What the heck? Is this a bar for blind firemen or something?
I take a seat next to Julia, my ego feeling bruised. Not as bruised as when Brad told me I was too fat to be desirable, but still. This was not how I envisioned my night starting.
Julia and I engage in our customary greeting — the European double cheek kiss where you just kiss the air next to the person’s face. Mwah, mwah.
“You look fabulous,” Julia says, eyes shining. She’s already a little tipsy. Well, that makes two of us.
“Do I?” I ask. “I was starting to wonder . . .”
“Girl, shush. You lookincroyable.” She punctuates her French with a chef’s kiss. Yeah, she’s definitely feeling good.
I sigh. “I’m glad you think so, since no one else in here seems to notice.”
Jax had been trying to get the bartender’s attention when he overheard my last remark. Now he’s looking at me somewhat guilty.
He clears his throat.
“I, uh . . . might have had something to do with that.”
“You what?” I say, feeling a flush of heated anger in my cheeks.
“Well, I mentioned at the station that, uh . . . my sister might be stopping in tonight to have drinks with us, and . . . yeah. You know. The code.”
I stare at my brother with equal parts disbelief and disgust. That stupid code. Why would they come up with a rule not to date each other’s sisters? They’re practically like family already in that fire house.
He cringes, and I can tell he’s trying to look cute. But I’m not amused. I’m staring daggers. He laughs a little awkwardly, before trailing off.
“What?” he finally says, after noticing the expression on my face isn’t changing.
I raise my eyebrows. “Oh, nothing, Jax. I’m just soglad every man in this place is going to treat me like radioactive material tonight. Thank you for that.”
Julia almost chokes on her drink. She thinks this is pretty funny. And I suppose I’d find it funny too, if it wasn’t for mychance at meeting someone new being dashed on the rocks of my brother’s stupidity.
Jax gets all puppy-dog on me now. “Bethany, I . . . I didn’t mean to . . . Look, do you want me to tell the guys you’re fair game?”
“Wow,” I reply. “Just wow.”
“What?” Jax asks. He genuinely doesn’t know.
Julia stifles a laugh, and touches my idiot brother on the arm. “Women don’t want to be thought of as ‘game’, honey,” she tells him patiently.
Jax processes this with a drunken frown.
I sigh. I can feel a headache coming on. Best solution for that? Keep drinking.
The buxom bartender asks what I’m having.
I get two shots of bourbon and tell the bartender to put it on Jax’s tab.
“Does that mean you forgive me?” he asks, sliding the drinks over to me.
“It means in five minutes, I’ll be a lot more likely to,” I retort, and down the first shot.
Woo!
That was intense. Like someone lit a barrel of gasoline on fire in my throat. But I like the burn.
I reach for the second shot.
