1 | ASSESSING THE SITUATION
It wasn’t
my fault—at least, not entirely. Henry Logan, my roommate and Captain in
the Air Force, was technically to blame. The guy had been acting so unusually
moody for the past five weeks that I was getting desperate to see a smile on
his face. So that Saturday night, I suggested we head to our favorite bar at
Bricktown and just drink the night away, confident that Henry, even in his
grumpy-bear state, could never turn down beer.
After
parking his convertible Mustang, we walked down the street to Tapwerk s in silence. I waited for him to open up, to tell me what had been bothering
him, but no dice.
“What is
with you lately?” I asked.
Henry stuck
his hands in his jacket pocket and shrugged. “Nothing, why?”
I raised an
eyebrow at him. He could successfully pull off the nonchalant attitude on
anyone but me. I’d known him for thirteen years and had lived with him for two.
I could decipher his every expression, sometimes to the point of reading his
mind. “Come on. Are you on your period or something?” I asked with a teasing
jab of the elbow. “Do you need to borrow a tampon?”
That
finally got a small laugh out of him. “Elsie, you are such a brat,” he said. He
reached over to ruffle my curly brown hair, but I anticipated the move and did
a little ninja-ballerina maneuver to avoid him.
“Hey,” I
said, “leave the hair alone.” I slipped my arm through his as we stood in line
for the bar—Tapwerks was the place to be on weekends—trying
to pilfer some of his warmth. He was 6’2” and built like a brick wall; he had
plenty of everything to spare.
As I craned
my head to study the people in line, dressed up in their casual best, I
suddenly caught a glimpse of Henry, his face partially lit by the soft glow
from the bar’s windows. It struck me then that he was really no longer that
awkward kid I grew up with but a man , and a gorgeous one at that. I’d
always known he was good-looking—hell I’d had a crush on him since my
brother started hanging out with him in their sophomore year of high
school—but the way the shadows played on his face rendered planes I never
knew existed. His short dark hair and the scruff on his strong jaw lent a nice
contrast to his olive skin, and he had a proud nose with a little cleft at the
end that matched the cleft on his chin. But it was his eyes that drew my gaze,
those icy blues that seemed as if they could see into my every thought.
I stared at
him for a long moment, feeling a strange tickle in my chest, when I came to the
realization that he was staring back.
“You okay,
Elsie?” he asked in that husky, gravelly voice of his. Had he always sounded so
sexy?
I gave him
my best sunny smile, shaking off the confusing feelings that had snuck up on
me. “Just wondering why you don’t have a girlfriend.”
His lips
quirked up a little and I felt a finger tickle me on the side, but he didn’t
bother answering the question.
Inside, the
two floors were at full capacity and there were no available tables or chairs,
so we stood at the bar, trying our hardest to get the bartender’s attention. I
was only 5’6”, so Henry theoretically had a better chance at visibility, but
somehow, the male bartender’s eyes just kept flitting right over him as if he was
invisible.
“Let me
try.” I stepped up on the brass rail that ran along the bottom of the bar and
squeezed my arms together, causing instant cleavage over the low neck of my
loose top.
The
bartender noticed. He finished up his orders and came right to me with an
appreciative smile. “What’ll it be?”
“Woodchuck
Cider, Sam Adams, and two tequila shots,” I said, and straightened up.
Henry was
doing the big brother scowl when I joined him back down on the floor.
“What?” I
asked, preparing for the lecture. “When you’ve got ‘em, use ‘em.”
He glowered
down at me with a disapproving purse to his lips but said nothing.
Similar Books
