He took a pull on his beer and mistakenly made eye contact with the woman he’d been trying to avoid three spots down. She had done a piss-poor job of being subtle for the past half hour, shooting him a smile every time he glanced to his left.
A year ago, Thad would have been right there with Von, happy to oblige one of the numerous women who hit on him in places like this. But, unlike his friend, he wasn’t in the mood. Hadn’t been for a while.
Should he play dumb and pretend he hadn’t seen her?
Too late. She’d slid off her barstool and was walking toward him.
Shit.
“Can I buy you another?” the woman asked as she approached. She stuck her hand out. “I’m Desiree, by the way.”
“Thad,” he said, shaking her hand. A childhood spent with Frances Sutherland drumming the importance of proper manners into his head wouldn’t allow him to leave her hanging.
“About that drink…?” Desiree asked.
He waited half a second to see if there was the tiniest spark of interest, but there wasn’t even a flicker. Thad pasted on athanks, but no thankssmile and said, “Sorry, but I’m the designated driver tonight.”
She wedged herself between him and the guy with dreads sitting on the stool to Thad’s left.
“I’ll cover an Uber for you and your friend. Or, better yet, I can bring you back to get your car in the morning.”
Well, damn. Guess she was done being subtle.
“I appreciate the offer—both of them,” Thad said. “But I still have to decline.”
She hunched her shoulders in a casual shrug and slipped away. Thad glanced just long enough to make sure she had taken the hint when he caught another woman staring in his direction. She started toward him, but he held his hand up and shook his head.
He was going to fucking murder Von.
“You handled that well,” Thad heard from over his shoulder.
He turned around to find the bartender changing the stainless-steel pour spout on a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Thad held up his near-empty beer bottle and the bartender nodded.
He and Von were, in fact, smart enough to have come by ride-share. Though Thad didn’t plan on having more than two beers tonight. After all, this was supposed to be a recon mission.
“I think she would have had a better chance with yourfriend,” the bartender said as he popped the cap off Thad’s Abita lager.
His friend, the asshole. Thad glanced around, but didn’t spot him. Knowing Von, he’d taken chest compression girl back to his place without telling Thad.
He turned around and faced the bar.
“If you don’t mind my saying, you don’t look like the bar type,” the bartender said.
“I guess I need to change the way I look,” Thad said. The bartender’s brows lifted in curiosity. “My friend and I are opening a place in the Bywater,” he clarified. “That’s why we’re here tonight. He says we’re scoping out the competition, but there’s competition on every corner here.”
“Yeah, if there’s one thing New Orleans can handle with ease, it’s adding another bar. Where in the Bywater?”
He told the bartender the address and the man nodded.
Thad caught sight of what looked like an anchor peeking from the hem of his shirtsleeve. He took a sip from his bottle, then pointed it at the bartender’s arm.
“You serve?”
The bartender glanced down at where Thad had pointed. “Did my twenty years,” he said.
Thad held his hand out. “I made it to fifteen.” They shook and Thad automatically felt more at ease.
He had been cautioned upon leaving the military that it would be too easy to fall into the routine of associating only with like-minded people. Von had accused him of falling into that trap—it was one of the reasons he harped on Thad about spending so much time on the military message boards.
