About Last Night

“Yes, you were. No one can tell and the more you play with it, the more horny GIs are going to check your boobs out.” Laura raised her glass, and then lowered it. “On second thought, keep playing with them.”

“Boob. Singular.”

“You still have two. Just not a full set. And honestly, no one can tell. So please quit worrying and relax. You look amazing.”

“Except for the silicone stuck to my chest.”

“That no one can see. Here,” Laura said, shoving a sweating green Heineken bottle into Jen’s hand. “Drink. Don’t argue. I finally got you out of the house to have a good time and damn it, I’m going to accomplish that mission if it kills me.”

“You sound like a soldier,” Jen said with a smile.

Laura took a pull off her drink. “I can’t help it. I spend all day every day around soldiers. I’m bound to pick things up here and there.”

It had been a long time since Jen had been around this many people. She felt the proximity of too many bodies, too much cologne and spilled beer. The smells bombarded her and reminded her of the life she’d had once upon a time. A time when she would have danced until dawn and then closed the night out with pancakes at IHOP.

Jen had not been inside a bar for more than two years, and she was no more comfortable today than she’d been the last time she’d been out when her ex had made a point of announcing to everyone in the bar that she had only one breast. So the fact that she was here was amazing in and of itself. The loud music, the crowd, and the GIs mingling with the wannabe cowboys was not an ambience Jen typically sought out. The smoke grated on her lungs but wasn’t nearly as smothering in the seat she’d managed to snag at the edge of the bar. Still, anything was better than the sterile smell of the hospital, and she wanted to get back to feeling normal, really she did. Whatever normal meant nowadays.

Laura was the one saying good-bye to her husband for the fifth time in seven years. Jen was just here for moral support, so the least she could do was put her own demons to rest and have a good time. She lifted the beer to her lips.

“I can’t believe you dragged me here,” she shouted in Laura’s ear over the din of Kenny Chesney.

“I can’t believe I found a babysitter. Trent’s whole company is here tonight.” Laura smiled and nursed a Corona while Jen sipped on her Heineken.

“Shouldn’t you be molesting your husband? He’s the one leaving.”

“I don’t want to leave you hanging out here, teasing all these horny soldiers with your fake boob.”

“Ha-ha-ha. My fake boob and I are just fine, thanks. And speak of the devil.” Strong, wide hands slipped around Laura’s waist, yanking her back. Laura tipped her face up to her husband’s for a kiss and Jen offered Trent a mock salute with the tip of her beer.

“Will you please take your wife to dance?” Jen shouted with a smile.

“Gladly.” Trent pulled his wife into some convoluted line dance, leaving Jen alone at the bar where she was quite content to watch everyone else and sip her beer.

She discreetly tugged at her blouse again. In a dark corner at the other end of the bar, a sensual flare of movement caught her eye. She looked closer and saw a couple kissing intensely, so engrossed in each other she couldn’t say where one person ended and the other began, lost in the heavy scent of lust and liquor. She looked away, studying the green bottle in her hand. She wondered if she would ever again know what it felt like to have warm, rough hands move over her flesh.

Jen had come a long way, and it had still taken all of Laura’s persuasive powers to convince her to buy the breast form. But it didn’t mean that her scars no longer bothered her. She’d hesitated for a different reason. The round shape beneath her blouse now was just false advertising. She swallowed and pushed aside a brief flicker of melancholy.

Someone solid and heavy knocked into her and sloshed beer down the front of her blouse. A strong vise latched around her arm to steady her. She glanced up into the lightest grey eyes she’d ever seen. Grey eyes that she’d seen before but never this close. In the dimly lit bar, they looked almost silver.

Shane Garrison. A friend of Trent’s. Jen had seen him around before, but had never actually spoken to him. He’d always seemed big, but up close he was massive. Black tribal tattoos twisted up both of his wrists, writhing up his forearms to disappear beneath the frayed edge of a green T-shirt. And who knew that bald could be so sexy in the right lighting? Had to be the rough jaw that did it.

“Sorry. You okay?” He leaned close to her ear so he didn’t have to shout. Jen shivered as his breath brushed across her skin. He stood closer to her now than any man other than a doctor had in over a year. The heat from his body caressed her skin, and she could smell him, a mixture of spice and smoke and something entirely male. She swallowed and tried to find her voice.

“I’m fine. Thanks. This place is crowded.” She knew better than this. She pulled her arm free and tugged the clinging blouse away from her skin, suddenly afraid that he would see the scars on her chest through the wet material.

As the words left her lips, someone jostled her into him again. He tried to steady her but she fell against him anyway.

Time hung suspended and she stood in this man’s embrace, feeling protected and safe and deliciously unflawed. It was impossible to miss the hard angles of his body. For one brief fantasy moment, she imagined what it would feel like if this dangerous and sexy man lowered his mouth to hers.

But the fantasy faded as quickly as it had come and Jen stepped back into reality. A reality in which a man like the one standing oh-so-close to her was just being polite to a woman he had met in a bar. Down girl.

He lowered his mouth to her ear again. “Since I nearly crushed you twice now, can I buy you a drink?”

She smiled and sipped from the sweating green bottle. “I still have some of this one left. Thanks, though.”

“Jen, right?” He retrieved his own beer. “Are you here with Laura and Trent?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”