as could be in his uniform but seeing him dressed down in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved Henley, he was something else entirely.
A moment later, almost as if he could feel my eyes on him, his gaze collided with mine.
My heartrate kicked up as he lowered his glass, his lips tipping upward in a pleased smile. Andoh my, did he have a nice smile.
The spell was broken when Shane returned and plunked our glasses down on the table. I jerked around toward her just as she said, “First round’s on me. Let me know if you need anything else.” Then she was off.
The drink in front of me was similar to what Holton had, only slightly lighter. I lifted it to my face and sniffed, realizing that the smell I couldn’t place when we’d first stepped into Bad Alibi was beer. I kind of liked the smell of it.
Lyric watched me, a grin teasing at her lips as she drank from the straw in her drink while watching me build up the courage to take my first sip. Finally, I brought the glass to my lips and drank.
“Well?” she asked, curiosity lighting up her face. “What do you think?”
“I think...” I licked my lips, a bit of the foam that had been at the top of the glass lining the edge of my upper lip, “I like it. It’s different, but not in a bad way.” I took another drink, the secondone even bigger than the first. It rushed to my belly and settled, spreading warmth throughout my limbs. “Ireallylike it.”
Lyric hopped in her seat. “Awesome! I’m so glad we came out tonight. This is going to be so much fun.” She lifted her glass in the air and waited for me to do the same before clinking them together. “To our first official ladies’ night.”
“To ladies’ night!” I cheered in return, just as Lyric’s eyes went to something over my shoulder and grew round.
“Uh, don’t look now, babe, but I think your first attempt at flirting is coming this way. And he’s looking at you like you’re dinner.”
My eyes bugged out, and I lifted my beer up again, taking a couple big gulps. I had a feeling I was going to need it.
Ilovebeer!
I’d had three glasses of my new favorite beverage and was feeling absolutely amazing! I felt like I was floating, like my feet were hovering inches above the ground. The beer had warmed me from the inside, making me feel like I’d been coated in a blanket of kitten fur. Everything made me giggle.
Like Holt Clarke—he’d insisted I call him that. “All my friends call my Holt,” he’d said in a deep, rumbly voice shortly after he’d come to sit with Lyric and me. I’d worked on my flirting, just like my friend had wanted me to, and I had to admit, I was pretty good at it, if I did say so myself. Which I totally did.
Anyway, Holt made me all giggly. Especially when he came up behind me and wrapped his strong, thick arms around me so he could help me grip the pool stick thing better. His chest pressed against my back as he said, “Okay, now you’re gonna want to line your cue stick up just like this.”
I burst into another fit of giggles as his breath fanned across my neck and ear, tickling the sensitive skin. “That tickles.”
“This doesn’t feel right,” Lyric called from across the table. Sometime between beers one and two, Holt had invited both of us to join him and his friends up near the pool tables. As it turned out, I knew some of those friends. Farah had been there with her husband, Cannon, and Poppy was with Jase. I reintroduced myself to Willow and Lark, both of whom I’d met at my interview to be Cash’s nanny, and met their husbands, Clay and Stone, Laeth’s co-worker Gage was also there, another woman named Wynn, who’d had us all in stitches most of the night.
It was a hodgepodge group, for sure, but they were all extremely nice, and had welcomed Lyric and me with open arms.
