****
Damian hesitated before pulling the royal blue door of the bar open, noticing the strange coolness of the metal handle as he pressed his palm against it. He could feel all of his nervous energy getting transferred to the chipped paint, and he wondered if his hand would come away with blue when he pulled it back, the colors warmed and runny from his heat.
Just go in, he told himself firmly. You’ve been to bars before. So this one’s sketchy? You’ve been to sketchy bars before. Just go in, don’t look at anyone, and head toward the bar.
The gloom upon entering didn’t surprise Damian. Circular lamps hung from the high ceiling, dangling fifteen feet above their heads like huge fireflies without wings, punctuating the dark every ten feet or so with their soft yellow glow. He wasn’t surprised to find the jukebox playing a country song he couldn’t name or even recognize as five or six patrons sat in chairs near the center of the room, seated around each other but not in a way that suggested they were sitting together. Damian was surprised to find the bar almost completely deserted except for two women and a man who appeared to be sleeping, unless corpses could snore.
The stool was softer than it looked, and Damian was only seated for a second before the bartender appeared before him, the cleanliness of her uniform somewhat ruined by her unkempt chestnut-colored bun.
“What’ll you have?”
“Uh, Fat Tire, please?”
The bartender nodded and shuffled away to pull out a glass from under the bar. Now that his eyes had adjusted, Damian could see that there were a few more people present than he realized—and more of them were women than he’d first noticed, as well. As the waitress came back with his beer, he could feel more eyes turning toward him and climbing the fabric of his slacks and blazer—and doing more than just studying the carefully muscled body filling out the all-black ensemble; Damian knew from experience that many women who approached him in bars knew the price tags of his clothing better than he did.
His eyes turned to the two women at the other end of the L-shaped bar, giggling together with their heads almost touching above their drinks. The one with her face turned away from him had short, curly black hair and a low, sultry laugh, but the one he could see was laughing loudly and in such a high-pitched tone that it almost seemed like the call of some jungle bird—sharp and lilting and echoing through your body so as to almost be alarming, but commanding, so you could do nothing but listen. She had thick red hair softly curling inward just above her collarbone, and the deep blue of her collared button-down shirt brought out the warm tones of her chocolate brown eyes. Her heart-shaped face was alive with delight at something her friend was saying, and as she lifted her drink, the deep pucker of her lips sent a violent shiver down his spine.
Damian turned away, suddenly conscious of his staring. He took a long drink of his beer, uncomfortably aware of every fiber in his blazer as he fought to sort through the storm of emotions prohibiting his train of thought. Drink, he thought desperately, and his hand was halfway to his mouth again before he clarified to himself: Send her a drink. You should send her a drink.
Damian waved the bartender over with a twenty between his fingers and noted that she moved much faster this time. “Would you please send another of what that lovely redhead is drinking over to her at the end of the bar? And keep them coming. Let her know she doesn’t owe me a thing.”
He ran a sweaty palm through his hair and glanced at his reflection in the dusty mirror over the bar. Pushing his hand through it had given him a pleasant bed-head look, but his eyes were still worryingly bagged. Should he call it a night after this? Damian looked over at the young woman, whose eyes were trained on the bartender as she explained where the new drink had come from. The curly haired woman looked over at him curiously, but the redhead stared at the martini in shock for a few moments before looking up and smiling at him—wide enough to show dimples on both of her cheeks.
She lifted the drink and nodded, and Damian forced himself to do the same, just to be in motion so the fine tremble in his body wouldn’t be evident from across the room. A wave of energy slid across his skin— slow and bone meltingly-hot, like lava—and the burn lingered even after she finally tore her eyes away from his.
Good job, Damian congratulated himself as he drained the last of his beer. Now don’t screw it up. You should probably leave ASAP, in fact.
His eyes finally noticed the television in a high corner near him, and he glued his eyes to the screen as a slow smile slid across his face. He had no idea what he was looking at, because the redhead’s dazzling grin was branded into his vision like an afterimage, so the moving pictures before his eyes might as well have been static. He felt like a stone had been sitting on his heart, and the lift in her cheeks had tumbled it over. You sound like you hit your head, he told himself sternly. It’s definitely time to leave.
Before he could motion to close his tab, the bartender thunked down another frosty glass of Fat Tire, smiling faintly at his surprise. “From the… ‘lovely redhead’ drinking martinis. Says you’re a true gentleman.”
Damian’s gentle smile was spreading when another voice spoke at his side, “Should have just told you that myself.”
He turned and had to fight to hide his surprise to find the redhead standing before him. She laughed, and Damian realized he hadn’t hid it well at all.
“I’m Rebecca—or Becca, if you like.” The woman gestured to the empty seat beside him. “May I? My friend has had enough, and I hate to drink alone.”
He nodded and looked in time to see her friend stumbling out on coltish legs on the arm of a rotund man he hadn’t seen at the bar. “I’m Damian...wow. It’s before ten and she’s already had…enough?”
Becca shrugged, and Damian realized she was nearly a foot shorter than him just before she settled onto the stool, which made her around five-two. “We’re celebrating. Well, she is.” She wrinkled her nose and shot a dark glance toward the now closed door, scratched and covered in faded stickers from chain restaurants and now defunct bands and brands.
Damian didn’t say anything, but his raised eyebrows provided all the permission Becca needed.
“She got a promotion at work, but it’s not for a good reason,” she said carefully, sipping her drink as she paused. “The boss—you saw him with her—did a favor for her once, and now he’s holding this over her head so she’ll do one back… if you know what I mean.”
Damian was shocked—that it was happening, and that Becca was telling a man she’d just met. The shock must have shown clearly on his face, because she laughed again—the same hard, almost braying laugh that compelled him to lean closer rather than further away from the noise.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m screwing with you. It’s her thirtieth and she got a little too saucy on her birthday shots. Her husband is taking her home.”
Damian laughed, but shock was still coursing through him, but for a different reason now. “Do you normally play jokes like that on strangers who buy you drinks? Or just ones who are clearly stuck-up tech guys like me?”
Becca’s eyes widened with remorse, and Damian regretted the sharpness of his words. “No, oh god, no! I’m sorry, I just have this horrible sense of humor—I mean, my friends like it, and so does my mom, but that doesn’t mean you should, too.” Her cheeks were rapidly turning from cream to rose quartz to satin red, and Damian took pity on her. “I’m sorry, I’ll just…I’ll just go—”
“No,” he said, and it cut off her speech immediately. “No, it’s fine. I can be a little stuffy at times. It was funny, I’m just…” he trailed off, wondering if he should tell the truth. Damian looked into Becca’s contrite eyes and saw nothing but warmth in their depths, so he decided to plunge ahead.
“I kind of hate my job,” he said at last. “I used to be passionate about it, but now it’s all about the money. Just money. And now, I’m always bored and angry,” Damian said, taking a swig of his beer. “It’s terrible. I’m miserable, even though it seems like I have everything I could ever want.” He paused. “I lost all my friends building this wall around me until I became…this. And I know it probably seems like I’m some rich jerk feeding you lines so he can get off and put another notch on his bed post, but that’s not the case.”
Becca’s frown had been neutralizing as he spoke, and now she smiled at him, her lips curving under her wonder. “Well, I’m a newspaper journalist who also hates her job, and who took it because she thought it would lead to nobility and prestige. I do alright for myself, but I’m certainly not in your tax bracket,” she said, her eyes rolling at him over the rim of her glass. “So even with all that money, you’re still not happy, Mr. Silicon Valley Millionaire?”
“That’s right,” he admitted. “Although technically, I’m a billionaire.”
Becca’s eyebrows shot up, and she laughed. “Billionaire, then. Gosh. And to think I almost didn’t come over here and talk to you.”
Damian smiled. “Why did you decide to?”
Becca leaned in as the bartender replaced her drink. “This is embarrassing, but my best friend pressured me to do it.”
He laughed, but kindly. “Peer pressure?”
“We live thirty miles away, in Daly City,” Becca explained, her eyes shining. “Her husband wanted us to relive the nights we used to have in college…and we kind of did,” she said, chuckling. “Laura always ended up puking, Jeff danced on tables…that’s probably why none of us drink anymore.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I was always the wild card, and I’d do anything on a dare. Laura dared me to come over and talk to you, so I was bound by the laws of best friendship.”
Damian smiled and took a drink of his beer. “It’s sweet that you still adhere to that code. A lot of people let that kind of thing go as they get older.”
Becca leaned a little closer to him and shrugged again. “I’m only twenty-eight. Not old enough to use age as an excuse to be a bad friend.”
He felt his smile grow sad before Becca’s frown told him it did. “Sorry,” he said hastily. “You reminded me that a group of people I used to think were friends did exactly that five years ago. But don’t let me put a damper on things.”
Becca looked curious now. “No, tell me about it. I want to know about you.” She smiled, and the heat beneath it sent a bolt of lust through Damian mid-sip. “That’s the real reason I came over here, after all.”
So he did. Damian told her all about how he, Jack Summer, Roger Wolf, and Ian Rivers had all been roommates throughout college, sharing goals and ideals as well as toothpaste. Then Jack and Ian started to get money-hungry, buying tiny tech businesses and flipping them on the side for profit. Then Damian’s company got involved, and when Jack flipped it, he took credit for the surge in stock while also distancing himself from both Damian and Ian. Roger assumed they’d all been colluding and pulled out, forming an angel investment group and spreading dirt about all three of them so that their reputations were tarnished before they knew it.
He told Becca all of this, and about his lingering pain over losing his best friends. She told him about growing up in Maine and nearly drowning in the river because her brother convinced her that she was a mermaid. They told each other secrets and stories for hours, until it was past midnight, and both of them were flustered and giggly from drinking and talking with their dizzy heads close.
“Okay,” Becca said at last. “Okay…wow, I put away five of these things,” she slurred, leaning a hand on Damian’s thigh. “I really am reliving those wild college nights.” She giggled shrilly, and the sound was just as charming as her squawking laugh.
Damian felt an odd tug on his heart, and he smiled. “I’d be studying if that were true for me,” he said, his voice louder than he realized. “And a fox like you would have never spoken to me while I was driving my daddy’s car.”
Becca laughed and leaned against him harder, her breath smelling of gin and mint. “Fox?”
Damian blushed, but he met her eyes, his heart pounding now that he saw how close her lips were to his. “Yeah,” he said brazenly, covering her hand with his. “Fox. A stone cold one. What of it?”
When Becca laughed this time, her breasts brushed across his arm, and he noticed, for the first time, how full and heavy they seemed against the front of her shirt. Her thighs were shapely, perfectly filling out her black pencil skirt; he reached under the table and stroked her knee, slowly inching his hand toward her hip.
To his surprise, Becca leaned closer, brushing her lips across his jawbone before she spoke. “Are you a lazy dog, or do you wanna jump this fox?”
Becca turned toward him again, and Damian leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers as she did. A tide of last crashed over him, and he felt it roll over her as she shivered and strained to be nearer to him. He reached out and scooted her stool closer, and she made a soft moan of surprise, but wrapped her arms around his neck as he gently nibbled on the flesh of her bottom lip. Becca’s right hand slipped down his chest and lingered on his belt loop, and Damian’s heart nearly exploded as it finally drifted south to squeeze on the growing bulge in front of his slacks. His hands rested on her thighs, then slid slowly up until they forced up the fabric of her skirt, his fingers digging into her curves until she cried out into his kiss.
Suddenly she was pulling back, and Damian felt like he’d been hit by a truck. He was gasping slightly, not caring that the bartender was staring.
“Sorry,” Becca was saying as she tugged on her skirt. “Sorry. Oh god—”
She hopped down from her stool and wobbled toward the door, hooking her purse under her arm as she wrenched the door open.
Damian closed his tab out and ran after her, hoping he wasn’t too late. He was nearly as drunk as she was, but he spotted her in the parking lot as she was walking toward the bus station.
“Becca!”
Amazingly, she stopped. Damian ran until he caught up with her, and was alarmed to see that her eyes were swimming with tears.
“I don’t do that anymore,” she said softly. “I don’t go home with pretty boys on the first night because they buy me drinks—not anymore.”
“Then don’t,” Damian said earnestly. “I’m not asking you to.”
Becca looked suspicious.
“Really,” he continued. “I’m not. Becca, you’re beautiful, but that’s not what I want in a woman. I want strength, intelligence, humor…” Damian paused, dropping his eyes. When he pulled them up again, he took a chance and grabbed hold of one of her soft, warm hands. “Becca, I want you, and I want to get to know you more, if you’ll let me. And I know you feel the same about me…I can see it. I can feel it.”
Becca was watching him silently, her eyes unreadable. Damian thought she might walk away, or even laugh in his face or slap him—but she smiled, and it was like the sun slipping out to burn away the clouds.
“Okay,” she said. “Give me your phone. I’ll put my number in it.”