“What’s your name, handsome?” Lina asked, settling on a stool.
“Joel.”
“Joel, I’ll have your best scotch. Make it a double,” she decided.
Damn it. I knew she’d order a cool drink.
“You got it. For you, darlin’?” He looked at me.
“Oh. Uh. I’ll have a white wine,” I said, feeling like the least interesting person in the bar.
He winked at me. “Comin’ right up.”
“He’s no Knox, but I dig the silver fox thing,” Lina mused.
My hum was noncommittal.
“Oh, come on. Even if Knox is a shithead—which he is—you can still appreciate the very fine exterior,” Lina insisted.
I wasn’t in the mood to appreciate anything about the Viking who’d trampled my heart.
Silver Fox Joel plopped our drinks in front of us and left again.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
Lina lifted her glass. “Having drinks. Getting to know each other.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t see the look on Knox’s face right after I laid that closed-mouth kiss on him.”
Close-mouthed was good.
Wait.
No. It didn’t matter.
Even if Lina wasn’t with Knox, he’d dumped me. I didn’t need to concern myself with competition.
I ran my finger around the rim of my glass. “What happened to his face?”
She pointed an index finger at me. “Fear. I’ve known that man since he was barely a man, and I’ve never seen him scared. But I saw fear when he watched you walk away.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to hear that. I didn’t want to pretend that there was hope where there was none. “I don’t know why he’d be afraid of me walking away. He’s the one who already did the walking.”
“Let me guess. It wasn’t you. It was him. He doesn’t do relationships or complications or responsibilities. There’s no future, and he’s letting you go so you can get on with yours.”
I blinked. “You do know him.”
“I’ll have
you know I hold the impressive title of first official non-girlfriend, thank you very much. It was my junior year in college. He was twenty-four. We met at a party, and it lasted four glorious, hormone- and hangover-filled weeks before the idiot got cold feet and handed me my walking papers.”
“Judging by your greeting, I’m guessing things ended better for you than they did for me.”
Lina smiled and took a sip of scotch. “He underestimated my stubbornness. See, I could do without him as a boyfriend. But I wanted to keep him around as a friend. So I forced him into a friendship. We talk every couple of months. Before he hit that lottery, we’d meet up every couple of years. Always someplace neutral. We’d play wingman for each other.”
I downed the wine in three big gulps. Before I even put the glass down on the bar, another one arrived.