Down for the Count (Dare Me 1)

“It’s been one day. I’m a work in progress. Don’t forget, half of Condado Beach saw my boobs earlier, so I need some recovery time.”

She climbed onto a stool, and once she was seated, he did the same. The bartender came over and set menus in front of them. “What can I get you to drink?” he asked with a thick accent. She responded in her high school Spanish, and the waiter grinned.

“What did you order?” Galen asked.

“A cubre libre sans the rum.”

He chuckled. “So, a Coke?”

“Yeah. With a lime.” He clucked his tongue disapprovingly and she gave him a light shove on the shoulder. “Don’t be a bad influence. I may be sitting at the bar, but there is no way I’m drinking after yesterday. Not tonight. In fact, maybe not ever again.”

Low, husky laughter met her pronouncement. She and Galen both turned toward the source. A beautiful woman with a pin-straight fall of ebony hair sat a few stools down from them.

“Oh man, I’ve been there before,” the woman said. She was a stunner, with catlike eyes so dark they were almost black. Her sun-kissed skin suggested she’d been in San Juan for a while, although her New England accent indicated that she wasn’t a native.

The handsome sandy-haired man with her nodded more enthusiastically than she must have liked, because she gave him a playful swat on the arm. “What?” he protested. “I’m not the one who tells you to mix like that. You’re drinking wine, you drink wine. You don’t then have a beer and then a mixed drink. Am I right?” This he aimed at Galen, who held up both hands.

“Whoa, no comment. I don’t get involved in domestic disputes like this, especially when she’s clearly violent.”

The couple laughed, and Lacey felt a spurt of envy at Galen’s comfort level with strangers. While she’d always been polite, there was a natural banter that his laid-back presence seemed to inspire in spite of his intimidating size. She liked people, but anxiety held her back from making friends very easily. Actually, now that she thought about it, she’d had the same few friends since childhood. Even then it had been the result of another person befriending her, not the other way around.

Cat had instigated their friendship. She’d taken Lacey’s Twinkie and pronounced, “We’re gonna be bestest friends, you and me.” In spite of Lacey’s reserved reaction—she was pretty sure she’d shrugged helplessly—deep down, she had been thrilled to bits. Over the moon that this crazy little girl with hair the shade of a new penny, who used her outside voice all the time, would want to be friends with a boring nobody like her.

The man’s smooth alto brought her back to the present. “I’m Cyrus, and this is my fiancée, Nikki. So where you guys from?”

“Rhode Island. You?”

“Connecticut.”

A long silence ensued, during which Nikki and her man exchanged a glance. “Would you like to join us?” he asked, finally gesturing to the four-top table behind them.

Lacey tamped down the familiar swirl of nervousness and nodded. Dinner with exotic strangers. “That sounds like fun.” She couldn’t squelch the little rush of delight that swept through her when Galen tipped his head in approval.

At the suggestion of their waiter, she and Cyrus ordered the pork mofongo while Nikki and Galen opted for the catch of the day. Conversation flowed easily, and by the time their meals were served, Lacey felt at ease.

“This is unreal,” murmured Galen around a mouthful of grilled red snapper.

He and Lacey ended up passing their plates back and forth for tasting, and Lacey agreed wholeheartedly. The native spices were new to her and sent her senses into overdrive in the best way. She scraped the last remnants of tender roasted meat from her plate and sighed with regret. “Just perfect.”

“I tell you, we haven’t had a bad meal since we got here,” Cyrus said, pushing his almost empty plate away with a groan. “It’s only all the walking that’s kept me from packing on the pounds.”

“Well if that works, I guess that means we can have dessert. Prepare for a marathon tomorrow, Galen.”

He turned a lazy, half-lidded gaze toward her. “Dessert? You’re going to have to roll me out of here as it is. I haven’t eaten like this in eight months.”

Cyrus raised a questioning brow.

“Galen is a boxer. He just came off a fight in Atlantic City. It’s months of intense training and piles of chicken breast,” Lacey confided.

“Ooh, how exciting,” Nikki said, eyeing Galen speculatively. “So did you win?”

“He did,” Lacey said, pride swelling in her chest. “Knockout in the fifth.” It had been a real nail-biter up to that point, and she had spent the majority of the fight pacing in front of the TV. In fact, Marty had snapped at her because she was distracting him from his word puzzle.

“Shit, man, I recognize you now,” Cyrus said. “Whalin’ Galen Thomas! That’s very cool. I don’t get the chance to watch too much boxing, but you held the heavyweight belt for a while, didn’t you?”

Galen didn’t answer, instead raising his brows at Lacey in a clear challenge. She flushed. “He did. From summer of 2009 until mid-2010 when Manny Hermosa stole it in a controversial split decision.”

His slow grin melted her insides like butter in the sun. She cleared her throat. “So, uh, hopefully he’ll get it back before he retires.” Although her gaze was on Cyrus, she could feel Galen’s stare.

“I’m impressed,” Galen murmured.

“I like boxing,” she said, her cheeks burning. “So what do you do for work, Nikki?” she asked, desperately hoping for a change of subject, which Nikki warmed to quickly. She talked about her job in advertising, which she joked was at least as bloody as boxing, but Galen’s gaze stayed locked on Lacey, and she struggled to keep from squirming under the weight of it.

Today marked the first time she’d ever admitted that she’d followed his career. Closely. She and Cat had spoken of it in passing, and she’d gone to a couple of the parties the Thomases had hosted on fight nights. Marty had been in the apartment when she’d watched the most recent one, but no one else knew her secret. She hadn’t only watched his fights; she’d studied them. In fact, she had an entire collection of DVDs full of every televised matchup he’d ever had.

She always figured, if anyone found out, she could rationalize it with a response like, Hey, if you went to high school with Britney Spears, you’d buy her albums. But that wasn’t it at all. It was an opportunity to watch him in his element without him seeing the truth on her face.

She was crazy about him.

“What about you, Lacey?” Nikki asked.

“I work for my family’s law firm as the marketing director.”

“Wow, big job. Do you enjoy it?”

She opened her mouth to give her standard affirmative reply but stopped short. Did she enjoy it? She considered the question carefully. More than some things. Like jury duty and going to the gynecologist. But it wasn’t as much fun as, say, karaoke or taking in an action flick on a rainy Saturday afternoon. That’s what a job was, though, right? It wasn’t called happy fun play time. It was called work.

“It’s fine, as jobs go,” she hedged. “It was a given that I would join the firm, and I really don’t have the heart for criminal law, so it seemed like a good compromise.”

Cyrus nodded. “That’s how I feel. I work in finance, and it pays the bills, but it’s nothing to write home about. My free time is when I loosen up and enjoy life.” He leaned closer to his bride-to-be and squeezed her thigh. “Speaking of which, I know you said you’re never drinking again, but we have mojito makings and an awesome patio back at our place. Hot tub, pool, the whole nine. It’s a gorgeous night, so why don’t you guys come with us and hang out a while? It’s only half a mile down the beach. We can walk off some of this food.”

His gaze lingered on Lacey for a long moment, and she got a weird whiff of attraction coming from him. Surely she was mistaken. A handsome guy like Cyrus with a beautiful fiancée like Nikki wouldn’t be checking out a seven like Lacey, would he? The moment passed so quickly, she was sure she’d imagined it.

“What do you think?” Galen asked.

She shrugged. It was a beautiful night, and she didn’t relish the thought of going back to their villa yet. Better to keep busy rather than stew over her wedding day debacle.

“Well, I guess I could have one mojito, but then definitely no dessert,” Lacey said.

“You guys get the check while me and Lacey powder our noses,” Nikki said, before planting a smacking kiss on Cyrus’s cheek.

Lacey hesitated. The other couple had assumed she and Galen were an item, and it had seemed less important to correct them than it had to avoid putting a label on what they were, so neither of them had objected. Now, though, sticking Galen with the check felt crummy. He noted her hesitation and made an are you kidding me face, shooing her away with a wave of his hand. Both of them were comfortable financially, and a meal certainly wasn’t going to break the bank. She vowed to pick up the next one and trailed behind Nikki to the ladies room.

“I’m so glad we met. We still have another week, and as much as I love being with Cyrus, all this one-on-one togetherness was driving us both a little mad,” Nikki confided as she rifled through her bright green crocheted bag. “I confess, an hour into meeting you guys, I was fantasizing about tearing you away from that hunk of yours so we could engage in some retail therapy. Maybe mani pedis?”

Lacey wasn’t sure how to respond. It sounded like fun, but could she really go hang out with someone she’d just met? What if Nikki spent an hour with her and realized how dorky she was and regretted it? Or maybe she was like Cat and would appreciate having a dorky friend. Still, she hesitated.

Nikki held up a hand. “No pressure. Just, after a few days, you might be bored, too, you know?”

Lacey wanted to reassure her, but what could she say without sounding like a lame ass? I’d love to go shopping with you but, boo hoo, I don’t make friends very easily so this is weird for me. No, that would be the old Lacey who hung around guys like Marty. She was with Galen. Well, maybe not with him, with him, but…

She opted to play it cool. “Yeah, I totally agree on the too-much-one-on-one-togetherness thing. Major snoozeville. I’m definitely up for shopping at some point, so count me in.”

Nikki flashed a big grin. “Fab.” She went to dab some coral gloss onto her lips but hesitated. Eyeing Lacey in the mirror, she said, “I kinda had a feeling about you. About the two of you.”

Lacey tried not to fidget under her intense stare. Great. She already suspected that she and Galen weren’t a couple. It shouldn’t bother her. Heck, anyone could see they were a mismatch. She didn’t have any illusions about herself. She was reasonably attractive but Galen? Galen was sex on a plate, extra spicy. Now that the jig was up, there was no point in pretending, but it stung a little. “Obvious, huh?”

Nikki smiled and popped her brows. “I had a hunch. Full swap?” She held the pot of her lip gloss aloft.

Lacey eyed the gloss in Nikki’s hand, then down at her own and shrugged. What the hell? The color would look great with her dress, and new Lacey wouldn’t even think about the germs. “Sure.” She handed over her pink passion and plucked the coral color from Nikki’s fingers.

“Cool.” Nikki grinned and dabbed some of Lacey’s gloss onto her full lips. “Ready?”

Lacey applied the other woman’s gloss and nodded with relief. “Yep.”

“Ooh, that color looks super sexy on you! You can keep it.” She gave Lacey a broad wink and Lacey winked back. Seemed like Nikki wasn’t going to press for details about her and Galen’s relationship, which was fine by her.