She dropped her chin, looking at him sideways. “What do you mean?”
“Listen, Pest, when you go away, if you’re at a bar”—underage, he reminded himself, she wouldn’t, shouldn’t, be going into bars anytime soon, but he was making a point here—“or at a frat party or something, you don’t drink from an open container. Closed cans only. If you leave your drink on the table to dance or fix your hair, you don’t finish it when you get back. Because anybody could put anything in your drink and you’d never know. You have to protect yourself.”
She frowned. “You mean, from drugs.”
“From rape.”
She hugged her arms to herself. Shit. Now he felt like he’dkicked a puppy. But she was going off island in three months, away from the people who had known and looked out for her her entire life. She couldn’t go bounding up to strangers, hoping for a pat, trusting only good things would happen.
He shrugged out of his flannel shirt and handed it to her. It was filthy. Probably smelly, too, but he didn’t have anything better to offer her.
She shook her head, not quite meeting his eyes. “I’m okay.”
He didn’t argue, just held out the shirt and waited. It worked, because she took it, slipping her arms into the sleeves, covering all that pale, bare skin.
“Thanks,” she said in a small voice. For the shirt? For the warning?
Joe didn’t want her thanks. He wanted…He balled up that thought like a dirty shirt and stuffed it in his mental closet. “What the hell were you doing at the Mustang, anyway?”
“It was open, and I didn’t want to go home. And before you start lecturing me again, I was perfectly safe. I know everybody there.”
“Except the guys you sat with.”
“That was kind of the point. I figured they wouldn’t treat me like a kid. Besides, all I had to do was open my mouth and scream, and there was an entire table full of big, strong firefighters who would have fallen over themselves coming to my rescue.”
Joe ignored the logic of this. He felt oddly off-balance, distracted by that long white throat framed by the collar of his shirt. “You’re supposed to be at prom.” Safely surrounded by friends. Parents. Chaperones.
“I was.” She smiled crookedly. “My date dumped me for someone else.”
Rob hadn’t mentioned a date. “You want me to find him and beat him up for you?” Joe offered, joking. Mostly joking.
“Nothim. The whole idea of sitting around waiting for some guy to ask you to a school dance is stupid. I went with Daanis.”
“Yeah, no, I’m not beating up on your best friend.” Anne laughed, which made him feel better about the whole situation. “I thought Daanis was dating Zeke Bartok.”
Joe wasn’t exactly up on the high school gossip, but his mom talked. The Bartok kid was a nice guy, a couple of years behind Joe in school. He’d needed to bring up his grades, Joe remembered, and Anne had tutored him in English. He’d joined the coast guard or something.
“Zack.” Anne nodded. “She is. Only he’s away, starting his sea year with the merchant marine. That’s what they call it, a sea year, even though he’s assigned to the Great Lakes. And Daanis really wanted to go to prom. It was going to be our thing, our girls’ night, before I have to leave for college. Her mom drove us all the way to Marquette to go dress shopping. See?” She opened the shirt, exposing that short red dress and an eyeful of chest. “It’s vintage. Which means I bought it at Goodwill, because like I told Mrs.Leger, who has the money to waste on a dress you’re never going to wear again?”
Joe bit back a grin. “You look very nice,” he said politely.
Actually, she looked hot.
Not that he was thinking about her that way. Or if he was…Hell, he was a guy. He had thoughts. That didn’t mean he was going to act on them.
She beamed. “Thanks. Daanis did my hair and makeup. Nails, too.” She waggled them. “I Am What I Amethyst. Isn’t that a great name?”
Joe didn’t know why anybody would want to paint their nails blue. They looked almost white under the night sky. But the way she was smiling and animated again, yeah, that was pretty…“Great,” he said.
Which was all the encouragement she needed.
“Anyway.” She sighed. “It was fun. Only we’re in the middle of taking pictures, and—surprise!—there’s Zack. In his dress uniform, with a corsage and everything. Of course, prom is supposed to be just for students, but he only graduated last year, so it’s not like anybody was going to throw him out. And everybody goes crazy, like in that old movie Mom likes, where the guy sweeps in at the end and rescues her from her miserable life as a factory worker.”
An Officer and a Gentleman.Joe’s mom liked it, too, even though the men in her life were not the type to show up.
Anne stumbled in her fancy shoes, and Joe took her arm to steady her up the hill.
“Honestly, I didn’t think Zack had it in him,” she confided. “I mean, he’s not my idea of a romance hero. But Daanis was happy. And I’m happy for her.”
