Page 24 of What He Doesn't Know

“Well, apparently I’m the only poor sucker who doesn’t have a family to rush home to on Friday night,” I teased. “Shortest happy hour in history.”

“Doesn’t surprise me with the guest list.”

This time I laughed. “Fair point. You drinking?”

Charlie eyed the bottles behind the bar, sucking her thumbnail between her teeth for just a second before she tucked her hands between her thighs with a shrug. “Oh, why not. What are you having?”

“An IPA. It’s hoppy, kind of bitter.”

“That sounds fine.”

I cocked a brow. “You sure? You could get wine, or a martini or something.”

“I can handle a beer, Reese. I did survive a Wild Walker just seven days ago.”

I threw my hands up with a grin. “Alright, alright. I was just saying you could get whatever you want and that you didn’t have to drink what I was drinking. So sassy tonight.”

She blushed. “Not sassy, just thirsty.”

“Well, we can fix that.”

I tapped my knuckles on the bar, nodding to the bartender down at the other end of the bar. “Another one when you get a sec, Walt.”

The old man saluted me, tossing a wink in Charlie’s direction as he pulled a fresh glass from the shelf. We watched him fill it from the tap, though my eyes were mostly on her rather than the beer. Once it was in front of her, I thanked Walt and held my glass up.

“Happy Friday,” I said, clinking my glass to hers.

I watched her face as she took the first sip, expecting her to grimace at the bitter hops, but she just licked the drops that were left on her lips and sat the glass down in front of her, one hand hooked around it.

“You like it?”

“It’s bitter, like you said, but I like the flavor.”

“Charlie Reid, an IPA lover. I never would have guessed.”

“Pierce,” she corrected. “You know, you’re lucky we don’t have a wrong last name jar like we have a swear jar at school. You’d be broke by now.”

Shit.

I ran a hand through my hair, shaking my head. “Sorry. Old habits die hard, I suppose.”

“It’s okay,” she assured me with a smile.

I couldn’t get over the fact that she was in jeans. It was the first time I’d seen her not wearing a skirt since the first day of school. I tried not to check her out, to notice the way the denim hugged her thighs, or the way her blouse dipped down to show her modest cleavage with the way her posture was on the bar stool.

The woman just reminded me she was married, and I couldn’t stop staring at her like she was coming home with me. It was the kind of thoughts I’d fought against when we were younger, when her bare legs swung from where she sat on my piano, her young eyes wide as they watched me with adoration. She’d always made me feel like I was worth more than I really was, like I was the only boy to ever catch her eye at all.

I cleared my throat, shaking the memory away. “Speaking of which, I thought you had a date tonight.”

Charlie had started to take another drink when I mentioned the date, and once the words were out of my mouth, she tilted the glass up farther, chugging down more than half her beer in one fell swoop.

There was the grimace I’d expected earlier.

She sucked a breath through her teeth, shaking out the burn from chugging as she placed her glass back on the bar. “Yeah, well, so did I.”

A strand of her hair that had been tucked into the top of her bun fell forward, and she swept it back behind her ear, not bothering to pin it up again as her eyes focused on the glass in her hand. I ached to reach for her, but reminded myself it wasn’t my place.

“I’m sorry,” I said after a moment. I wasn’t sure what else there was to say. I didn’t need to know what happened to see that whatever it was, she’d been hurt by it. And I hated seeing her that way. “Want to talk about it?”