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That phrase rang a bell.
She remembered the last time they’d talked at their lockers, just before she left school early for her accelerated college program.
“You should pay more attention in class,” she’d lectured him. “Or you’re going to end up running the cash register at the Quickie Mart. You’re better than that.”
“What’s wrong with the Quickie Mart? I like those little corn dogs they sell. The ones that rotate on little skewers, man, they’re good.”
“You’re impossible.” She’d grabbed the last emergency protein bar from her locker and tossed her lock in her backpack. “It’s your life. Good luck with your nowhere future.”
Her face heated again as she caught his eye over his glass of beer. She’d been pretty rude to Jason back then. Wrong, too. Being a firefighter wasn’t a “nothing” future. He was very good at it, from everything she’d heard. Where had she gotten off telling him what his future was going to be?
“That was the last conversation we had before I left, wasn’t it?”
He nodded with a wry look. “It had an impact, obviously.”
She dropped her head into her hands. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have gone off on you the way I did.”
He shrugged. “No worries.”
“What do you mean, no worries? I had no right to come at you like that.”
“It didn’t bother me. I liked it.”
“You liked it?”
“I figured you wouldn’t bother if you didn’t care. When I passed the firefighter exam, I wanted to rub your face in it. Seemed a little immature, though.”
Oh, that twinkle in his eye, that dimple, that sexy quirk of his lips. No wonder he never had a problem lining up the next girl.
Rebound, rebound.
Shut up, Gina.
“Well, of course I cared. You have a scar thanks to me.”
“Yeah, and thanks for that, too. Really. It’s a great story. Girls love it.”
Of course they did. The heroic kid diving in front of a pool cue to save someone else.
“As long as you keep my name out of it,” she said lightly.
“It’s permanently redacted. I’m pretty sure that mystery girl was just a summer tourist who couldn’t handle her Jägermeister.”
They both took a pause, and she realized that they’d been wrapped up in each other to such an extent that Mariano’s was half empty now. The other firefighters had left. There was no sign of Galen. At the jukebox, someone put on an old country love ballad, which somehow made the lights seem dimmer. It all seemed calculated to create an atmosphere of intimacy, but it was probably just in her imagination. This was Mariano’s, after all, not some hipster cocktail bar in Minneapolis.
And she and Jason didn’t have that kind of vibe.
Except that he was looking at her as if she was a dessert he couldn’t wait to savor.
“What are you doing?” she asked bluntly.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re looking at me different.”
“Different how?” He raised an eyebrow, but the look in his eyes didn’t change.
“Sexy.”
