“Oh, what are you speaking?”
Jax offered her flirting smile, the one that called the man an asshole before she opened her mouth. “From Germany,” she said in broken English.
“I’ve never been to Germany.” He stared down at Claire’s drink.
“He’s never been outside of the valley.” She smiled and sipped her drink as if she’d just offered some kind of a compliment.
He took it as an invitation. “What’s your name, beautiful?”
It took everything in her to not laugh. He was trying way too hard, and she was in no way interested.
Jax spoke for both of them. “Our English not very good.”
“I understood that.”
“How long has this guy been in here drinking?” Claire asked Jax.
“Smells like a half a liter in.”
Mr. Not Getting the Hint reached out and touched Claire’s shoulder and asked her name again.
She moved away from him. “No touching.”
“How about another drink?” He raised his hand for the bartender.
Claire waved over her drink. “No. One only.”
When he touched her a second time, she was close to ending the charade.
“I’m going to dump this drink on him,” Claire told Jax.
The bartender walked over, and both Claire and Jax waved off the offer of drinks by Mr. Pushy. “Doesn’t look like the ladies want another round.”
Claire smiled at the bartender, said thank you in German, then again in English. She lifted her drink and looked anywhere but at the guy who wasn’t getting the hint.
With the glass to her lips, she looked over the rim and gasped.
There, on the other side of the bar, Cooper sat staring at her.
Next thing she knew, he was coughing and someone was handing him a bar napkin. When the profile of the man became clear, Claire nearly shrieked. “Ah, fuck.” Without warning, Claire grabbed Jax’s arm and pushed her into the barstool she was on so her back was to Cooper and her homeroom teacher.
“What the hell?” Jax asked.
Mr. Pushy smiled. “You’re cute, too.”
“Go away,” Claire demanded in English, then she tossed out an expletive in Russian.
The guy lifted his hands in the air, called them a nasty name of his own, and walked away.
“Look over my right shoulder, slowly,” Claire coaxed Jax.
Jax switched their drinks around and did just that. “Cooper’s here.”
“Do you see who he’s with?” Claire felt panic rising in the back of her throat.
“A friend?”
Claire grabbed her glass, downed the drink, and started searching the bar for an exit. “My homeroom teacher.”
Jax’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, no . . .”
“Is he looking over?”
“No, the bartender is setting down another drink and handing Cooper napkins.”
“I’ve got to get out of here.” But to get to the front door, they’d have to walk right by Cooper and Mr. Eastman.
“Front door is too risky,” Jax stated the obvious.
“Always back doors in kitchens.”
“I’ll create a diversion,” she said as she undid another button on her blouse. “Have the car running.”
Claire reached in her purse, dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. A wink and a fist bump to her best friend, and she waited.
Jax stood and walked a straight line toward Cooper.
Claire waited until Jax was standing at Cooper’s side, leaning over the bar. Cleavage did what it does when heterosexual men are around, and gave Claire an exit.
When Eastman scooted around in his seat, Claire made her move. Quickly but not to the point of attracting attention, she inched out of their line of sight and walked right past the “Employees Only” sign. The obtrusive bright lights of the kitchen had her blinking.
“The bathroom’s not back here,” someone said behind the grill.
Claire shook her head, pointed toward the bar. “Abusive ex-boyfriend. I need the back door.”
Without questions, the man pointed behind him.
“Thank you.”
Claire’s shoes clicked on the tile floor as she rushed outside.
Once she was inside her car, engine running, Claire texted Jax.
Two minutes later, as they rushed out of the parking lot, Claire was happy Neil had taught her to back into every parking space she ever used.
Jax watched from behind. “Go.”
Three blocks from the bar and the adrenaline that had been pumping finally fled Claire’s system, and she started to laugh.
“Damn, that was close.”
Jax was laughing so hard she snorted, and that had Claire doubled over the steering wheel.
“Guess we’re drinking at home for the duration.”
Within ten minutes of their arrival at home, Cooper was walking through their front door.
Claire had ditched her fancy shoes and mixed new drinks.
“All the bars in the world, and you had to walk into mine.” He was all smiles and relief.
Much as it was hard to see Cooper walking through her house and tossing his keys on the island in the kitchen where she and Jax hovered, it was also a comfort.
“What are the odds?” Jax asked.
Cooper looked directly at Claire, his eyes softened. “What are you drinking?”
“Vodka martinis.”
“What do I have to do to get one?”
Normally, that charged question would have a snarky remark on its tail. Something slightly sexual and inappropriate. She settled for something else. “Don’t tell my homeroom teacher I was out drinking tonight.”
Claire moved around the kitchen to mix another one, pulled a glass out of the cupboard.
“He didn’t see Claire, did he?”
“No indication he did. How long were you guys sitting there?”
“Not long. Thirty minutes, maybe,” Jax answered.
“Long enough for Mr. Clueless to hit on us,” Claire said as she poured a generous amount of vodka.
“I missed that,” Cooper said.
“Good thing. I was about to make a serious scene. One that Eastman wouldn’t have missed.” Claire shook the tumbler several times before dumping the liquid into a glass. She reached for her jar of olives.
“I don’t need that.”
Claire glanced over her shoulder and, without looking, picked an olive out of the jar and plopped it in the glass. “A martini without an olive is just vodka.”
He smiled, and it was then she realized that he didn’t have to be belly laughing for his dimples to show up.
“What on earth made you pick a bar on that side of town?” Cooper asked, accepting the martini.
Claire and Jax exchanged glances. “Should we tell him?” Claire said in German.
Jax shrugged.
“Is that ‘told’ or ‘tell’?” Cooper asked.
Claire’s smile fell. “You . . . wait, you understood that?”
There was a moment when Cooper just grinned. “I didn’t spend all my time in London when I was overseas.”
“Seriously? Du hast Deutsch gelernt?” Claire asked.
“I’m not sure you can call it studying German. I spent a lot of time outside of the bigger cities so I could learn it. I’m pretty sure most of the people I came in contact with were horrified at how I butchered their language. But I can hold a fairly decent conversation about day-to-day things.”