Jase leaned forward and took her hand. “You know what you need?”
Cerys snatched it back. “You to tell me what you are doing here?”
“Was walking by with Alex and Ben. Saw you in the window. Told them I needed a piss and that I’d catch them up. Anyway, you know what you need?”
“Are they waiting for you?”
Jase looked confused. “No. Because we’re grown men. But if it’s bothering you . . .” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Alex . . . yeah. Look. Met a chick in the bathroom. Birthday fuck and all that. Catch you in half an hour.”
Cerys’s jaw dropped. “You honestly talk to each other all the time like that?”
Jase looked sheepish. “In fairness, it’s usually true.”
Cerys rolled her eyes. “I can only imagine.”
“Now. Any more logistics to be taken care of before I tell you what you need?”
“If it’s a fuck in the bathroom, you can count me out.”
Jase’s eyes ran down to her chest and back. “Yeah. You are so not a bathroom fuck. In that dress, you definitely need a bed. But we can get to that later. Are you going to let me tell you what you need?”
“I’m a little scared to ask.”
Jase waved the server over. “We need cake. Birthday cake with candles. Something chocolate. Oh, and her initial, C, needs to be on whatever she gets.”
Her heart melted a little. Sure, she was half-certain that Jase had already had a few drinks. Perhaps that was why he was being so friendly. So forthcoming with conversation. But she liked it. She liked this more playful side of him than the one she’d seen at the studio.
When the cake arrived, a large chunk of a multi-tiered chocolate cake with two white candles and the letter C piped in white icing on it, Jase held out his hand to stop her blowing the candles out.
He surprised her by standing and whistling as loud as he could to get everyone’s attention.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“Lads. Ladies. I’m in the doghouse. I was late for my wife’s birthday dinner. Can you help a guy out by singing happy birthday with me to make up for it, yeah? Her name’s Cerys.”
“Wife?” she mouthed furiously. God, she was going to die. The whole birthday sing-along was something you did at a cheap and cheerful family restaurant. Not a five-star restaurant that played jazz.
Jase simply grinned. “One, two, three,” he conducted. And to her embarrassment, he led them in a raucous performance. Well, his performance was raucous. Guests too polite to do otherwise joined in with a more mute contribution.
By the time Jase sat down, her cheeks were hot. But she was smiling.
“Happy birthday, Cerys,” he whispered beneath the restrained smattering of applause.
“You didn’t have to pay, you know?” Cerys said as she changed out of her heels into the chunky boots she’d left in the cloakroom.
Jase shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well, you didn’t need to dress like you were going on the next Apollo moon mission, either.”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with these. At least I’ll be able to walk in the snow outside.”
“Fair point. Although, Neil Armstrong called, and he’d like them back when you are finished with them.”
Cerys looked up at him and placed her hand on his arm. “They do not look like moon boots. But thank you. You turned my birthday into something memorable and fun, and I’m grateful.”
Cerys wrapped the long scarf around her neck. “Ouch,” she cried out, then reached for her ear.
He stepped closer to her. “What did you do?”
“Got my earring tangled up in my scarf somehow.”
“Here, let me.” Jase reached for the hoop of her earring gently and studied it in the dim light of the restaurant entrance. The end of the hoop had hooked through the loose knit of the scarf.
Gently, he eased the scarf off the earring, trying to ignore the softness of her skin across his knuckles. Or the way he could feel her breath on his wrist. Her scent was warm and inviting.
She was a ray of fucking sunshine, and at that moment, he was completely blinded by her.
“There you go.”
“Thanks.”
They stepped out of the restaurant into the cold night air. “I’ll just get a cab,” she said, pointing to a line of taxis across the street.
Jase looked down at his watch. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean, it’s ten o’clock on a Saturday on your birthday. So, you can’t go home. It’s against the rules.”
Cerys looked up at him. “Whose rules?”
Even as her eyes narrowed in his direction, there was a playfulness to them. “Everybody’s rules. Unless you’re a sad sack who likes hanging out alone at home on their birthday.”
“But I didn’t. I just shared cake with an up-and-coming rock star. Not many girls can say they did that on their birthday.”
Jase’s lips twitched into the making of a smile. “This is true. But now you can join me and Ben and Alex. That’s three rock stars. And we’ll get you blind drunk and make sure that no one spikes your drinks and that you get home okay.”
“Fine. But I’m not getting blind drunk. I’ve already had three glasses of wine, which was one more than I was planning.”
Jase took her hand and tucked it around his elbow. “Well, we’ll see about that. If you went to Uni in Manchester for a few years, you must remember how much we Northerners like to drink.”
“I think as a Welsh woman, we might have you beat.”
“That sounds like a dare.”
Cerys laughed; the sound literally tinkled like a glass chime. Or perhaps he was just getting poetic because he was already four pints in. “No, not a dare. Where are Ben and Alex?”
Jase grabbed his phone and dialled Alex’s number.
“That was a long fuck,” Alex said.
Jase laughed. “Yeah. Something like that. Listen. Where are you?”
Once he had the details, Cerys checked her phone for its location and directed him to the bar.
“You know I’m completely overdressed for this place,” she said, taking in the grungy bar with more taps than she could count.
“Don’t worry, your boots offset your dress.”
“Will you shut up about my boots? I should put my heels back on.”
Jase shook his head. “I’m just teasing. You look fine. And who gives a shit. You’re just going to sit in a booth and drink beer.” Plus, he’d seen her in those heels. Worse, he’d seen her walk ahead of him in those heels, with legs that went on forever, right up to an arse as ripe as summer peaches.
His dick stirred at the memory. To stop it developing into a full-blown hard on, he looked around the bar and spotted Ben and Alex in a booth.
When Alex saw them, his eyes went wide.
“Look who was out all alone on her birthday,” he said as he helped Cerys settle in next to Ben, and then slid in next to Alex.
“Please tell me she was not the bathroom birthday fuck,” Alex hissed quietly.
“Best fucking hour of my life, mate.”
“Don’t you realise what will happen when—”