nineteen. Our fake ID’s weren’t all that good to be honest, so either the place had been really struggling or the owners were just turning a blind eye.
Right now I sat at one of our old stools, in the spot where the bar made a hard left. I was three beers in and considering a fourth. My mood had improved with my success at the park, and I’d chosen this place because the memories I had here were all good ones.
I thought about what it meant to be fresh out of high school, with a whole world of open-ended possibilities still ahead. Elizabeth had made toasts every time we came here. They were mostly silly — usually to something in our distant futures, or some wild achievement none of us could ever hope to accomplish. But now…
Now Elizabeth had no future, and our possibilities weren’t so boundless. Adulthood took freedom away, although no one ever really told you that. Sometimes it even made you jaded at twenty-seven.
I drained my beer and looked up, just as the bartender returned with something already in hand and passed it to me. A buyback maybe. Only this drink was in a glass, not a bottle.
“That…” said the bartender, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, “is courtesy of the gentleman right down at the end, there.”
I looked, and did my best to suppress a smile. The man at the end of the bar was a sleeveless tattooed monster. He had flowing dark hair, green eyes, and acres of sexy stubble that had blossomed into a well-trimmed beard and matching goatee. His well-tanned arms exploded with muscle. He didn’t even look my way as he drained his beer.
“Yeah? Well tell him to come over.”
The bartender smiled, then did what I’d told him. Thirty seconds later the man rose and headed my way. The heavy sound of big black boots against the pub floor was masculine as hell. The sounds were accompanied by the creak of leather, and the faint rattle of a wallet chain.
“I don’t drink these anymore,” I said, pushing the light brown liquid of the Long Island Iced Tea his way. Ice rattled noisily within the glass.
“Oh no?”
“No. Too sweet.”
He slid into the stool beside me with practiced ease, as a wave of pleasant smells washed over me. Steel. Oil. Something that could’ve been cologne, or maybe his natural musk.
“You?” he smiled charmingly. “Too sweet?”
“Afraid so.”
“Not a chance.”
God, he looked so fucking good! Bigger and broader, with a V-shaped torso and a thick neck that ended at two granite-like shoulders. He looked very much the same as he did seven years ago. But also, so much more like a man.
“Hello Adrian.”
He picked up my beer and sniffed it, then finished it off.
“When’d you move on to these?”
“An old boyfriend turned me on to it.”
He grunted. “I like him already.”
Adrian held up two thick fingers and the bartender nodded. He began pouring pints this time, instead of bottles.
“When’d you get in?” he asked.
“Yesterday. And you?”
“Just now.”
He shifted, and I could see even more tattoos. They crawled up and down his corded arms, his forearms and hands too. There were words but I couldn’t read them. Something that looked like brass knuckles…
“I heard you were on a boat maybe,” I said.
“A couple of trawlers,” Adrian nodded. “North Bay. Aberdeen. A few more out of Grays Harbor.”
There was an anchor tattooed on his neck that wasn’t there before. I knew, because I’d kissed every inch of that neck at least a dozen times.
“Also maybe that you were a lumberjack or something.”
At that he chuckled gruffly. “Do I look like a lumberjack?”
I used the question as an excuse to give him a more thorough once-over. My eyes lingered, too.
“You look like you could take down trees just by looking at them.”
Adrian leaned into me as our beers arrived, sliding one big knee boldly between my thighs. The move made my stomach do a sexy backflip.
“And you look just as delicious as the day you drove out of here,” he asserted. His emerald eyes locked unapologetically on my body, and my heart thumped. “Maybe even more.”
I was sweating, and it wasn’t hot. Conflicting voices went off in my head, drowning each other out in a cacophony of red flags and warnings.
“What about you?” he asked, lifting his beer to his stubbled lips. In just three big swallows, half the pint was gone.
“I— I uh…”
My God, those eyes! No matter what I did, I couldn’t escape them. I could see