by Amy Noelle
“It’s Saturday night, and Ryan and I wanted to go out. He comes here a lot.”
“I do?” a deep male voice asked from my left. I glanced his way and nearly choked on my drink. Another sexy man. I was surrounded by male beauty. Like Josh, he had dark hair, but instead of pretty blue eyes, his were a golden brown. He had five o’clock shadow over a chiseled jaw and a very hard body underneath a blue T-shirt and jeans.
“Oh, yeah, I do,” he said after exchanging a look with Josh. “I’m Ryan Cooper.” He held out a hand, and I shook it. I didn’t feel the same draw I felt to Josh, but damn, he was hot.
Ryan handed Josh a bottle of Heineken and sat in the empty chair. “And you are?” he asked.
Oh yeah. I should probably respond when a gorgeous guy talked to me. “Nicole Magette.”
“Really?” Ryan grinned and shot a look at Josh. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Josh talked about me? “Don’t believe a word he says.”
Ryan laughed just as a waitress appeared with drinks for me and Jen that we hadn’t ordered. “We didn’t ask for more,” I said at the same time Ryan thanked her.
“I asked the bartender to get you another,” he said. “And he’s said mostly good things, though he left out some stuff.”
I had no idea what that meant. Where was Jen to help me figure this shit out?
“Such as?”
“Well—”
“I didn’t tell him about your lack of technological know-how,” Josh said smoothly.
That made zero sense, but nothing did right about now. “I should go check on my friend,” I said, wanting to get away from all the weird vibes floating around the table. Before I could make a move, though, I saw Jen coming out of the bathroom, so I sat back down. “Never mind, she’s on the way.”
Josh and Ryan were having some kind of epic stare-off, almost like they were talking without words, but could guys do that? Jen and I could, but I’d thought it was a girl thing.
“Are we going now or . . . hello!” Jen wobbled a little as she noticed the men at our table. “Holy shit, you’re—”
“This is Josh, my coworker,” I said, before she could let on she knew who he was. There was no way she’d know unless I’d shown her his picture, which I had, but he didn’t know, and that would be embarrassing as hell to explain away.
“Of course you are. Hi!” She was smiling. Her cheeks were flushed, and I knew she was feeling her Long Islands now. Jen was a pretty quiet girl around people she didn’t know. “I’m Jen!” She glanced over at Ryan and gasped. I couldn’t blame her. The man was almost as sexy as Josh was. Maybe Josh would ditch the shaving for a day or two. No, that wouldn’t be good. There’d be no way I wouldn’t rub my cheek against his face if he had all that sexy stubble going on.
“I’m Ryan,” he said and stood to hold out a hand. Jen took it but didn’t shake, just left her hand in his. He didn’t protest and pulled out her chair. She sat rather gracelessly because she was looking at him rather than it. I was pretty sure she would have toppled off if he hadn’t still been holding her hand. Then he smoothly pulled her forward so she didn’t fall over.
“Jen Waters,” she said in a dazed voice. Was she that hammered, or was she just that hot for him? Probably a combination of both.
“It’s nice to meet you, Jen.”
“You, too.” Her hand was still in his, and neither of them appeared to be letting go. I had to admit, I felt a little stab of envy. I wanted to hold Josh’s hand, but only after I hit him for stalking me.
“So, Ryan the regular, you had a yen to come here tonight, did you?” I asked.
He turned my way and smiled. “It seemed like a good idea. It’s Josh’s first weekend in town, and I wanted to show him my favorite spots.”
“Being a cop, and all, Ryan pretty much knows the whole city,” Josh said.
“Really? I thought all the cop bars were on the south side,” I said dryly. I knew damn well he wasn’t a regular here. If he was, I would have noticed him.
“You’re a cop?” Jen asked, looking shocked. She’d had a thing about cops ever since David had absconded with half her stuff. The officer assigned to her case had made her feel foolish for not seeing the signs that David was a thief and an operator. He’d been a real jerk, and Ashley and I probably would have been arrested for assaulting a police officer if Kim and Mandy hadn’t held us back. This made Jen pull her hand away.
“Detective Ryan Cooper,” he said. “Does that make you nervous?”
“No. Why?” She picked up her glass and took another long sip of her drink.
She was such a shitty liar. I had to help her out. “Her house was robbed a couple of years ago. The cops weren’t any help.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said sincerely. “Did you ever recover what you lost?”
“No,” Jen said with a jerk of her shoulder. She turned to face Josh. “So you work with Nic, huh? What’s that like?”
Josh laughed and sat forward as his arm brushed against mine. “It’s an adventure, for sure.” I shot him a look and he patted the top of my hand. It took everything in me not to turn my hand over and go for the hold. “Honestly, I’m having a great time with her. The most fun I’ve had in the workplace.”
Ryan snickered, but I was so busy glowing at the compliment, I barely noticed.
“Yeah, Nic’s awesome, except when she’s going on and on about—” I kicked Jen underneath the table, and she yelled and bent down to rub her shin while she glared at me. “Supernatural,” she said.
Oops, premature kicking, but how was I to know she wasn’t going to say him?
“Damn, you really do take that show seriously,” Josh said. “Have you ever made the mistake of calling her during?” he asked Jen. “I have to admit, I thought about calling last night, just to see what would happen, but after seeing her kick her best friend, I think I’ll refrain.”
I took another sip of my drink. “She did, once.”
“My TV Guide said it was a repeat!” she said, still rubbing her leg. Ryan pushed his chair back and patted his lap. Jen blinked but put her legs on top of his. He fished a piece of ice out of her empty drink and held it to the spot I’d kicked, and Jen seemed happy. Well. I guess she was over the cop thing. I’d never seen her so immediately comfortable with a guy. Even before David had come along, she’d always been shy. But here she was almost sitting on some stranger. A cop, no less. I was stunned. It just showed we were both susceptible to the power of a hot man. Men like them were the reason we had a Code Red in the first place.
“It wasn’t a repeat,” I said huffily. I’d thought something had been really wrong like one of her parents had died, and all she’d wanted was to bitch about her boss.
“She didn’t talk to me for two weeks,” Jen said.
Josh shook his head and pouted at me. “Would you do that to me?” he asked, batting his eyelashes and looking ridiculously cute.
“I couldn’t. I have to talk to you at work. But I would make it as unpleasant as possible,” I warned, just in case he was getting any ideas.
“Impossible,” he said. “Can’t have that, now, can we?”
“I don’t know,” Ryan said, still running ice over Jen’s leg. She looked like she was going to pass out, or come, or both. I really wished I could take video of them and fire it off to Kim. She’d die. “If she doesn’t talk to you, then you can’t get your project done which means you’ll stay in Chicago longer. That’s not so bad.”
I couldn’t deny that. “He’ll get sick of me sooner or later.”
Josh mumbled something, but I couldn’t make it out. “What?”
“Nothing.”
He looked entirely too innocent. “Why are you here?” I asked. “I know Ryan’s not a regular. Did you hear me on the phone with Jen yesterday?” He had come in right before I’d mentioned the time and place.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His dimples showed as he smiled. “And if I did happen to hear, is
that so bad? I need to see the sights, after all. Shouldn’t you, as my coworker, as a representative of the great city of Chicago, have offered to show me the places I needed to see?”
Damn, he was smooth. “I’m not a tour guide,” I said. “You can call the Travel and Tourism Bureau if your cop buddy can’t help you out.”
“Oh, I’m useless,” Ryan said with a laugh. “My social life consists of Law & Order reruns and the gym.”
“I like the gym,” Jen said breathlessly, no doubt checking out Ryan’s hard body. She was such a liar. She hated working out even more than I did.
“Yeah? We’ll have to work out together some time.”
I laughed, and Jen glared at me before turning back to him with a smile. “I doubt I could keep up with you, but I’d love to try.”
“What club do you belong to?” he asked. I noticed he was no longer holding ice to her leg, but his hand still remained there.
“Uh, I just work out at my building sometimes,” she said, lying her ass off.
“Hmm, well, they probably don’t have a lot of equipment, so maybe I’ll get you into my gym.” If he was any kind of cop, he knew she was lying, but he was being a gentleman and not calling her on it.
“That sounds good.”
“That sounds dangerous,” I said quietly. Josh heard me and laughed, but Jen and Ryan appeared to be in their own little world. I couldn’t have that. If they were too focused on each other, I’d have nobody to talk to but Josh.
“So how did you two become friends?”
I directed the question to Ryan, but it was Josh who answered.
“When we were in kindergarten, he stole my favorite toy truck.”
That got Ryan’s attention. “I did not! You weren’t using it, and it was a communal toy. You didn’t have to cry to the teacher about it.”
“I didn’t cry, I just sort of suggested you took it from me,” Josh said and grinned.
“Which was a lie, and I had to sit in the corner while everybody else went out to recess.” He scowled as Jen and I laughed.
“You’re mean,” I told Josh.
“I’ll have you know I actually came in from recess and apologized which was—”
“What you had to do because Macy Collins backed up my story. You weren’t even playing with the truck in the first place,” Ryan said smugly.
“That’s only because Macy Collins missed playing kissing tag with you. You were such a five-year-old slut.”
“Whatever. It got me out of the corner and you into it.”
“Sounds like you two weren’t well on the way to becoming friends,” Jen said.
“No, but then lunchtime came. I had a chocolate pudding cup and poor Ryan got vanilla. I decided to let him have mine, since Macy wouldn’t give him hers.” Josh smiled sweetly. “That made him my bitch for eternity.”
“Pudding cups are awesome. And I’m not your bitch.”
“You keep on telling yourself that,” Josh said.
“Why didn’t your little girlfriend give you her pudding cup? Your kisses must not have been very good.” Jen’s smile was full of mischief.
“I’ll have you know that I gave the best kisses at Bradley Elementary School,” Ryan said. “She was just upset because I’d been forced to kiss Shelly Humphries at recess. You women can really hold a grudge.”
“I wouldn’t share my pudding with you if you were kissing other women either,” Jen said.
“I’ll remember that,” he said, his voice kind of rough now. He was staring at her like she was the only woman in the room. It was dark, but I could swear Jen was blushing.
“Nicole says you two were roommates in college,” Josh said.
Jen laughed. “Oh yeah, we’ve been friends from day one, once we got over our baseball differences.”
“You just had to hang that stupid Cub pennant over your bed.”
“You were wearing a Cardinals T-shirt! I had to declare my loyalty.”
“Nic takes her team pretty seriously,” Josh said. “I’m surprised you two became friends.”
“Well, it turned out she had an awesome collection of DVDs and CDs,” Jen said.
“And she, despite her unfortunate sports allegiance, had really nice clothes. We bonded over our need to borrow from one another.”
“My longstanding love of clothes served us well,” Jen said. “I guess that’s why it’s my job now.”
“I’d say it still serves you well,” Ryan said, looking her over. Jesus. It was getting hot in here.
“Thank you.” Jen looked a bit flustered, but she was still practically in his lap. “So what other trouble did you two get into once you got out of kindergarten?”
Ryan and Josh looked at one another and burst out laughing. “Balloons?” Ryan asked.
“Balloons.” Josh gave the waitress a high sign for more drinks and sat back, brushing his arm against mine as he moved. “My little sister was having her ninth birthday and she had a crapload of friends spending the night.” He rolled his eyes.
“Josh, not being a moron, was spending the night at my house rather than with fifteen nine-year-olds,” Ryan said. “He was really pissed off because he had to help clean the house and run a billion errands for cake and party supplies and stuff, and Kelly, his sister, was being really bratty and entitled.”
“It was her birthday!” I shouted, indignant on Kelly’s behalf. Then again, I was an only child and had no idea about sibling rivalry, but of course the little girl wanted a good birthday party.
“Oh, believe me, it was all I heard about. I knew.”
Ryan laughed so hard he nearly choked. Jen patted his back and then left her hand on his neck.
“What he was most mad about was that his mom made him cancel a date he had with Cindy Kramer, the hottest girl in our school. Mrs. Daniels wanted him home to help with the party until the little girls went to bed.”
“Robbie had some baseball tournament,” Josh said. “So he and Dad escaped, and I was stuck.” Was he sulking? “It was bad enough I had to deal with shrieking, annoying little girls, but to have to cancel my date and endure all that pink? It was like her Barbie dream house exploded. I couldn’t stand it.”
“So Josh called me and tried to get me to come over to help, like I was stupid enough to do that,” Ryan said, shaking his head. “Then he said if I came, we could pull a prank on the girls.”
“There’s not much Ryan loves better than a prank.”
“Hey, you have to make fun where you can. Anyway, I came over, thinking we were going to scare them or something, but this one hands me water balloons.”
“I knew if we scared them and kept them up all night, I’d never get out of there.” Josh shrugged. “I wasn’t taking that chance.”
“We quickly determined that it probably wasn’t a good idea for us to wing water balloons at little girls, because we might hurt them.”
“We used shaving cream instead. It made a huge mess. They screamed a lot, and Mom yelled.”
“Loud! You don’t cross Mrs. Daniels, let me tell you. She scolded both of us and then called my mom. Next thing we knew, we were forced to drive Kelly and her friends around for the entire summer, wherever they wanted. There we were, high school seniors, hanging out with these nine-year-olds, buying ice cream and seeing ridiculous movies.”
The disgust in Ryan’s voice had Jen and me cracking up.
“And I never got another shot with Cindy Kramer either.” Josh shook his head.
“Hey, it’s not like either one of us were hurting. Being out with all those little girls actually got us quite a bit of female attention.” Ryan chuckled. “Who knew?”
“True. It wound up being sort of okay, except for the kiddie movies.”
“Women are suckers for kids and animals,” Jen said, smiling at Ryan. “We see a guy with either one of those, and we melt. Well, except for Nicole. She runs from kids.”
“I do not. I just think they’re loud and unpredictable. I’d rather have animals any day.”
An image in my mind of Josh walking a golden retriever puppy nearly made me sigh, but I caught myself just in time.
“Hmm, maybe I should get a dog,” Ryan said, and Jen laughed.
“I’d help you pick one out,” she said and leaned into him.
He smiled and shifted to face her. “That would be fun. What breed, do you think?” And just like that, they were back in their own little world, forgetting there were two other people at the table who needed them as a buffer so one of them, namely me, didn’t attack the other.
Josh leaned closer to me, and that sandalwood smell assaulted me again. If I jumped him right here, would Ryan arrest me for public indecency?
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Josh asked, speaking directly into my ear and sending shivers down my spine. He was too potent. I couldn’t see anything but him right now.
“What do you mean?” I said when I could finally form words again. He made my head all fuzzy.
“Those two. I have a feeling our best friends have forgotten about us.”
Ryan and Jen were leaning into one another. Her legs were still over his lap while he caressed her knee with his thumb as they talked about pet care. I was both insanely happy for her and jealous at the same time. Jen needed to kick me so I could throw my legs on Josh, though I’d rather wrap them around him.
“Yeah, they seem quite taken with one another.”
“From the first moment,” he said. “Has that ever happened to you?”
What was I supposed to say to that? Yes, with you? And sort of with Damian, although that paled in comparison to the all-encompassing crazy that Josh had wrought. Sure, that would be wonderful to share with my coworker. It wouldn’t cause any problems whatsoever.
“Yes,” I said, because I felt him staring at me. “You?”
“Yeah.” Of course he had. Women probably experienced it with him all the time. Mandy was ready to leave her husband for him, and she’d only seen a picture. “What happened?” he asked.
“The first time? I went all in and got burned.”
“It’s happened more than once?”