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“Oh yeah. When do you think that’s happening?”
“Knowing the two of them, probably tomorrow,” I said with a laugh. “My sister is already talking about white dresses and flowers and honeymoons and babies. Stephanie’s always wanted to be a mom, and I’ve caught her on a few adoption websites since I’ve been around.”
“Wow.”
“I know. I can only imagine what kind of maid-of-honor dress she’ll put me in.”
“Do you want that?” he asked.
“To be maid of honor, yeah. She hasn’t officially asked me yet, but I’m her only sister and she doesn’t have a whole lot of close girlfriends. A life like that. Falling in love. Marriage and kids. That whole dream.”
Now it was my turn to get weird and quiet. Ever since I’d left Blue Creek, leaving Luke to marry Emmeline and start his life without me, effectively killing any hopes I had of the two of us being together someday, I hadn’t really let myself think about marriage or kids. I’d shut down the part of myself that dreamed about that.
“Cindy—”
“Honestly, I think I need another drink or two before we go down that road,” I answered.
I pushed the shot glasses toward the bartender, just to get them out of my way, but he misread the gesture and filled them. He was giving me side-eye and definitely hadn’t forgiven me for offending his prudish sensibilities. But he placed the two shots in front of me, anyway.
I offered Luke one, but he refused.
“More for me,” I said with a halfhearted chuckle. “Bottoms up.”
Ten
Luke
The second two shots of SoCo loosened Cindy up and really got her chatting. Somewhat about her time in the service, but mostly about the adventures she’d had and the friends she’d met along the way. In a way, she was starting to feel like the old Cindy Lawless I’d known in high school. Her cadence was the same. She still got distracted mid-story and started down a tangent. The same kinds of twisted and goofy things made her laugh. She was the same old Cindy, but with a ton of new things to tell me.
She also became a lot more adventurous.
“So of course we had to hide his glasses,” she said.
“You were on a two-day march through the desert, though.”
“After what that bastard put us through, he deserved to go through a little bit of hell,” she continued. “We gave them back in the morning.”
“Mean.”
“Maybe a little. But I had to remind people not to mess with me from time to time,” she justified.
She finished the last sip of her drink but didn’t order another one. She knew her limits.
“Okay, your turn. Truth or dare?” she asked.
“Were we even playing that?”
“I thought so. I just told you the worst prank I ever pulled.”
“You did that without my asking.”
“Well, whatever,” she said, pushing her hair off her shoulders. “Truth or dare?”
“Dare.”
Cindy pursed her lips and smirked as she racked her brain for the wildest dare she could think of.
“Send me the most embarrassing picture in your phone,” she said with a cheeky smile.
