Page 6 of Boyfriend of the Hour

I traded kisses with my cousin. “Call me this weekend. We’ll go out.”

“Bet.”

Then she was gone, leaving me to continue serving drinks and daydream about the career that, up until two months ago, I thought I was going to have. The shiny wood reminded me of a stage I’d once danced on, and my fingernails were bright pink, just like the shoes I wore in that show. A community theater production ofThe Wizard of Oz. I was twelve, I think. I played a munchkin.

It’s funny. I barely managed to pass the sixth grade that year (still didn’t understand what the hell a square root was), but I remembered that choreo like it was yesterday.

“Joni, it’s last call.”

Step, one, pas de bourrée. Step, kick, plié, shuffle step. Turn, three, shuffle step, leap. I popped up onto my toes, my muscles silently begging to follow along with my fingers.

God, I missed dancing.

“Joni!” The husky voice of Tom, the owner of Opal Lounge, yanked me out of my inner grumbling.

“Who! What? Oh, shit!” The pint glass I was filling with club soda was overfilling onto the bar top. I jumped, barely avoided splashing myself with seltzer, then handed the wet glass to an annoyed-looking customer.

He didn’t leave a tip.

I couldn’t say I was surprised.

“You sure can zone out better than anyone I ever met, kiddo,” Tom remarked as he pulled a roll of cling wrap out of a drawer. “But I told you, if you’re gonna pour drinks, you gotta pay attention.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” I said for what was probably the thousandth time that night as I wiped up the mess. “I’m just kinda overwhelmed. First night and all. But I’m trying really hard, I promise.”

I offered him the biggest, brightest smile I could muster, the one that usually got me free coffee or scooted me into auditions five minutes late.

Tom might have been a gruff old guy, but he was no more immune to that grin than most. His face reddened over the edges of his silver handlebar mustache. “Let them know it’s last call, will you? I want to get out of here before four.”

“No prob, Bob.”

I turned to the mirror behind the liquor bottles, adjusted the girls in my favorite green crop top that matched my eyes, fluffed my dark hair around my shoulders, and retouched my pout with pink gloss. It was science: a little cleavage and lipstick increased my tips by a factor of…well, I don’t know. I never was never thatgood with math. They got a little honey, I got a little money. Simple arithmetic, right?

Slowly, I worked my way through the last few customers. I managed rum and cokes for some college kids that didn’t seem too horrible. I’m pretty sure I messed up that last round of cosmos for the ladies’ night, but they were too gone to care.

“Last call,” I told the patron sitting at the far end.

All I got was a view of silky brown curls while he stared down at a tumbler of something brown over half-melted ice.

“Hey, handsome,” I tried again. “Can I getcha anything else?”

When he still didn’t answer, I snapped my fingers under his gaze. The man jerked upright to stare at me with the biggest, deepest, chocolatiest brown eyes framed by thin wire-framed glasses. Looking into them was like falling into the coziest blanket on the planet…naked. Like staring at two steaming cups of hot fudge begging to be poured all over my…sundae.

Sure, that’s what I was thinking of. A nice, wholesome, PG-flavored sundae.

Until I got a look at the rest of him, and my brain zoomed from PG to NC-17 in half a second.

His lightly tanned skin was smooth, dappled with tiny freckles across cheekbones that could slice through any glass in the bar and a jaw rough with only the slightest hint of stubble. A neck corded with lean muscle and tension was literally buttoned up in a pressed blue shirt, which also pulled dee-liciously across a broad chest, even broader shoulders, and the forearms that flexed as he turned his glass back and forth between large, capable-looking hands.

His face was rugged yet refined. Sharp lines tempered by a few almost gentle elements. Some innate brutality soothed by a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and a necktie.

It was like someone put a librarian’s costume on a UFC fighter. The combination shouldn’t work…but hot damn, did it ever.

Did I have a thing for sexy nerds? Maybe. Nothing was more fun than corrupting the dorks my grandmother hired to help me pass math and English. They never lasted more than a few weeks, since Nonna generally kicked them out once the tutoring lessons morphed into make-out sessions.

I always got an A in those.

The customer’s velvety eyes blinked through his lenses, and I swear I got a distinct whiff of hot cocoa.