“What can I get you two this fine Friday evening?” The handlebar-mustached bartender swiped his towel over the counter and tossed out a couple cardboard coasters that skidded to a stop right in front of Seth. “It’s two-for-one pints until eight. And half-off appetizers for five more minutes. If you order soon, I can ring it up and make sure you get the discount.”
“Two pints of the Rusty Red Ale.” Seth looked to Josie who nodded. Ordering for a woman felt a little presumptuous, but he’d shared enough beers with her at this point that he felt confident he knew her drink preferences. “And a basket of curly fries when you get a chance.”
The bartender slapped the bar and then saluted with the flick of his finger to his forehead. He jammed his rag into his apron and whirled around to pour their drinks from among the taps lining the wall like soldiers at attention.
“I’ve always liked this place.” Josie’s elbows planted onto the sticky bar top. Her hands cupped her cheeks and she tapped her cheekbones with the pads of her fingers as if playing the piano. “Would you believe I worked here for a hot minute? My first night bartending I spilled drinks on three customers, got into words with one drunk who wouldn’t leave a girl who clearly wasn’t interested alone, and backed into the owner’s truck right after my shift. Needless to say, they asked me not to come back as an employee. Luckily, they’ve yet to turn me away as a customer.”
“I just can’t see you working with anything but horses.”
The bartender returned and deftly settled their drinks in front of them, careful to keep the caps from frothing up and over the rims of their glasses.
“As in, you think I don’t work well with people?” Josie lifted the beer and took a sip. She licked the foam from her lips and focused a challenging gaze upon Seth who had locked up like day-old road kill with rigor mortis.
“I don’t mean that—”
“It’s okay, Seth. I agree. People are hard for me. I’ve been told I’m sometimes too much.”
“What does that mean? Too much. Is there some sort of personality measuring stick I’m unaware of?”
“Yes, Seth, there is.” Josie swiveled her barstool to face him, knee to knee. “Women are expected to look pretty, keep their mouths shut, and play nice. I have a hard time doing all three of those things. I don’t fit the mold.”
“I’m not sure that’s a mold you should even try to fit into.”
Just then, country music clicked on over the speakers, the first obvious shift in the bar’s atmosphere, moving things from day drinking to late night partying. An older man at the opposite end of the L-shaped bar slapped a wad of cash onto the counter and as he lumbered past, he murmured under a husky breath, “And that’s my cue.”
“Think he knows something we don’t?” Seth tipped his beer toward the man shouldering open the door and then brought his gaze back around to Josie.
“Oh, I think we know exactly what we’re in for tonight, Seth.”
His stomach bottomed out at that, like when his truck crested the hill by their property and then dipped low on the other side. Moisture filled his palms and he returned his beer to the bar so it didn’t slip from his hands. It was futile to ask what she meant because she had already bounded from her stool to maneuver her way toward the parquet dance floor in the center of the dingy establishment. Her boots tapped in time to the low thump of the bass, a metronome made from her heels as they alternated with the rhythm. One hand clapped against her thigh; her thumb on the other hooked in her front pocket, keeping her cast close to her middle as she rocked side to side. She swayed her body with the song, feeling each note in movements that had Seth peeling his gaze away so he didn’t slip into staring. He was more than a little tempted to do just that.
“You gonna join me, cowboy?”
Seth laughed, just one punctuated ha.
With the corner of her bottom lip sucked between her teeth, Josie flashed a coquettish grin. Seth was grateful he was still on his stool a good distance away because that act made him gulp and there was no question it was audible.
“This is what we came here for, right?” she hollered at him as the music swelled.
One beer wasn’t going to be enough, but Seth had a hunch Josie wouldn’t give him time to throw another back. Persistence penetrated every gaze she directed at him, like a beckoning siren call tempting him into foreign—possibly troubled—waters.
Just go through the motions, not through the feelings.
Yeah, right. That wasn’t going to happen. Seth was feeling all kinds of stuff that had no business existing in a perfectly platonic relationship. Nerves. Anticipation. An almost animalistic need to march over to Josie and claim her as his own by swooping her into his arms and dancing until their feet were numb and their breaths ragged.
What on God’s green earth was happening to him?
“If you’re not going to dance with her, I sure as hell would like to.” Seth had been so unaware of his surroundings—all that didn’t pertain to Josie, at least—that he didn’t even notice the man occupying the bar stool next to him until the burly cowboy uttered the challenge. The stranger sniffed loudly to hock up a ball of phlegm and spat into an empty plastic cup, then wiped his sloppy mouth with his sleeve in a downright barbaric way.
Seth abandoned his chair. Josie wasn’t up for grabs and she definitely wasn’t available to satisfy this guy’s wandering eye, let alone any other ideas he had floating around in that oversized head of his.
“I was beginning to think you were going to leave me out here all by myself.” Josie tossed a pile of hair over her shoulder, unblinking when she looked up at him. Something a little like insecurity shot through her big, caramel eyes but she kept dancing in place even as the music transitioned between songs.
“We came here to dance. So dance, we shall.”
“Shall?” She closed her eyes and shook her head, then snorted out a laugh through her nose. “Seriously, Seth. Sometimes you really confuse me. You’re this hot rancher who bakes cookies like it’s his job and sometimes acts like a dude from another century with your manners and goofy vernacular. I can’t figure you out. You’re an enigma.”
“Maybe I don’t fit the mold either.” He shrugged.
“Well, cheers to not fitting the mold.” She hoisted an imaginary glass into the air.
“We’ve got real drinks we can toast with.”
“Right, but that would mean going back to the bar to grab them and I’m pretty sure once you step off this dance floor, I’ll have an impossible time getting you back out here.” In a two-beat move, she grabbed his hand and yanked Seth close to press her body flush with his. “I’m not letting you get away.”
Seth was shocked he didn’t choke on his heart that leapt into his throat. He could feel it beating like a bass drum this thump, thump, thump of adrenaline and anticipation and a little bit of what the heck is going on here?
This wasn’t line dancing. There was no line around them, near them, or between them. They moved as one unit, the classic country music guiding them like a push, nudging them together, closer and carrying them along the dance floor.
“I think you might actually be leading,” Seth said close to her ear when the first song ended, not that he minded it. His dancing feet were definitely both lefties. At least Josie had an easy rhythm he could latch onto and mimic. Learn from, even.