Page 22 of Crossing the Line
The two other women at Janice's table were watching whatever-it-was unfolding before them with rapt attention, sipping on their margarita straws as if they were the tastiest things in the world.
"Who the hell is that?"
It took Bixby a moment to realize that the words had come out of his own mouth.
"I don't know," Hank bit out, "but he's got his eyes on Janice."
Hank turned to look at him. "What do you know about this guy?"
What could he say? He had no idea who the man was or what he was doing at Janice's table.
August leaned in against the edge of the table. "He looks like one of those strippers from Vegas."
Bixby and Hank turned to look at their friend.
Hank spoke first. "You want to tell us how you know you know that?"
August glared at him. "What are you talking about? It's that movie with the strippers. You know. There's that guy who played Alcide from True Blood? The werewolf?"
Bixby didn't know what to think. "True Blood?"
Hank added in. "Alcide? That sounds like a medicine my doctor would prescribe for me."
August shrugged. "Lucy likes to watch it and I like the benefits of what happens after she watches it." When Bixby and Hank didn't say a word, August smiled. "It's like a pregnancy craving. Lucy doesn't want to eat weird things she likes to watch these guys on TV and then..." August raised a brow and took a long sip of his beer.
Bixby remembered that when they'd been married at first, they'd sit in front of the TV and watch shows together.
Mostly his shows, because he wasn't interested in most of what Janice liked to watch. Still, they'd sit on the couch together and watch.
Most nights, Janice would fall asleep on his shoulder and he'd have to nudge her awake when it was time to go to bed.
His expression dropped even more when he realized that he should have been... better.
"Looks like he's flirting with her?"
Bixby looked up and watched as the man crouched down beside Janice and put a hand on the back of her chair.
The looks he was giving her definitely seemed personal.
And before he could figure out what those looks meant, the man stood up and put something on the table in front of Janice.
From where they were seated, Bixby couldn't see what it was, but the man headed for the bathrooms at the back.
Drinking the rest of his beer, Bixby got up and walked back toward the bathrooms.
When he reached the men's room, he opened the door and stepped inside.
There were two urinals in the back of the bathroom beyond the two stalls.
The bar wasn't big, so there wasn't need for more.
After all, a men's room wasn't like the ladies room. They didn't stand around and have conversations and shit like that.
The younger man looked up into the old fashioned bar mirror over the urinals, etched with gold foil and some kind of scrolling. Janice would know what it was called. She seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of random stuff like that.
"You can come on up if you have to pee. There's an open one," the man pointed his chin in the direction of the open urinal. 'We don't need to get into a contest."
Yeah, Bixby, grumbled inside his head as he walked up beside the other man and lifted his gaze above the mirror as he, started to take care of business.
