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kate
. . .
"It'slike a dick swinging contest, Kate."
I grin and look up from rinsing the sink, a roar of motorcycles filling the air. The raspy voice of Bernice, an elderly woman drinking a piña colada, echoes through the empty bar.
She's a regular at Lime and Salt, my mom's thatched-roof tiki hut, and her butt has warmed that wooden stool since I was a teenager.
"Stupid bikers." She swivels in her seat to glare through the bank of potted palms separating that side of our open-air bar from the parking lot. "Why the hell do they have to keep revving like that? They know the exhaust comes right in here, and we can smell it. Assholes."
She slurps the remnants of her cocktail and pushes the plastic cup toward me. I don't need to ask if she wants another.
The Harley engines sputter and die, and as I mix Bernice's drink—hand-shaken with coconut cream, pineapple juice and Bacardi light rum, no frozen pre-made sludge for her—a cloud of testosterone invades the bar like fog over the Gulf of Mexico. I glance up, my muscles tensing.
Since returning home to my small island town of Paradise Beach, I've been on edge, awaiting something ominous. It's probably because of my complicated history here. I both love and loathe this island, and my feelings about it change by the hour.
Two bikers strut in, their boots thudding against the wood plank floor. The guys are beefy and wearing leather jackets even in the mild Florida fall weather. They take over a high-top table in the corner, one of only five in the whole place. It's the one that would have the best view of the beach if it weren't eight at night.
I catch the eye of Jane, our raven-haired waitress. She winks and nods. My shoulder muscles ease away from my ears. A longtime employee, I know she takes no crap and loves guys with Harleys. She's got this.
I'm pouring the piña colada, focusing on not slopping it everywhere like Mom taught me, when I feel a body slipping into the seat next to Bernice. It's a bartender's sixth sense: when someone takes a stool and needs a drink.
"That's all it is with men these days," she adds a few more colorful swear words under her breath. "A dick swinging contest."
I slide a glance to her left, straight into the familiar, whiskey-colored eyes of my high school crush.
Damien Hastings?
Here, in my bar? How did I not notice when he walked in? So much for that sixth sense.
I immediately over pour Bernice's colada and shake my head. My skin crackles with awareness because I'd looked into his stunning eyes right on the beat of the worddick. I snicker.
"No alcohol abuse, girlie." Bernice brushes a lock of silver hair off her forehead and lights up a Pall Mall.
My face flushing hot, I finish pouring, then wipe the sides of her drink with a rag, and hand it to her. She takes a big sip.
"Don't tell your mother, but you make a better cocktail." She tips the cup in my direction.
"I'll keep that between us, Bern."
I'm scrubbing my hands with the dishcloth to conceal them from visibly shaking when I turn to the man candy on the other side of the bar.
"Well. Damien Hastings. It's been a long time."
He grins, showing straight, white teeth. He always had a gorgeous, boy-band smile, almost too pretty and sweet for a guy. But when did he get so big and muscular? I guess the Marines did that. Over the years, I've often wondered where Damien ended up, what he looked like, if he remembered me at all.
Now I know.
That black scruff of a beard on his face makes him look dangerous.
Dangerously hot.
Lordy, he's like rain in a desert, if the desert is a metaphor for my entire body.
Then again, my insta-lust for him doesn't come as a shock, either to my body or my brain. I've always had a thing for Damien, long before we kissed at a party our senior year of high school. He was my first crush and probably my first love. A largely unrequited, interrupted one, but an intense love nonetheless.
"Ten years, but who's counting?" His grin is lazy and lascivious. His eyes do a quick, yet definite, scan of my body. My forehead prickles with perspiration.
