Happy Hour: From the Black & White Collection

by Mari Carr

  “Well, I hope you’re wrong because I’m not interested.”

  Cheryl burst into a fit of loud laughter. “Jesus. Sell that shit to someone who doesn’t know you, sweet pea. I’ve seen you flirting tonight. You’re as hot to get in his pants as he is to get into yours.”

  Grace narrowed her eyes. “Why am I friends with you again?”

  “Because you don’t want to grow up any more than I do, Peter Pan. Neither one of us is going down without a fight.”

  Grace had to agree with Cheryl’s assessment. The older she got, the younger she felt. She wondered lately if there was something wrong with her. Wondered if by being widowed so young, something inside her had been broken and it stopped her from maturing the way she should. Of course, Cheryl was definitely going through the same phase, which proved that assumption false as her friend was happily married. If anything, Cheryl had it worse than her. At forty-five with two kids in college, it seemed sometimes as if Cheryl was reliving her youth all over again, attending rock concerts and even getting a tattoo.

  Grace sighed. “Unfortunately I think the cruelty of nature is going to win this battle. I’ve got crow’s feet around my eyes and my breasts are definitely succumbing to gravity.”

  “You’re gorgeous, Gracie. I’ve known you for nearly fifteen years and it’s safe to say you’ve never looked better. After Drew’s death, you made it pretty clear to everyone that raising Maddie was your number one goal. You made that girl the center of your universe because she needed you and you needed her. But she’s going to go away to college in a few months and that’s going to leave you on your own for the first time in your life. It’s time to open yourself up to some new experiences.”

  “Cheryl—” Grace interjected, but her friend waved her off.

  “Hear me out. All I’m asking you to do is consider what I’m saying. You’re a beautiful woman with a lot to offer any man lucky enough to snatch you up. You’re smart, funny and sexy. Hell, if I wasn’t happily married and getting sex three times a week from Jeff, I’d do you.”

  Grace laughed.

  “Forty is the new thirty,” Cheryl continued, “so stop hiding behind that number and get out there again. Besides, you weren’t made to live alone. All that nurturing and loving shit would come bursting out at the seams if you didn’t have someone to smother with it.”

  Grace considered her friend’s words and knew they were the truth. She’d never lived alone, leaving her parent’s home for a college apartment with roommates. She’d married Drew shortly after graduating from the university and since his death, she’d had Maddie to come home to. Cheryl’s words struck a chord as she realized some of her sadness over Maddie’s leaving was the idea that she would be alone and she dreaded it.

  “Okay. You’ve made your point and it’s a good one. I’ll think about what you’ve said.”

  Cheryl shook her head and placed a friendly hand on hers, gripping it tightly for just a second. “I wasn’t telling you to think about it, Grace. I was telling you to do something about it. Those are two different things.”

  The guys returned to the table, ending their conversation, and Grace considered her friend’s words.

  Do something.

  Cheryl was right. Since Drew’s death, she’d lived her life for her daughter. Tonight she was going to start living for herself again. She only hoped she could remember how.

  Chapter Two

  Jamie snuck a glance across the table at Grace. She seemed more relaxed tonight than usual and he wondered about the change in her demeanor. She was always easy to be around—low-key, laid-back—but tonight she was different. Hell, she was the life of the party—telling jokes and laughing loudly. He’d always known she had a terrific personality, but it was more vibrant tonight, more animated…and more attractive.

  He tried to covertly adjust his tight jeans over the half-hard cock he’d been sporting ever since they’d walked into the bar. His friends teased him mercilessly for what they referred to as his crush on the cougar. He usually told them to go fuck themselves when they got on a roll. Jamie didn’t mind being the butt of their jokes occasionally, but he got annoyed when they acted as if Grace was too old for him. She was only eight years older, though he knew she viewed that gap to be as vast as the distance from New York to California.

  “Last softball game on Monday,” she said to him. “What do you think your chances are?”

  “So long as Maddie doesn’t injure her pitching arm at the lake this weekend, I think we’ve got a pretty good shot. Our record is a bit better than theirs and they don’t have much on the mound.” Maddie was his star player and he never ceased to be amazed by Grace’s support of her daughter’s talent. When it had become apparent Maddie’s interest in the sport wasn’t just a flash in the pan, Grace had asked Jamie to teach her the finer points of softball, so she could pass the lessons on to her daughter. He’d given Grace an old catcher’s mitt of his so Maddie could practice her pitches and Grace had never missed a game.

  “Damn, I didn’t even think to warn her about the waterskiing. Maybe I should call her and tell her not to—”

  He cut her off. “Grace. I was joking. Let her have her fun this weekend. We only have one more game and it’s not like we’re making the playoffs this year. Not with the rocky start we had.”

  “You’ve got a great team, Jamie, and they’ve grown so much over this season. I know Maddie’s learned a lot about the sport from you.”

  He smiled at her compliment. “I hope I’ve been telling her the right stuff, considering she’s signed on to play in college. Hate to have some big-shot university coach telling her I’ve taught her all wrong.”

  “I don’t think there’s any danger of that.”

  As he looked at her, Jamie recognized how much the mother and daughter favored each other. Maddie’s hair, like Grace’s, was long, wavy and blonde. However, while Maddie’s eyes were dark, Grace had bright blue eyes that sparkled when she laughed. She also had a smooth complexion that belied her age and the sexiest body he’d ever seen—curvy in all the right places.

  “You look pretty tonight.” He wasn’t sure where the words had come from or why he’d chosen that moment to say them, but he knew they were true.

  “How much have you had to drink?”

  He tapped her nose with his finger and she laughed at the playful gesture. “You suck at taking compliments.”

  She rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything else. He studied her face and tried to put his finger on what was different about her tonight.

  Grace had been a good friend to him over the past few years. He’d only been teaching a couple of years when her husband passed away. Around the same time, his fiancée, Maura, had dumped him. They’d had the same planning period that year and a lot of that time had been spent talking about how much their lives had changed. Their friendship had solidified as they’d discussed what they were going to do with their uncertain futures and it had only grown since then.

  Unfortunately, so had his feelings for her. He’d managed to shove them aside, ignore them as he dated other women. A few months ago, after another failed relationship, Trey had made an innocent comment that had haunted him ever since. After watching him drown his sorrows in a bottle of Jim Beam, his best friend told him it was going to be hard for Jamie to find a woman who was better suited for him than Grace. Trey suggested he pull his finger out of his ass and ask Grace out for a date.

  The waitress delivered yet another pitcher and a heaping plate of wings just as the jukebox started playing “LoveGame”. Trey grabbed Grace’s hand and the two of them hit the dance floor. Jamie laughed as Trey spun her around while she sang along with the music. The image of his best friend and Grace trying to dance together was priceless. Trey’s taste in music ran in one direction—rap—and his dancing was confined to lots of hip-thrusting and bobbing in place. At the same time, Grace looked like an extra from the set of Footloose, bouncing around and swinging her arms.

  Lucas stood
up. “Hey, I think I just spotted Scott Barker over at the bar. I’m gonna go say hi.”

  Jamie and Cheryl glanced over and nodded, and then Jamie’s gaze traveled back to Grace’s face. He sucked in a deep breath. He’d never seen her so carefree and he wished he’d snagged her for the dance before Trey.

  Then he realized what was different. Grace was flirting. Seriously flirting. With him and, if he wasn’t mistaken, with Trey.

  “You’ve got a little drool on your chin. You may want to wipe that off before they come back to the table.” Cheryl was giving him her usual shit-eating grin and he grimaced. Grace’s best friend had been riding his ass for the past month about making a move on Grace, but something had always come up.

  “Very funny, Cheryl. I’m glad I can provide you with so much entertainment.”

  Cheryl took a sip of her soda. “It’s not me I want you to entertain. It’s Gracie. You’ve given me seven hundred and twenty-nine excuses the past few weeks about why you can’t ask her out. Don’t you think it’s time you grew a pair and took the plunge?”

  Jamie shook his head. He was used to Cheryl’s straightforward comments. “Tell me again why I hang out with you?”

  Cheryl burst into laughter. “If you only knew how much you and Grace had in common. I think she asked me the same damn question about an hour ago.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Jamie muttered.

  “I’ll tell you why you hang out with me. Because I tell you the truth and I don’t let you get away with shit just because you’ve got those baby blue eyes and dimples that make most women bend over backward to do your bidding.”

  Jamie fell silent rather than admit the truth of Cheryl’s statement. She and Grace were straight shooters and he preferred their company to that of women his own age, who tended to agree with everything he said and giggled incessantly.

  Jamie ran his hand through his hair. “You and Trey are starting to sound like the same broken record lately. I’m not sure why the two of you think anything has changed from the status quo. You know as well as I do, Grace wasn’t ready for another relationship after Drew died. She said flat-out she wasn’t going to date, wasn’t going to bring some strange man into Maddie’s life after she’d just lost her father.”

  “I also know,” Cheryl interrupted, “that excuse stopped being valid quite awhile ago. Maddie’s more than mature enough to handle her mother dating and has even mentioned it to Grace. Hell, the girl tried to set Grace up with the divorced father of a friend a few months ago.”

  “And Grace turned down the offer.” Jamie remembered Maddie’s matchmaking scheme well. He’d lost more than a few nights’ sleep fearing the hook-up would take and he’d lose his shot at asking Grace out himself.

  “She wouldn’t turn you down.” Cheryl’s response was confident and Jamie felt the tiniest spark of hope emerge.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “She’s my best friend. I know her. Trust me on this.”

  “Is she ready for more than casual dating?” Grace was a very good friend. He wasn’t about to risk that relationship for just sex. When he approached Grace, he was going in for the long haul. He was thirty-two and fucking sick and tired of the dating scene. Grace was everything he wanted in a woman and a helluva lot more.

  Cheryl smiled. “You’ve been thinking about more than just asking her out, haven’t you?”

  He shrugged and Cheryl pointed to Trey and Grace on the dance floor. “You better hurry your ass up before someone swoops in and gets to her before you.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Cheryl. I’m not about to throw away a friendship for a fling.”

  “She’s worried about Maddie leaving, scared about the prospect of being alone.”

  Cheryl’s comments washed over him like a bucket of ice-cold water. “Sounds like a lousy reason to date someone. Fear of being alone.”

  Cheryl shook her head. “That didn’t come out right. Grace is a warm, vibrant, caring woman who’s just spent the last six years of her life giving up a lot of her own needs because she felt like she owed it to Drew to raise their daughter in a safe, normal environment. She didn’t accept dates because she didn’t want to run the risk of feeling something for someone and upset the routine of Maddie’s home life. But, Jamie, in doing that, she let some prime years pass her by. Now she’s forty and facing a lifetime alone. You know as well as I do she’s not meant to live life as a single. She loved being married and she loved making a home with Drew and Maddie. That home’s going to be empty soon and I want to make sure she doesn’t accept that as her lot in life rather than try for something more, something special.”

  Jamie looked at Grace dancing with Trey. He was trying to teach her how to bump and grind and she was laughing. He fought back the twinge of jealousy pushing its way to the surface when Trey drove his hips into her ass.

  “They look cute together,” Cheryl said.

  Jamie turned to her angrily, ready to set her straight on the subject, but Cheryl’s laugh cut off his reply.

  She held up her hands in mock surrender. “Easy greasy. Those blue eyes of yours are suddenly the most unusual shade of green.”

  “They’re just dancing.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. You’ve had months to make a move, Jamie. Do you really think other men are going to remain blind to Grace’s beauty forever? She’s put out some serious hands-off vibes in the past, but I think you can see that shield’s been put away tonight. Even Trey has noticed.”

  He looked at his friend and knew Cheryl’s words were true. Grace was different tonight. She was open and…well, ready. Ready to move on, ready for the next adventure.

  “You’ve made your point, Cheryl.” She had. Jamie was finished playing this game by Grace’s rules. Tonight the game plan changed.

  “Damn,” she joked. “And here I was just getting on a nagging roll. You give in far too easily. Not even a challenge, really.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  Lady GaGa’s voice faded away and a new song started playing. “Woot.” Cheryl stood up quickly. “Hot damn. ‘Dancing Queen’. I paid a quarter for this.” She boogied her way to the dance floor, dragging Grace back out to the center as she and Trey were walking off.

  Trey came back to the table alone, shaking his head. “Fucking ABBA. Where’s Lucas?”

  Jamie gestured to the bar. “Saw an old friend of his. Went over to say hi.”

  “Oh.” Trey turned to watch Cheryl and Grace dancing and Jamie felt an uneasy chill at the look on his friend’s face.

  “You and Grace looked like you were having fun on the dance floor.”

  Trey grinned. “Grace is a good dancer—for a white chick.”

  Jamie fought back a scowl. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to pick her up.”

  Trey shrugged. “Grace is cool. She’s a lot of fun. Maybe she wouldn’t mind taking a ride on the midnight express with me.”

  Jamie’s temper reached the boiling point. “You better be fucking kidding. Besides, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure I’ve told you a few thousand times how I feel about Grace. So what’s the real deal?”

  Trey shrugged. “I don’t see a sign around her neck that says off-limits, property of Jamie Fisher.”

  Lucas came back to the table and both of them fell silent. Jamie was seething, furious at his friend’s comment. Then he realized Trey was right. He’d done nothing but talk about Grace—and not even to her. He’d never asked her out, never let her know he was interested beyond a few racy innuendoes. When he thought about it, Trey had given Grace more hints about being interested tonight than Jamie had in their entire friendship.

  Jamie looked back at Grace and Cheryl dancing and laughing. Before tonight, he’d had some sixth sense about Grace that told him she wasn’t ready. Suddenly that feeling was gone and he’d be damned if Trey swooped in now that the time might be right for him to make a move.

  The music changed to David Allan Coe and Jamie
saw a grin cross Lucas’ face. “There’s my song. Who’s in?” Jamie shook his head and neither of them even looked at Trey, knowing his distaste for country music. “Fine,” Lucas said. “I’ll grab Gracie and Cheryl.”

  Jamie sighed. This was becoming a fucking epidemic. If it went on much longer, he’d feel compelled to beat the shit out of both his friends.

  “I thought you needed a kick in the ass,” Trey said. Jamie looked at him and realized his friend was picking up their argument right where they’d left it.

  “So you’re trying to make me jealous?” he asked, relieved. They were best friends, had been for years. Obviously Trey had spent one too many nights listening to him talk about the sexy English teacher.

  Trey nodded. “I was…but somewhere along the line that plan backfired. Grace really is hot.”

  Jamie took a drink of beer, trying to cool his throat and his anger. Trey was interested in Grace and he couldn’t help feeling that perhaps she was interested in his friend too. She’d touched Trey on the dance floor a few times in ways that made him think the feeling might be mutual.

  Dammit. She’d always had this underlying sex appeal that attracted him, but tonight it seemed magnified a hundredfold. His cock had been rock hard for hours. It’s a shame all the blood in his body was hanging out down south. He could use a pint or two of it in his brain so he could figure out what the hell was going on.

  “Backfired?” he repeated. “So you aren’t trying to make me jealous anymore?”

  Trey had never poached on his girlfriends in the past. But Grace didn’t belong to Jamie. Not yet.

  They sat in silence for several awkward moments as the truth came crashing down on top of him. “You can’t have Grace.” Jamie stated flatly and he watched Trey struggle for a response.

  His friend’s back appeared to come up a bit. “You’ve had months to make your move. Shit, you’ve had years. If you’re not going to, I don’t see why I should have to bow out.”

  “You’re right. I’ve had months, but I also think I was right to wait. Grace wasn’t ready before.”