I didn’t even own a gun. I wasn’t prepared for getting on dealer radar, nor did I ever think I would be. Though, since I planned to keep doing what I was doing, I knew it might happen.

I just wasn’t prepared (yet).

So I was waiting for my shot to follow him to the bathroom. If guys were in there and they saw me when I entered, I’d pretend I was tipsy and went in the wrong door. But I was willing to do it in the hope I’d catch him in the act. If I caught him in the act, Helen would believe me. Totally. We were tight.

I was thinking this when I heard a familiar voice say from behind me, “Ally.”

Chills slid over my skin and weight settled in my gut as I realized my mistake.

In order to watch Zach with his boys in a back booth, I’d put my back to the door.

Which meant I was ripe for attack.

Fuck.

I turned on my stool and looked up at Ren.

He was wearing a well-tailored suit that looked good on him.

As for the rest, everything that was him, top to toe, was the thing of dreams.

It was then something I always loved—the fact that Denver was huge, sprawling, dynamic, eclectic, diverse and energetic, but could still be a small town—became something I hated.

Living there my whole life, I never went out without knowing there was a very good chance I’d bump into someone I knew, liked, and would shoot the shit with them in a grocery aisle or arrange to go to a movie or end up in a bar sucking back Fat Tires until we had to order a taxi.

Then there were times, and there were few, when I ran into someone I most definitely did not want to see.

Like now.

“Hey,” I greeted.

“Hey,” he replied. He looked at the empty stool beside me and back at me. “Got a minute?”

I didn’t. I had to keep an eye on Zach and time his bathroom break so it worked for me, and hopefully for my friend Helen.

But I didn’t want to blow off Ren. That might give him the impression he’d shredded me. Or at the very least upset me.

He had shredded me. No doubt. It made no sense. Drinks, conversation, great sex and just one night. How that could lead to me feeling dead inside, I had no clue.

I just knew it did. And I wasn’t one of those chicks who denied things. I was real with everybody. Including myself.

But not including Ren. No way in hell I was going to let on he’d done that to me.

Therefore, I said, “Sure,” and turned my whole body his way.

He sat and caught the bartender’s eye.

As we were waiting for the bartender to arrive, I looked for a hot babe hanging back and found none, so I asked, “You here alone?”

His eyes came to me. “Business dinner. Saw you, told them to start without me.”

That was interesting. We hadn’t really parted on good terms. If it were the other way around, I wouldn’t make the approach.

Before I could dig deeper, or, the better option, find some way to blow him off without letting on I was doing it, the bartender came.

Ren ordered, “Vodka gimlet,” and I felt my eyes widen slightly. “What?” he asked when he looked at me.

“You’re a gimlet man?” I asked back.

“I like booze,” he answered. “I’ll drink anything but tonight I’m in the mood for sour.”

I didn’t know what to do with that.

His brows went up a couple of centimeters. “You got a problem with the gimlet?”

“I’m a bartender, Ren. A gimlet order is rare. But when it comes, it’s women who order it.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Know you’re tight with men who drink blood and eat nails, babe, but just to say, what a man drinks does not make that man.”

I didn’t know what to make of that either, except I didn’t like it all that much. Much like I didn’t like his parting shot of weeks ago, also a slur on my family.

“Do you have a problem with my family that I don’t know about?” I asked.

“No, and don’t know how you got that from what I said. What I got a problem with is you giving me shit about what I drink.”

“I wasn’t giving you shit. I was just surprised,” I corrected him.

“Ally, in case you don’t know this already, a man is not gonna take kindly to anyone sayin’ he drinks a woman’s drink or does a womanly anything.”

I had to admit, he had a point. And I had to admit, I’d done that. I also had to admit, that was a wee bit uncool.

Still, he didn’t have to get so irritable about it. I mean, I was very well acquainted with his manhood and his ability to utilize it with exceptional proficiency. I’d communicated learning this knowledge by having orgasms the likes of which he could not mistake as fake. Therefore, I’d hardly question it.

Whatever.

Seriously time to move on. I shouldn’t have said yes to his “minute.” I shouldn’t give a shit about what he thought about me. I didn’t anyone else. Why him?

Instead of pondering that question now, I decided to do it later and asked, “I see you stopped by to spread cheer, but I’m in the middle of something. So maybe we can wrap this up so I can get back to it?”

His eyes looked to my untouched martini, my dress, my legs, my ass in the stool and around the restaurant before coming back to me. “What are you in the middle of?”

“Something,” I replied. “Now is there something you needed?”

He studied me, again did his scanning thing of me and our surroundings, then he looked back at my face and stated straight out, “I fucked this up.”

That was a surprise statement so my head cocked to the side. “What?”

His gimlet arrived, taking his attention again. He told the bartender to put it on his table’s tab and turned again to me.

“I didn’t come over here to be a dick. I came over here to apologize for being a dick.”

Now that…

That threw me.

The men of my acquaintance didn’t apologize. They admitted no wrong verbally and instead did things (maybe) to make amends physically.

Of course, most of that was the Hot Bunch dealing with their Rock Chicks so I had not experienced it personally. Still, I’d heard about it. All about it. And sometimes I’d witnessed it. But I’d never experienced it.

I said nothing.

Ren kept talking.

“I had a good time with you. You’re funny. That whole thing you got goin’ on.” He flipped a hand out to me, my guess his flip indicating all that was me. “It’s good. It works for you. It works in a big way for me. You’re fuckin’ gorgeous. You’re a fantastic fucking lay. It was a good night. I got pissed you took off when I wanted more. Came to your house, acted like a dick and you didn’t deserve that shit. No excuse for it. But you gotta know, I felt like an asshole because I was an asshole. I’m glad I had the chance to tell you I know I was an asshole.”

On that, as I stared at him, lips parted, he grabbed his drink and slid off the stool.

Looking down at me, his gaze moving over my face and hair, he finally caught my eyes and said quietly, “And you look good tonight, honey. Beautiful.”

Still staring at him, lips parted, he turned and walked away.

It took me a while to stop focusing on all that he said, and the vision of him burned into my eyeballs walking away (he seriously could rock a suit), in order to pull myself together.

But I was Ally Nightingale, so pull myself together I did.

I turned back to Zach, but grabbed my martini on the go. I wasn’t a martini girl. More like tequila. Though I was like Ren, I enjoyed booze and could drink anything. But the martini was what I had and I needed to wash what just happened away, at least for now, so it would have to do.

Fifteen minutes later, Zach got up to go to the bathroom.

Thirty seconds after that, I followed him.

I didn’t have to do the tipsy act when I hit the men’s room because no one was visible when I walked in. But there were shoes under a stall, standing sideways so not using the facilities, just using the stall for privacy to hide a nasty habit.

Loser.

I opened the stall next to Zach’s, stepped up on the toilet, balanced and looked over the divider.

He had a vial in his hand and a spoon to his nose.

“Hey, Zach,” I greeted.

He jumped and his vial of cocaine fell into the toilet.

I swallowed a laugh.

His head snapped back to look up at me. “Ally, what the fuck?”

I answered his “what the fuck” with, “Kiss Helen good-bye, you thieving, asshole cokehead.”

Then I stepped off the toilet, pushed out of the stall and moseyed out of the bathroom, ignoring Zach making desperate fumbling noises in his stall and calling my name.

I took the back exit.

It was closer, for one. Zach wouldn’t expect it, for another.

And I wouldn’t have to see Ren as I walked through the restaurant, for last.

* * *

I sat in my Mustang outside Ren’s place, staring at his door.

His house really was great. It looked like it could be in The South. It had that kind of grace with a veranda, big multi-paned windows, a brick paved walkway and lush landscaping. It had a welcoming settled feel like old houses did. I liked it.

You look good tonight, honey. Beautiful.

I sighed.

A simple compliment. And highly effective.

It works in a big way for me.

My thing worked for Ren.

Well, one could say Ren’s thing worked for me, too.

Big time.

And he’d apologized for being a dick. Straight up. I’d been a bitch, stupidly spitting in the eye of the tiger by making an idiot remark about his drink after he’d approached to apologize. Then he didn’t push the drink issue and apologized.