After Hours

“Bon Jovi, AC/DC.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Now, come on, you’ve got some heavy metal stuff in here. Led Zeppelin, Iron Butterfly.”

“Classics,” he pronounced loftily.

She tilted her head defiantly and planted her hands on the hips of her color-washed jeans. “Madonna,” she threw at him.

He groaned and shuddered dramatically. “Compared to Tina Turner? Why don’t you list Barry Manilow while you’re at it?”

“I like Barry Manilow,” she informed him coolly, fighting a smile.

“You also like pineapple on pizza. We’ve already ascertained that your taste is rather questionable.”

She gasped in mock outrage and threw herself at him, landing on his lap with enough force to make his breath escape in a whoosh. “Arrogant rat,” she muttered, looping her arms around his neck. “Might I also remind you that I like you? What does that say about my tastes?”

“Some people might say that’s a sure indication that you’re weird,” he answered lightly, his arms going around her waist to hold her on his knees.

“They’re the ones with questionable tastes,” she answered before tugging his mouth to hers and kissing him deeply.

He was smiling when she finally released him. “You have a great way of winning an argument, you know that?”

Smiling in return, she snuggled closer. “I really am surprised that you’re a closet rock-and-roll fan. I would have guessed you liked classical music.”

“Image,” he returned. “I try to look like the type who’d like classical because it’s more respectable and impressive. But give me Eric Clapton any day.” He paused, then added for emphasis, “I almost went to Woodstock.”

She giggled, trying to picture him with shoulder-length hair and love beads. “Why didn’t you?”

He shrugged against her cheek. “Uncle Sam wrote me that summer. He wouldn’t give me time to stop by Woodst

ock on my way to ‘Nam.”

Her laughter vanished. “Were you frightened?” she asked quietly.

His voice became grim. “More times than I want to admit.”

“How old were you?”

“Eighteen.”

She swallowed. “So young.”

“Yeah, well, I grew up fast.” Another moment of silence and then he groaned. “Ah, hell.” She lifted her head inquiringly. “What?”

The look he gave her was rueful. “I just figured out how old you were that summer. You don’t even remember Woodstock, do you? Or Vietnam or the first moonwalk or the Kennedy assassination.”

“I wasn’t born when Kennedy was killed, I was four when Woodstock and the moonwalk took place and I was nine when our troops came back from Vietnam,” she answered. “I remember that—a little.”

“Four,” he repeated glumly. “I was guarding my ass in a ditch full of mud, watching my buddies get blown to bits, and you were still in diapers.”

“I was not in diapers at four!” she denied heatedly.

“It was a figure of speech,” he explained with a sigh. “You were in nursery school.”

“Well, yes.” She couldn’t deny that one.

His expression was suddenly very distant. “Sometimes I forget how young you are.”