“Brady, would you like to join us?” her friend asked and then winced as Tristan must have kicked her under the table. It only made me want to join them more.
“Sure.” I sat down, and my body forced Tristan to move farther in. Our hands briefly touched as they glided along the booth. The scent of her wafted over me—the smell of the music store mixed in with something else I couldn’t quite define.
“Brady, this is my husband, Jin,” Stacy informed me.
I shook his hand.
“We’re celebrating,” he said, with an alcohol-induced slur to his words.
“What are you celebrating?” I asked.
“Stacy’s charter school was approved,” Tristan said, beaming for her friend.
“Wow. Congratulations. That’s quite the achievement,” I said.
Stacy smiled, wide and happy. “Thanks.”
“It also sounds like way more work than I could ever do,” I told her. “Like eighty-hours-a-week kind of work.”
Stacy and Jin nodded. “Sure, but the payoff is the kids who get the education they deserve.”
“You act like you don’t ever work eighty hours or more a week,” Tristan said.
I laughed.
“It never really feels like work. It feels like a gift,” I answered truthfully.
They all stared at me as if I’d said something incredibly profound. I drank down my margarita and flagged the waitress down. She was new to Mick’s, or at least I hadn’t ever seen her around before.
“’Nother round?” she asked.
Tristan and her friends nodded, and I said, “Can I have another margarita on the rocks as well? This round is on me. Just tell Mick, will you?”
The woman took me in with narrowed eyes as if I was going to skip off without tipping her.
“Don’t worry, he’s good for it. He’s Br?”
I put my hand over Tristan’s lips. Her eyes widened, and my fingers about burst into flame when they landed on those pillows of softness. I turned to the waitress and said, “I’m an old friend. Mick knows I’ll pay.”
She eyed me again, taking in the beanie and the dark beard before shrugging her way to the counter.
Tristan shoved my hand away from her mouth with the scowl reappearing between her eyebrows. “Why would you do that?”
“Look, most of the locals don’t give two shakes of a rat’s ass who I am, but the college kids and the tourists can go a little over the top. I’m kind of enjoying my anonymity at the moment.”
“Next up, Jin-Kang and Stacy,” the DJ announced.
Stacy all but pushed Jin out of the booth. He swayed, and she caught him by the hand with a laugh before leading him toward the stage.
“You’ve all been here a while,” I said to Tristan, looking down at the empty plates of appetizers and the stack of shot glasses littering the table.
“We have. It’s the only way to get a booth on karaoke night.”
The waitress came back with our drinks, but now she was all smiles with her tank top hanging about two inches lower than it had been when she’d taken our order. She put all the dirty glasses and plates on her tray, shot a glance toward the bar, and then shoved a cocktail napkin at me.
“Will you sign this for me? To Cheyenne.”
I wanted to groan but didn’t. I forced my smile. “Sure, babe.”
