Page 34 of Keeping Laryn
“Didn’t mean to. Sorry, Laryn. But seriously—you’re hot.”
“Buck!” This time, his tone was almost angry.
Not wanting to be the cause of a fight between friends, and feeling warm and fuzzy inside from the compliment—had anyone called her hot before? She didn’t think so—Laryn looked up at Tate and asked, “Will you get me a beer?”
“Anything in particular?”
“Whatever’s on tap.”
He stared at her for so long, she got a little self-conscious again. She felt better now that she was sitting and not feeling quite so on display, but she still squirmed a little uncomfortably in her seat.
“You don’t want a mixed drink? Maybe a frozen margarita? Or a glass of wine?” Obi-Wan asked from across the table.
She glanced over at him. “I like all those things. And I don’t mind the occasional shot, but tonight feels like a beer night.Besides, I’m driving, and beer doesn’t affect me as much as hard liquor.”
“Marry me,” Chaos said dramatically as he pushed out of his chair next to her and dropped to his knees.
“Get up, asshole,” Tate said, smacking his friend on the back of the head.
Everyone chuckled as Chaos got back into his seat. Even Laryn laughed at his antics.
“I’ll be right back.” Tate had leaned over and said the four words right into her ear, making goose bumps rise on her arms once more as his warm breath wafted over the sensitive skin of her neck.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but talk at the table turned to the trials and more technical aspects of the flight and how the MH-60 had performed.
This was a conversation Laryn was comfortable with. So when Tate returned and put a beer in front of her, and dragged a chair over from a table nearby that had recently been vacated, she didn’t even blink as she listened and occasionally joined in the shop talk.
But she wasn’t so into the conversation that she didn’t feel Tate’s leg against her own. They were all pretty crowded around the table, and even though the pilots weren’t gigantic, they weren’t small men by any stretch.
At some point, Tate got up to get a refill of the pitcher of beer they were all sharing, and it took Laryn a few minutes to realize he didn’t return right away. Turning, she saw him standing at the bar talking to one of the waitresses…who was wearing a barely there push-up sports bra and a pair of boy shorts that were pulled up into her ass crack, showing off her butt cheeks. She had long blonde hair and flat abs. She also wore a pair of heels that had to be hurting her feet after being on them all night, but she didn’t seem fazed in the least.
“That’s Barb,” Chaos whispered close to her ear, when he sawwhere her gaze had gone. “She’s wanted Casper since the moment she saw him. He’s not interested. Not in the least. But he’s also way more polite than the rest of us. Trust me, though, there’s nothing there.”
Laryn forced herself to turn away. “That’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?” he asked quietly, studying her as he leaned back to sit properly in his seat.
Feeling as if some of the shine had been taken off the evening, Laryn paid more attention to the talk around her and less to what Tate was doing.
When he returned to the table, Barb was at his heels with a tray of shot glasses in her hand.
“On the house!” she exclaimed dramatically, rudely leaning between Tate and Laryn, despite the fact they were practically shoulder to shoulder. She made a point of putting a shot glass in front of each of the men first—all while bending low and flashing her tits, which were barely encased in the flimsy sports bra—before plunking the last glass in front of Laryn.
Picking up the drink, Laryn smelled it and wrinkled her nose. The drink might’ve been on the house, but it was definitely cheap vodka, not the top-shelf variety she preferred.
Glancing at the glamorous waitress, Laryn saw she’d stepped to the other side of Tate…and was staring intently at the shot glass in his hand. She had a weird look in her eye that made Laryn uneasy. Remembering the lessons her dad had hammered into her about taking drinks from strangers—and about reading body language—she opened her mouth to tell Tate not to drink it, but she was too late. Even as she had the thought, he tipped the glass to his mouth and downed the shot in one swallow.
The satisfaction in Barb’s eyes was enough to make Laryn abruptly put her own shot back on the table with a thunk.
“Oh, you can’t hang? It’s okay, sweetie, not everyone can. Unlike me. I can handleanythingthese pilots want to dish out.”
She didn’t wait for a response, simply winked at Tate, then gathered the now-empty glasses, leaving Laryn’s still full one on the table before leaving as abruptly as she’d arrived.
“What the fuck wasthatabout?” Buck asked.
“She cornered me at the bar. Wouldn’t stop going on and on about how proud of us she was, how she’d heard we had a top-secret thing today and she wanted to gift us with free shots. I tried to turn her down, but she just got more insistent. Figured it was easier to just go with it.”
Obi-Wan shook his head. “She’s gross. And no, Laryn, in case you’re wondering about that inuendo she lobbed at you before she left, none of us have tapped that. Disgusting. No way.”
