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“Is Luke working tonight?” the blonde asked.
I sloshed the wine at the sound of his name. I knew I was probably turning fifteen shades of red. It was the curse of having pale skin. All my emotions showed up as a blush. But neither woman was paying attention to me, both too busy scanning the restaurant behind them. I wiped up the small spill and capped the wine, returning it to the fridge.
“He’s around here somewhere,” I said.
“We can wait,” the blonde said. “Trust me, Amber, he’s worth it.”
“So I hear,” Amber said.
Then the women looked at each other and laughed. A knowing laugh that curdled my stomach. Becausethatwas the kind of woman Luke would kiss under the mistletoe. Neither of them could be more than a couple years older than me—hell, they might have been the same age as me, or maybe even younger.
But age wasn’t the difference between them and me. It was experience. With men. Specifically, my lack thereof. Their confidence and swagger and knowing laughter suggested experience commensurate with their age. I didn’t judge them for it. I envied them.
It was discomfiting. I had chosen a cutthroat career in a city known for turning bright-eyed babies into bitter crones. Against the odds, I had excelled in both. I was confident in my ability to execute a perfect pirouette, travel the subway system, and make fifty dollars stretch for two weeks’ worth of meals, if I had to. I knew how to command attention on a crowded stage—men or women, front row or nosebleed, it didn’t matter.
Yet somehow, when it was just one man’s attention I wanted, I couldn’t pull it off. I didn’t know how to make Luke see me as anything butlittle Bethany Albright. And little Bethany Albright was not someone he was inclined to kiss under the mistletoe.
Idiot, I berated myself as I angrily polished the scratched bar top to a pristine sheen with a damp rag. I hadhumiliatedmyself asking Luke to kiss me under the mistletoe and I was only now fully understanding just how laughable he must have found the whole situation. Maybe he had gone home with another woman that night. Someone like the blonde or brunette, who had experience and knew how to advertise that. Not little Bethany Albright.
But dammit all, I wasn’t little Bethany Albright. Not to myself. Not to any number of men who would have been thrilled to kiss me under the mistletoe, had I ever put the offer on the table. Maybe Luke only saw the scraggly little kid who lived next door, but that was just because he hadn’t been around to watch me grow up.
Fortunately, Goat’s Tavern was full of men who weren’t Luke Buchanan.
And it was high time I sampled some of those experiences everyone else had had while I’d been laser focused on ballet.
Adrenaline winged through my veins. It was the same feeling I’d experienced on a mountaintop. Once I had thought only ballet could give me that rush, but I’d been wrong. Maybe I’d believed that because I hadn’t ever experienced anything other than ballet.
I had a month to make up for that now.
It didn’t matter that I didn’t knowhowto do this, exactly. So what if my first attempt had ended with a humiliating kiss on my cheek? I refused to give up. If ballet had taught me anything, it was that failure was only theoretical until you made it real, and the only way to make it real was to give up. Until then, it was just a learning opportunity. Practice. A speedbump on the road to success.
Tonight I was going to practice flirting. Hell, kissing too. Why not? And I didn’t need Luke Buchanan for that.
Chapter 5
Bethany
BeforeIcouldchangemy mind, I grabbed my purse and headed for the bathroom. Goat’s Tavern wouldn’t close for another two hours and from the looks of things, there were at least a couple of good-looking options. Did those options turn my blood to molten honey, heating me from the inside out, the way Luke did? No. But maybe that was for the best. I was less likely to make a fool out of myself if I wasn’t a puddle of goo.
In the bathroom, I gave myself a thorough once-over in the water-spotted mirror. I looked pretty good, despite coming off a six-hour shift. My borrowed tank top showcased my newly-grown breasts—thanks to more calories and a less-intensive physical routine, I fully filled out a B-cup for the first time in my life. My new chest would ruin the line of an arabesque, but I had the feeling the men of Hart’s Ridge cared a lot less about that.
I tidied up the mascara smudges under my eyes, applied a few fresh coats of mascara to my lashes, and slicked on some lipstick. After running a brush through my hair and fluffing it up, I was ready to go.
I could do this. Flirt with a man, in a way that made him understand a kiss on the cheek was unacceptable. It didn’t matter who, so long as he wasn’t Luke Buchanan. Which of course it wouldn’t be anyway, because he was probably flirting with the blonde or brunette. Maybe he had already left with one of them. Orbothof them.
With a vicious yank, I opened the bathroom door and practically hurled myself into the hallway…and straight into a brick wall.
Ow.
I stepped back, rubbing my nose because it had taken the brunt of the collision, and looked up.
Oh.
Shit.
Not a brick wall.
Luke’s chest.
