Page 16 of Intrepid

The crowd jostled me, as we made our way to the bar, and when we finally reached an open space, I leaned forward to get the bartender’s attention.

Bea slid in beside me, resting her boobs on the bar. Both of us wore tank tops, but hers sat filled to capacity. “Girl, I know you didn’t learn how to dance like that in Bloomfield.”

I chuckled, nodding as the bartender finally approached. “I’ll take a Coke.”

“Same. Two of them.” Bea met my incredulous frown with a shit-eating grin. No way she’d only drink a Coke, particularly as we were within walking distance to our apartment. “With a shot of Captain.”

Thought so.

Within minutes, he’d filled two glasses and pushed them in front of us. Drink in hand, I spun away from the bar, nearly splashing Coke onto the guy beside me.

“Oh! Shit.” My eyes hit chest first, the broad, hard muscles punching through the black T-shirt he wore, which clung to his biceps, and up to the familiar piercing blue eyes that stared down at me. Without his hoodie, his hair lay tousled, as if he’d just rolled out of bed—though, a small voice inside told me not to dwell on that thought too much. Somehow, I couldn’t turn away from the intensity swirling in his irises. “Ty. You … decided to come out, after all.”

At tiny spasm of pain over my scalp, I realized I’d started twirling strands of my hair so tight they’d snapped free. I quit and lowered my hands.

“You good?” Bea spoke in my ear, and I nodded. “I’ll catch you later.” The wily tone to her voice was unmistakable, and I stifled the urge to explain that it wasn’t what she might’ve been thinking.

As she walked off, I turned back to Ty. “Thought you didn’t do the dance club scene.”

“I don’t.”

Biting my cheek, I fought to hide the nervous smile tugging at my lips. “You’re definitely following me, then.”

His eyes scanned down my outfit and back. “Would that be a bad thing?”

“It depends on what your intentions are.” I sucked some of the soda from the straw, keeping my stare locked in challenge.

His jaw shifted as though chewing on the thought for a moment, before his lips quirked, seeming to break his spell. “I’m grabbing a drink for someone. A pigeon.” He leaned toward me, resting his elbow on the bar, but the proximity of his body engulfed me, and his intoxicating scent hit like an aphrodisiac.

I scanned the throng of dancers, catching sight of Bea and Simone grinding on one another, and down from them, a young girl, standing on the fringes of the crowd, her eyes hawking me. Arms folded, she appeared to be waiting, and I turned back to Ty, who still leaned in around me, grabbing two drinks from the bar.

“See you around, angel.” Just like that, he walked off, toward the other girl.

So much for bonding over trauma.

As he approached, the girl smiled, accepting the proffered drink, and circled her finger around the rim of the glass, the way girls did when they flirted.

An unfounded twinge of jealousy struck me. Hard. The primitive side of my mind sought to search for flaws, like her skirt hiked too short, her thighs that were thicker than mine, her small breasts.

I shuttered my eyes, the words of my mother filtering over all the catty shit.

All women are beautiful. Instead of looking for the bad, admire the good.

Because of her, I’d learned to draw the best parts of a woman, enhancing their best assets, and I couldn’t deny the girl he danced with had a beautiful face. One that matched his. One without a long, ugly scar that reminded me every day how much I had no place judging other girls.

Besides, I was the one who’d given him the cold shoulder. Because I’d had enough run-ins with crazy men in the last few years to qualify as a walking mental institute.

“Sera?”

The familiar voice sliced down my spine like a blade, and I turned to find the blond-haired jock I hadn’t seen since the end of senior year standing behind me.

Speaking of crazy.

Dane and I had dated for a short time, but I’d quickly ended it when he became a little too pushy, and a little too friendly with my father.

The two of them had spoken more to each other in their first meeting than my father had said to me all that year, and I’d found it a little disconcerting when Dane had begun to take an interest in my father’s firm. I’d started to question whether his interest was in me, or working his way into the lustrous career my father had plotted out for me. His insistence that Karl Kutscher was the greatest man he’d ever met pretty much sealed the fate of our relationship, and I’d made a clean break.

He’d taken it hard. Too hard.