The Boys Who Loved Me - Krista Wolf Page 0,81
going to need a fresh round of beers,” she said, picking up the few dripping steins knocked over from our would-be brawl.
“Yes, please.”
Turning her pleasantly-curved rump on us, the pretty brunette winked back over her shoulder as she left.
“Already on it.”
Three
CANDY
“So they were really Miami fans?”
I was sitting for a rare moment, wedged between the funny braided Viking and the one who now smelled like the floor of a Bavarian beer tent. His name was Tristan, and I knew that from the brawl. The bearded one whose chest I touched was Soren. The one with all the braids and the insults, Lucas.
“Sure as we’re Jets fans, yeah,” Soren nodded. “They weren’t from Florida, though.” He shook his head. “I’ll never understand that.”
“Yeah, well I’ll never understand Jets fans either,” I teased. “You poor saps are a glutton for punishment every year.”
Tristan laughed. Lucas drained half his stein in three big gulps and just laughed. “She’s right, you know.”
“You haven’t been competitive since Sanchez,” I went on. “And he was a flash in the pan. Burned out quick. Your last good quarterback was Testaverde, really. Didn’t he take you to the divisional championships?”
“AFC Conference finals,” Tristan lamented miserably. “We were up by ten at the half. Then Denver came back, and—”
“Wait!” Lucas interrupted, totally incredulous. “How the hell do you know so much about football?”
The question should’ve been sexist, but the raw innocence of his expression made me laugh. It was always funny watching guys act surprised I’d know anything at all about football.
“My father mainly,” I shrugged, as if the three words answered everything. “But—”
“And let me guess… you’re a Buffalo fan.”
“Hell no,” I swore. “Cowboys all the way. Grew up near Plano. Well, partly.”
Soren squinted back in confusion, his beautiful blue eyes boring into mine. For a happy few seconds I was absolutely lost in them.
“You don’t sound like you’re from Texas,” he declared. “At all.”
“Why, because y’all know what a Texas girl sounds like?” I giggled, drawing out every word in a very massacred accent.
“That’s got to be the worst Texas drawl I ever heard,” said Lucas. “Even a New Yorker could do better.”
“Yeah, well my father was in the Air Force,” I explained. “I grew up all over, really. Texas was just the last stop.”
“Until here?” added Soren hopefully.
“No, not until here,” I said, shattering his — and maybe even all of their — hopes. “Sleepy Hollow was just a summer job.”
“One that slept all the way until fall?” Lucas joked.
I shoved playfully on his arm, which was big and thick and rock solid. “Exactly.”
Just then my supervisor showed up, holding a whole tray of steaming pretzels. I recognized them as the tray of pretzels I was supposed to get.
Shit.
“You get off early or something?” she snapped at me, her freckled face contorting miserably.
“No,” I said, leaping to my feet. “Sorry, I was just—”
“Aimee relax, she was just resting her feet.”
The words came from Tristan, and with a familiarity that was unmistakable. The two of them looked at each other. Then Aimee looked down.
“Well she can’t sit,” she mumbled, fidgeting with her tray. “Especially not with the customers. Plus we’re falling way behind on—”
Just then the polka band started up; seven obnoxiously-loud brass horns blaring loudly beneath the big tent. The trumpets and trombones shrieked like banshees, drowning out whatever Aimee had been trying to say. As much as the band usually drove me crazy, that part was definitely satisfying.
“I got this,” I told her, grabbing the tray of pretzels. “You go on.”
She continued eyeing me as she backed away, her gaze shifting back and forth between me and Tristan. By the time she turned and disappeared into the crowd, I knew something was up between them.
“Are you and—”
“No,” Tristan said definitively, cutting me off. “We certainly are not.”
I laughed. “Good for you, then. Because I was gonna say…”
Aimee was most definitely a handful. As far as bosses went she wasn’t terrible, but she was too high strung and couldn’t handle pressure very well. We’d worked all kinds of events at the River Walk Center together over the summer, but this one had really thrown her for a loop. The constant flow of beer and food and music beneath the hot tent was proving to be too much for her.
“And what about you?” I heard Soren say.
I turned to find all three guys staring at me with the same penetrating eyes. I knew the look immediately.
“What about me?”
“Boyfriend?” asked Tristan. “Special someone?”
“No. And no.”
“And you’re a local,