“Damn, girl.” Zach glanced over as she slid the skirt down her slim thighs, kicking it into a ball on the floor next to her sandals and putting her now-bare feet up on the dash. Her toes were painted pink. “You sure do make it hard to say no.”
“I hope so.” She grinned over at him, pushing the button to roll down the window and putting her face up to the breeze. “So where are we going tonight?”
“It’s not far.” He smiled over at her as she turned up the radio, leaning her seat back a little and dangling her arm out the window. Her hand danced in the breeze.
“You’re big on surprises, aren’t you?” The air was warm, even though it was near dark already and she twisted to put her feet out the window, too.
“Do you want me to tell you?”
She contemplated this, chewing her gum. “No.”
“I think you like surprises.” Zach steered the car around a corner.
“Good ones, sure.” Lindsey gave a half-snort, half-laugh. “It’s the bad ones that get me.”
“Like what?” It sounded like a casual question, but she knew better. She could feel herself closing, something in her snapping tight. Telling people about what went on inside Lindsey wasn’t ever part of the deal. The good thing was, it was pretty easy to get most guys to talk about themselves.
“Oh, you know, the usual stuff.” She flipped the radio station. “So have you been overseas yet in this war thing?”
Zach was quiet and for a moment she thought her tactic hadn’t worked. “I’ve been on two tours in Iraq, yes.”
“How was it?”
“Lonely.” He shrugged, and she saw his eyes moving over her thighs and she slid down a little further in her seat. “I spent six months in a submarine, 500 meters under the surface of the Indian Ocean.”
“Six months?” She stared at him, incredulous.
“Actually, eight months on the second tour.”
“But you never saw any action?” She snapped her gum, changing the station again.
Zach reached over and turned off the radio. “I’ll talk about it if you really want me to, but don’t use it to just try and change the subject, okay?”
She flushed, glad for the coming darkness. The next words that came out of her mouth surprised them both. “My father was killed in Iraq.”
“I’m sorry, Lindsey.”
“I was very little.” She shrugged, shocked at herself. There wasn’t one other person in the world she could remember ever speaking those words out loud to. “I don’t remember much about him.”
“It was Desert Storm?”
She nodded, pulling her feet into the car and sitting up. “He was in the army. I guess he got lured in by that whole college education and a free ride spiel.” Zach didn’t say anything, he just drove, but she knew he was listening. “You know, that whole travel to exotic, foreign lands, meet new and interesting people…and kill them?
“I’m familiar with the concept.”
“Except he was the one who got killed.”
Zach shook his head. “There were only about two hundred total U.S. casualties in Desert Storm.”
“Yeah.” She gave him a wry smile. “Talk about bad surprises. But that’s my luck for you…I inherited it from my mother.”
“So it’s been just you and your mom since?”
“My stepdad came into the picture when I was about five or six.”
“You don’t like him very much.”
She turned her face out toward the window. “So, you never said, did you see any action?”
“I was on a fast-attack sub. We had a few hunter-killer missions. That’s what we were there to do.” He glanced over and she felt his eyes on her. “I take it you don’t like talking about your stepfather?”
“Hey, look at that, we’re here.” She leaned forward as he pulled into a parking lot. “Where’s here?”
“Okay, I can take a hint.” Zach opened his door.
She rolled her eyes as she got out, turning her bottom toward him and rubbing the satin seat of her shorts. “Promises, promises?”
“Come on, sexy.” He smacked her behind on the way past, popping the trunk.
“Let’s see if I can top front row seats at Kenny Wayne Shepard followed by an orgasm under the flight pattern of an F-16.”
She raised her eyebrows as he took a guitar case out. “Why…are you planning two orgasms?”
“Could be.” He grinned, slipping his arm around her waist as he led her toward a darkly lit building. She heard music already, a low, steady beat.
She showed her fake I.D. at the door and they went into a little blues bar, smoky and dark inside and packed with people. Zach ordered himself a beer and Lindsey a Coke and she rolled her eyes at that, but drank it thirstily as they searched for a seat near the front of the stage. The band was playing a cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble and Zach left his guitar on the edge of the stage, giving a nod to the lead singer.
They gave up on looking for a place to sit and Lindsey wrinkled her nose at Zach as she led him out onto the dance floor, but it was too loud for her to ask what was up.
Besides, the music made her want to take her clothes off, and if she couldn’t do that, at the very least, she wanted to be pressed between the sea of bodies, as close to Zach as she could get.
She got her wish. The dance floor was almost as packed as the tables had been.
