Page 18 of The Billion Heirs Boxed Set
I’ve been back in town a year and I haven’t done anything like this. It makes me realize how boring I’ve been. How sheltered. How…scared.
No one here has the same not-normal experience as I do. No one here has been taken. Lost three years to…
No!
My thoughts need to stay on the snug Wranglers and chiseled jaws.
“Alan hates when I come to these things.” Amanda waggles her eyebrows as a very attractive cowboy walks up.
He tips his hat to us and grins. “Buy you ladies a drink?”
My tongue is a knot in my mouth. Before… I only casually dated and rarely went to bars. I was barely twenty-two when…
Stop it!
“Drinks are free, cowboy,” Lexie says, her smile softening the blow.
“I can offer you other things,” he adds with a wink.
I warm, surprised by his boldness.
“It’s a girls’ night,” Lexie replies, “but if we change our minds, we’ll wave you down.”
He gives us a tip of his hat and he’s off.
He didn’t push. Didn’t get angry. He’s a decent guy.
“God, Alan would lose his mind if he knew someone tried to pick us up,” Amanda says, taking a sip of her drink.
“Makes Alan appreciate what he’s got in a fiancée,” Lexie reminds her. “You can look, but not touch. Me? I may want to touch. I’m keeping that guy on standby.”
Amanda laughs and I do, too. Since Lexie is the designated driver, she’s drinking a soda while Amanda and I are enjoying the free and discounted alcohol.
Lexie picked me up right at eight as she promised, and then we went to get Amanda from her house in town. After the blowup with my parents this morning, they were remarkably quiet about me going out. They never commented before I was taken and today it seems they’re picking their battles. Going out with two other women to ladies’ night at a bar is more acceptable than a job. Go figure.
“I might want to touch too,” I say softly.
They whip their gazes to mine.
I warm under their surprise. “What? I can’t pick up a guy?”
Amanda claps her hands and squeals, making heads turn in her direction. She’s pretty with chin length blond hair and blue eyes. She told me in the car she was a nurse at the local pediatrician’s office and that she was getting married in the fall.
“You can,” she says. “You so can.”
Lexie sets her hand on mine. “You’re sure?”
“Because of what happened?” My voice is soft. That liquid courage is evaporating like a creek in the summer heat.
She shakes her head, her hair sliding over her shoulders. “No, because you’re gorgeous and amazing and whoever you pick’s going to turn into your slave.”
The word makes me blanch and my stomach sour.
“Shit.” Lexie grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. “That was thoughtless of me to say.”
“It’s true,” Amanda says. “You’re so pretty. I’d kill for your thick hair. And your curves. I can’t fill a B cup if I stuff it with toilet paper.”
She’s tall and willowy and confident. She’s attractive, but it’s the way she’s content in being herself that has me envious. She doesn’t second guess everything like I do.
