She spun around to look over her shoulder. “Mason, you asshole,” she said loudly. A couple at a nearby table frowned at her, but she didn’t care.
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I opened my arms and waited for her to step into them. She didn’t. She just looked at me. Finally, I closed my arms and let them fall down by my sides. I let my eyes drift across her face, to the tiny scar over her eye, to the pock mark on her chin that she got when she had chicken pox at the age of nine. I knew that’s what it was because the last time I’d seen her, I’d traced her body like a study on a canvas, noting all the freckles, lines, and scars. I’d touched her everywhere, and kissed her in more places than I could count.
“Damn, I missed you,” I said.
She nodded and took a sip of her beer. She motioned for the bartender to bring her another.
“I don’t think he’s your biggest fan.” I nodded toward him as I hitched my ass onto the stool next to her.
“He asked me out. I said no. Some men can’t take no for an answer.” She tilted her head and stared at me. “You know any men like that?”
“I know a lot of men like that,” I admitted. Unfortunately, in my practice I saw a lot of stubborn bastards who liked to hurt women.
“You wouldn’t happen to be one of them, would you?”
I tried to fight it off, but that question hurt. “Why would you ask me something like that?”
“Just checking,” she said. She glanced at me without turning her head, out of the corner of her eye.
I nodded toward her beer. “How many of those have you had?”
“Enough that you’ll need to catch up.”
“No problem.” I motioned for the bartender to bring me a beer. “So, what’s up, Charlotte?” I asked pleasantly, although I had a feeling I was being ambushed.
“What the fuck’s up?” she sang out loud. “Four years and that’s the best you’ve got for me?” She snorted.
I took a sip of my beer and leaned my elbows on the bar. “Who pissed in your corn flakes?”
She said nothing, just glanced at me over the rim of her frosty mug.
“You should tell me what I did, because I honestly have no idea what it is that has offended you.”
“Did you tell Lynn that we fuck when I’m in town?”
I shook my head. “No.” I turned to glare at her. “Did you?”
She stared at me. “No. I didn’t,” she said softly. “I probably should have.”
“What purpose would that serve?”
She huffed. “None.” She pushed her beer back from in front of her. “I’m a morose bitch when I’m drunk, apparently.”
I looked at her from her head to her toes. “You’re not drunk.” I knew what drunk looked like on her. And this wasn’t it. “The question is why would you want me to think you are?”
She grinned. “Maybe I wanted an excuse to clear the air. Drunks always get a pass, don’t they?”
“You can clear the air with me whenever you want. You don’t need to lie. Talk. I’ll listen.”
“You don’t want to hear what I have to say.”
“Try me.”
“I’m flying back to Afghanistan tomorrow,” she said.
“What’s it like over there?” I motioned for another beer. For me, not for her, because she was apparently finished.