Sophie stares at me. "Cal. Babe. Love of my life. You are so full of shit."
Behind the bar, Jenny ‘Jet’ Carver snorts. She's been pretending not to listen while she cleaning glasses, but her platinum pixie cut catches the light every time she glances our way, and the smirk on her face says she's heard every word.
"Another round?" she asks, already reaching for the whiskey.
"Please," I say.
"You here for the whiskey or the view?" Jet nods toward where Dean and Javi are holding court near the pool tables.
Sophie grins. "Both. Definitely both."
"Traitor," I tell her.
"Realist," she counters.
Jet pours our drinks with the efficiency of someone who's been doing this for years. She's got tattoos running up both arms—roses and thorns and what looks like song lyrics in cursive—and an expression that says she's seen everything and is surprised by nothing.
"For what it's worth," she says, sliding my glass across the bar, "he's been looking at you since you walked in."
"Who?"
"Don't play dumb. Captain Handsome over there." She jerks her chin toward Dean. "Blondie's been throwing herself at him for twenty minutes, and he keeps glancing over here like you're the only person in the room."
I refuse to look. "I hadn't noticed."
"Uh-huh." Jet leans her elbows on the bar, fixing me with a stare that makes me understand why people spill their secrets to her. "Honey, I've been tending this bar for eight years. I've watched more soldiers fall in love than I can count. That man is gone for you."
"We barely know each other."
"Sometimes that's all it takes." She shrugs. "My dad proposed to my mom after three weeks. Forty years later, they still hold hands at the grocery store."
"That's... actually kind of sweet."
"Don't tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain." She moves off to serve another customer, but not before shooting me a knowing look that makes me want to crawl under the bar and hide.
Sophie leans closer. "She's right, you know. He hasn't stopped watching you."
"He's talking to someone else."
"He's being polite to someone else. There's a difference." She takes a sip of her drink. "The question is, what are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing. I'm going to do nothing. Because there's nothing to do anything about."
"Callie."
"Sophie."
"You like him."
"I tolerate him."
"You let him sit in your office for two hours last week while you did paperwork."
"He refused to leave."
"You could have kicked him out. You didn't." Sophie sets down her glass with the air of someone about to deliver a verdict. "You like him. He likes you. The only person pretending otherwise is you."
The blonde laughs again, loud and bright, and puts her hand on Dean's chest this time. My chest goes tight. The whiskey suddenly tastes like battery acid.
