His eyes were sparkling with mischief, and if you didn’t look closely you could mistake them to be amber in color. But oh no, they were better than that, a brilliant wheat-like gold in the center ensconced in a barrier of rich green around the outside.
I guess that meant they were hazel. But shit, they were the best depiction of hazel I had ever seen. If hazel eyed people had meetings, he would definitely be their regional representative.
Maybe even national.
Jesus, how had I not noticed him before this moment?
He’d been here the whole damn night. He was the bartender, or so it would appear. It was either that or he was taking quite the liberties going back there to get his own drink.
I must have even ordered our drinks from him for Christ sakes.
And to top it all off, I had to crane my neck upward to look at him from my bar stool, so by guestimation, I would say he came in at around six feet, three inches or so. That was a whole lot of man to miss.
It’s amazing how in your own world you can be.
“Touché. I guess I don’t, but it sure seems like it. You’ve still got that wholly optimistic glow,” he told me, snapping me out of my reverie slash hotness factor perusal.
Avoiding that and moving on, I questioned, “So I guess you heard the list, huh?” After a nod of confirmation I added, “And you remember it?”
He smiled, shook his head, and informed me, “Oh yeah.” His eyes were pointed downward but the feeling expressed in them was intense and rueful. Looking back up and looking me right in the eye, he continued, “You know how they say an elephant never forgets?” Without waiting for my answer, he went ahead and finished, “Well, I never ever fucking forget.”
My recently waxed brow attempted to arch in response, and he must have gotten the message despite my lack of prowess, because he didn’t waste any time filling me in. “I have one of those hyperactive memories. Literally remember everything. Day, time, location, event. If I was there or I paid witness to it, I remember it.”
My head inclined slightly to the side, a subconscious act of compassion, as I murmured, “A blessing and a curse.”
Genuine surprise overwhelmed his features as he murmured, “Most people only see the blessings.”
Wow. Really?
Shit, I had plenty of stuff I was thankful to forget. Only someone who had lived a life with perfect choices and experiences wouldn’t want to forget something every once and a while.
“I have plenty of memories I’m happy to have the ability to scrub. It must suck balls to have to hold onto every shitty memory in vivid detail.”
Rugged McDimple Cutie continued to stare at me, his eyes assessing in a way that made me nervous enough to push the conversation onward. Besides, I didn’t even know his name yet.
“So, what’s your name?”
He paused for a half of a beat and then said, “Dan Smith.”
A startled laugh barked out of my throat, but I had to ask. “You’re joking, right?”
As if perfectly timed, a loud-mouthed male patron shouted out, “Danny! I’d love another drink!” while trying to get his attention. Apparently, I was making him lax in his bar tending duties.
Also, I guess he wasn’t kidding.
Dan. Fucking. Smith.
Cosmic joke, anyone?
Danny served the guy at the other end of the bar quickly and was back in front of me before I could get my brain to move on.
Still unable to grasp the fact that his name was Dan Smith, I queried, “Am I on Candid Camera?”
Both dimples popped out again, the light winking flirtatiously off of the scruff highlighted by the shift in his face, and he answered, “Well, that show ended about a decade ago. So, I’d say no.”
Right. I better move on or he was really going to think I was crazy. And worse than that, I would be well on my way to just being crazy.
“Well, Dan Smith, my name is Haley Whitfield. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Haley, huh? I like it. What brings Haley Whitfield and her lovely mother...” He paused and raised an eyebrow in question, so I filled in the blank.
“Allison.”
“Right. What brings you and your lovely mother, Allison, here?” he inquired, the look on his face one of genuine interest.
“The beach of course. Can’t you tell by my freshly tanned, healthy glow?” I asked holding my arms out in front of me and jaunting my shoulders back and forth.
A small smile kept his cheeks puffed out as he asked, “Tan?”
Dropping my arms and slumping my shoulders dramatically, I answered, “Okay, so it’s a little on the pink side, but I’m far enough away from being confused with a lobster that it counts as tan. It’s always a little pink the first day. Everyone knows that.”
He smiled big again, and I felt like someone had just given me an Oscar for being able to amuse him.
Just because I was secure in myself, didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it when people liked me.
“So the list is obviously being used to weed through copious amounts of useless men until you find a good one,” he shrewdly ascertained.
“Yep, it’s a slow process, but we’re hoping the statistics will come out in our favor.”
I felt a hand touch the small of my back, and I spun around to see Tom standing there, back from the bathroom, and smiling down at me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Danny removed himself from the conversation physically, but I could still freakishly sense that he was absolutely tracking our conversation from the outside.
I didn’t know Danny, so I wasn’t going to just take his comments at face value, but what he said did make me do an assessment of Tom again.
He was definitely cute, but now that I looked harder, I saw deficiencies other than his name. His style was all wrong, a pleated khaki pant, of all things, taking up residence on his bottom half and pretty clearly screaming anti-badass. And when I looked back at his smiling face, I discovered that while he was pretending to smile genuinely, it didn’t meet his eyes. A sure sign that Tommy was only looking at me on a superficial level.
No thanks.
“So, Haley, you think maybe you might want to go somewhere else with me, have a late dinner?” Tom asked.
I tried to be polite, but I had no idea if I succeeded. “Gee, thanks Tom. But I’m going to have to pass and stay here. It was nice talking to you though.” When he kept on standing there, I could hear the voice from Mortal Kombat demanding, “Finish him!”
So I did. “Have a nice night.”
He grumbled as he walked away, but I forgot about that pretty quickly when I turned around to see both of Danny’s dimples.
For a few minutes I just sat there, taking him in while he worked the rest of the bar.
Noting that some time had passed since the last time I checked, I looked away from the cute but nosy bartender to find Allison and saw that yet another guy was admiring her necklaces.
“You know he’s checking out her tits, right?” my new best friend questioned.
I stayed facing Allison, but sighed deep and heavy before answering, “Yep. I’m always trying to tell her that. Allison likes to see the good in people though. Chooses to believe these guys are really looking at her necklaces. It’s kind of sweet in an utterly naive way.”
After doing one last perusal of Allison and her admirer, I turned around to face the very eager conversationalist at my back.
He met my eyes for a second, cleared his throat, flashed me with both of his dimples, and told me, “I like your necklaces.”
I paused, blinked twice, and then burst out laughing. I was starting to really like this Danny character, and I had a feeling it was written all over my face and in the language of my body. My teeth were on full display in an all out smile, and my body was leaned forward into the bar, plumping up my breasts and inviting his touch.
So when his eyes flashed, his faced stuttered and changed, and he said, “Too bad I don’t fit your list at all. Not to
worry though, now that I know what you’re looking for, I’ll help you find him,” in a tone that brooked no argument, a tone meant to push my body back and RSVP “no” to my invitation, it kind of hurt.
He wasn’t interested. He was flirty joking, but I had just given him a face full of green light and he had offered to find me someone else. Actually, he strongly suggested that it would be someone else.
Someone else.
This was completely foreign to me. Not the rejection, but the feeling that the rejection caused.
I normally couldn’t give two shits if people liked me. If a guy liked me, great. I would go about seeing if I had any interest in him. If he didn’t like me, no big deal. I would just motor my boat right on over to the next fish, get my flirt on, and be all, “Helloooo, Señor Fishy Face.”
But there was something about Danny. Some kind of comfortable understanding. Some kind of pull.
But, that was neither here nor there.
Shaking myself out of my stupor, I gave myself a brief pep talk, making sure to hit all of the most important points.
Stay true to yourself. Keep your standards high. Make the best out of every situation. If a guy’s not into it, move the hell on.
I wasn’t that girl. The one who cried and wallowed and spent her time wondering what if. I preferred to skip the wallowing and move straight to the ice cream.
If Danny didn’t want to be more than friends, I would deal with it.
We would, however, be friends. I knew for a fact that his friendship was a gift I was meant to have. There was an easy air between us, a perfect medium for conducting the electricity of our personalities.
In other words, we just clicked. His tats the perfect answer for my tits.
No pun intended.
“Where did you come up with these qualities?” Danny asked, jerking me back to reality once again.
I didn’t hesitate to tell him the truth, but that didn’t stop me from blushing just a little. Normal, adult women didn’t do this sort of thing, so I had no idea what his reaction would be. “Well, Allison and I are both big Contemporary Romance readers. Our favorite author creates the best guys, so we decided to take a page out of her book...ha...and find some guys for ourselves using her guidelines.”
I sat there waiting for Danny to say something, anything, but he gave me absolutely no response.
Legitimately utter silence.
How did crickets get into the bar?
After thirty seconds of painful noiselessness, filled with uncomfortable fidgeting suitable of someone with Tourette's, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Are you suddenly a mute or something? Because you were a regular Chatty Cathy about two minutes ago.”
His long fingered hands spread wide and pressed into the bar, causing his muscular biceps to bulge and his shoulders to hunch slightly under the weight of his upper body. “So you’re serious? That’s something you’re actually doing? I didn’t stroke out and imagine it?” he asked, his face stoic and serious looking.
“Listen, nobody out smartass-es me, so you’re going to have to turn it down a few fucking notches.”
“Man, I love your dirty mouth,” Danny teased, his easy smile returning, his body swaying a modicum closer to me.
Of course, at that very moment, Allison decided to grace us with her presence. “Oh my God. Are we on 100,000 Dollar Pyramid?”
Danny and I had just enough time to throw each other a glance as she took a breath. “Because I know the answer,” she said, pausing momentarily for dramatic effect. “It’s ‘Things You Should Never Hear a Man Say To Your Daughter’, in case you were wondering.”
“Why do both of you only reference really old shows?” Danny interjected before I could address the real meaning behind her statement.
“Jesus, shut up, Danny,” I snapped, talking to him the way I would talk to someone I had known my entire life, regardless of the fact that I met him an hour ago.
Turning my eyes to Allison, I addressed her. “Trust me, we don’t need another room tonight, Madre.”
“Yeah, I’m all about a three way,” Danny, once a-fucking-gain, helpfully interjected.
“Jesus, Danny! What is wrong with you?! Shut. Up.”
Of course, Allison was apparently as unhinged as the rest of us, because instead of being insulted by Danny’s statement, she smiled and stated, “I like you, Danny.”
“What?!” I screeched. I couldn’t believe the turn this conversation had taken.
“Not for a three way, Haley. Relax.” She huffed a deep breath, rolled her eyes in frustration over me at Danny, looked back at me, and then informed me, “He just seems like he handles your crazy well is all.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her I didn’t need to be handled, but we all knew that was a lie, so I didn’t bother.
“Yeah, he’s totes adorable. My new Bestie for life.” My tone was mocking, but the sad part was that it was so true. He was totally adorable, and I was pretty sure he was going to be my new BFF (Best Friend Forever).
Danny and Allison both ignored me, which was probably a smart move, and started to have their own conversation.
“Allison, do you have any important plans for tomorrow that you can’t break? Because I’d really love if you and Haley could come over and hang out. We’ll grill some stuff, get to know one another, that kind of thing. My uncle will be there too,” he proposed like a completely civilized adult. The complete opposite of the fucking jokester who had just offered a threesome to my mother.
My head went back and forth between them and my mouth opened and shut several times trying to get words out.
“That sounds like fun, Danny,” Allison, my ex-mother turned Danny’s ultimate supporter, answered.
When traitorous Allison agreed with him, I finally found my voice. “Excuse me, didn’t you forget to ask me about this, Danny?”
“Just come over, Hales.”
Hales? I was Hales now?
Before I could say anything else, he added, “Oh, and bring a long sleeve shirt.”
“Long sleeves!” I shouted. “It’s hot as balls outside! What are you crazy? How am I going to build on my tan in long sleeves?”
His first instinct was to argue with me, I could see it written all over his handsome face, but he put a lid on it for some reason.
“You know what, never mind. I’ll just loan you one of mine,” he conceded.
Well that shut me up. Wearing his shirt sounded kinda nice.
No. It sounded really nice.
Crap. Obviously, this not caring if he liked me or not was going to go really well. Not.
A knowing smirk graced his face before he turned around to go back to work. He got about two steps, paused, turned, and came back over to me. His face was unreadable, so I wasn’t really sure what was coming and I was a little scared.
I subtly leaned back from the bar, but he just kept on coming, getting close in my space. “By the way, bring your books, or e-reader, or whatever the hell you call it, because I’m going to have to hear more about this tomorrow, and I’m going to need specifics.”
He flashed me one last smile, one full of mystery and mischief, and then swept his gaze over to Allison to give her a far different, far more innocent version of his smile.
As he moved down the bar again and got back to work, my brain started functioning at higher efficiency again, and I realized there was a little flaw in the plan.
After waiting patiently for him to get closer, I took my opportunity when he was a few customers away to talk to him. “Um, little problem, Dan-o. We never got your address. I don’t have one effing clue where you live or how to get there,” I said, deferring to the more innocent “effing” rather than going full on f-word thanks to his comment about my dirty mouth.
He smirked, the picture of someone who knew something you didn’t, and said, “Call me in the morning.”
Oh, okay.
No. Wait. I didn’t have his dang phone number either.
“Wait, I do
n’t have your number either.”
“Gosh, Hales. You shouldn’t lie. It’s too much fun when you’re brutally honest,” he teased and then made sure to get as far away as possible.
I didn’t know what was going on, but Allison did a pretty good impersonation of Sherlock Holmes, picked up my phone off of the bar, scrolled through it, and discovered that yes indeed, Danny’s phone number was in my contacts.
Listed under Danny ~Bestie4Life~.
How in the hell had he pulled that one off?
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there’s more to Danny than meets the eye,” Allison murmured.
No fucking kidding.
WHEN ALLISON AND I got back to the room that night, we took the time to do a briefing, or an abbreviated accounting of the night’s events, if you will.
As I hopped on one foot, yanking the cowboy boot off of my other one, my mom shut and locked the door, breathed a ridiculously deep sigh, and started to tell me about her many admirers from the bar.
Or maybe that’s not accurate. It was more like she started to complain about her admirers. Though, after hearing a rundown of fun facts about said bachelors, I couldn’t really blame her.
“So the first guy comes up to me, and he’s attractive enough, but his eyes immediately zeroed in on my breasts.”
I started to give her my opinion, but she cut me off. “I know. That’s normal. That’s not the part that really turned me off of him.”
When she didn’t say more, I looked back to see that she was busy taking off her own shoes, and unclipping the wristlet she had hooked through her belt loop.
Shaking my head, I prompted, “Okay, so what did the breast man do to turn you off?”
“Oh yeah,” she said, like she had forgotten what she was talking about in that pause. “Well, while he was standing there, another guy came up and introduced himself. But breast man freaked out. Acted like we were on a date!”
She shimmied her jeans over her hips, and by this point I had my other boot off and was mid collapse onto the bed.
A Is for Alpha Male Page 4
