fill that one in and he did not, she sat back. “Europe? I mean, you don’t sound American.”
“Yes. Europe.”
Tick-tock . . . no amplification on that, either.
All right, he might have been open to answering anything, but he clearly wasn’t going to help her much on the Easter Egg hunt.
“So you’re not a wrestler—are you a weight lifter? Wait—a Cross-Fit guy?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“So how are you this big?” She shook her head. “What I mean is—”
“Genetics,” he said remotely.
“See, I have offended you.”
“No, I just don’t like where I came from.”
In the pause that followed, a waitress walked up with a pad and pen. As there were no uniform requirements for the bar, the twenty-something was rocking a hipster vibe with mud-colored clothes, a tattooed sleeve down one arm, and some piercings in her face.
“What can I getcha to drink?”
That she only looked at Syn seemed right. Jo would have done the same in her shoes—hell, she was doing the same. Of all the people in the place, he stood out—and yes, the men and women in uniform and plainclothes had noticed him, too. And at least nobody was springing forward with a Taser and some cuffs.
“Water,” he said.
The waitress pulled an “And you?” without glancing in Jo’s direction. Her eyes were too busy roaming around the span of Syn’s leather jacket and the breadth of his chest and what little she could catch of his lower body. Obviously, she was doing sexual math in her head and solving the equation of him naked with all kinds of yes-please.
“I’ll take a Sam Adams in the bottle, no glass,” Jo said.
“You got it. Menus are in the holder.”
Syn didn’t seem to notice the woman’s departure any more than he’d bothered with her arrival, and Jo told herself not to be complimented.
“You’re not going to take your jacket off, are you?” she said as she shucked her own coat.
“I’m not hot.”
Ohhhhhhh, don’t be too sure about that, she thought to herself. And besides, she knew the lack of outerwear removal was less about his body temperature and more about the guns and ammo he was hiding under all that leather.
“I was hoping you’d call me.” Syn linked his hands and put them on the table, like he was a choirboy in spite of his nickname. “But I’m glad you’re all right.”
She thought of what he’d said the night before. About death. “Actually, I went to the doctor’s today.”
“They won’t help you.”
She froze in the process of folding her coat on the seat. “I beg to differ. That’s their job. That’s what they do when people are sick.”
“You’re not sick.”
“Then explain that to my flu symptoms,” she muttered. “And you and I are going to have to agree to disagree on whether I’m ill. FYI, given that I’m in my skin, I have more credibility on this topic than you do.”
“What is Jo short for? I heard you say your name when you answered your phone.”
“Josephine.”
The waitress brought his water over and the bottle of Sam Adams. Then she lingered, like she was enjoying the close-up more than the panoramic view of him—and even though it was inappropriate on so many levels, Jo felt like hissing as if she were a cat. As if both of them were a cat. As if two cats were—
Frickin’ metaphors.
To keep herself from doing something stupid—or something that would land her with a flea collar—she tried her beer. The first draw on the open neck was heaven, so she took another.
“I’m surprised you’re so comfortable in here,” she murmured as the waitress finally left. “Given all the metal on you. But I guess everything is properly registered.”
“I have nothing to fear in this place or any other.”
Jo eyed his thick neck and the heft of his shoulders under that leather jacket. Then she remembered what his body had felt like as she had wrapped her arms around his waist. He was hard as a rock, no fat on him, just muscles on top of muscles.
Even though she didn’t want to, she found herself following in the footsteps of the waitress, her mind going to places that involved no clothes and lots of exercise.
“That I believe,” she said remotely.
As Mr. F aimlessly walked the streets in the darkness, part of his life was the same. He had been a wanderer in and around the city for much of the last three years, returning to the bridge’s underworld when he needed a fix or the weather was