Stranger

Jared stopped washing the tires and stood, his hands covered in foam. “Thanks, Grace.”

His smile was nice enough but didn’t send sparkles through me, and the fact I was even trying to see if it did pissed me off. “You’re welcome.”

He was still looking at me curiously. “Anything else?”

“No. Carry on.” I shooed him with my hands and went back inside, where Shelly was busy folding brochures and answering the phone.

I went to my office, where I sat in my chair and surveyed my realm without the satisfaction it usually brought me. No matter how hard I worked, there were always going to be people, my dad and sister among them, who measured my success by their standards. I didn’t want to let their view of what my life should be affect me.

Unfortunately, it did.

Jack’s self-description had not been incorrect. He waited for me where I’d told him to, and though I knew he was a smoker I couldn’t smell it on him. God, he was young. He looked no older than twenty-two or twenty-three, and that was being generous. Young but pretty, even with the metal in his face. More than pretty. Jack was downright gorgeous.

He’d said his hair was dark, but it was impossible to see that under the ball cap he wore pulled low over his eyes. I didn’t recognize the name of the punk-rock band on the black T-shirt he wore over a long-sleeved white Henley pushed up on his elbows to show off an intricate design of tattoos beginning at his left wrist and covering all the skin I could see on his arm. He wore faded jeans low on his hips and held in place with a black leather belt.

“Jack?” I held out my hand.

He shook it firmly and didn’t squeeze too tight or hold it for too long. “Yes.”

“I’m Miss Underfire. But you can call me Grace.”

Jack smiled. “Pretty name.”

If my name were Esther or Hepzibah he’d have said the same thing. As if a name matters. And again, I was thinking of Sam.

“Thanks. So’s Jack.”

Jack smiled, and I stared, dumbfounded at the transformation in his face. Without a smile he was gorgeous. With one…incandescent.

Either he didn’t understand this or he’d long ago learned to deal with gape-mouthed women, because he didn’t look taken aback. “Sure, if you don’t mind the nicknames.”

I burbled something incoherent, unable to manage much more than that, at least until the superpower of his smile released me.

“Nicknames?”

He hung back a little, letting me lead. I turned left out of the parking garage’s small driveway. The street was crowded and would only get more so as the night went on. Listening to Jack laugh was like sipping premium hot chocolate. Warm and decadent. Delicious.

“Jackrabbit,” he said. “Jackhammer. Jack of all trades. Jack Sprat. Jackass.”

I joined his laughter. We headed toward the Pharmacy. Someone had bought the original drugstore on the ground floor and turned it into a hot spot for up-and-coming bands. There was dancing upstairs, where the walls were painted silver and cages were set onto the dance floor.

“I won’t call you Jackass. I promise.”

Jack turned a half-wattage grin on me, for which I was grateful. I didn’t want to be struck dumb again. “Thanks. I’ll try not to act like one.”

This early we didn’t have to wait in much of a line. I thought of sneaking a peek at Jack’s driver’s license when he pulled it out to show the bouncer at the door, but I could only catch a glimpse of his photo. He was old enough to get into the club, at least.

“Jacko,” said the bouncer, barely looking at the license as he slid it into the nifty little machine that scanned it for legality. “You still over at the Lamb?”

Jack took back his license and slipped it into the plain black wallet he’d pulled from a back pocket. “Yeah. Part-time.”

“Yeah?” The bouncer took my card without even looking at me. He slid it through the scanner perfunctorily. I guess I didn’t look underage. “What else you doing?”

Jack didn’t even give me a glance. “Going to school.”

“No shit?” The bouncer goggled. “What for?”

“Graphic design.” Jack shrugged a little. He neatly nipped the conversation short with a grin and one of those specifically male gestures that probably originated as caveman sign language. Kind of a trigger-finger, club-swinging motion.

I let him lead the way inside. Jack was good at picking up my cues, but he wasn’t quite good enough to make it seamless. He got an A for effort, though, when he asked me what I wanted to drink and got it for me, along with a beer for himself.

Downstairs, an odd mix of current hip-hop and old-school rock blared from the speakers as people mingled in front of the small stage where the night’s band would perform. It was cooler and less crowded here than it would be upstairs, and for the moment I was content to sip my beer and watch the crowd.

“So,” I said by way of conversation. “Graphic design? That’s interesting.”

He grinned around his beer and gave the same sort of shrug he’d given the bouncer. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“You must think so,” I said. “Or else you wouldn’t be studying it.”

Jack nodded after a second. “Yeah. It is. I think I’ll be good at it. I like it, anyway. And it beats bartending.”

It might beat fucking for money, too, but I didn’t say that. “You’re a bartender?”

“Yeah. At the Slaughtered Lamb. Just down the street.”

“I haven’t been there.”

“You should come by,” he said, but couldn’t make me believe he meant it.

Two girls dressed in too-tight tops and too-short skirts sidled by, eyeing him. “Hey, Jack,” said the taller one.

Jack nodded. “Hey.”

The girls eyed me next. I smiled and lifted my bottle, waiting for a challenge. The shorter girl tugged the taller’s elbow, pulling her away before there could be one.

“Sorry.” Jack looked pained.

“Old girlfriend?”

He shrugged, nodded, shrugged again. “She thought so.”

“Ah.” I drank more beer, wanting to finish before it got warm. “She the one who called you Jackass?”

God, that fucking smile again. The real one. Brilliance. It totally slayed me and erased each unsmooth moment of this date so far.

“Probably,” Jack said.

This wasn’t the best date I’d ever been on, but it wasn’t the worst, either. Jack seemed new to this, which was forgivable. I wasn’t as demanding a client as I knew some women to be. Sometimes the gentlemen, though they weren’t supposed to, spoke out of school.