Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly Read Free Book Online Page B

marauding giant tampons.
    But Monday night, thankfully, Lulu lucked out, because the band shooting into orbit that night was a jazzy combo called Smuuth, which, Bree told her, was supposed to be pronounced “smooth,” but no one got that and used the short u sound instead, making them, well, Smuth.
    Smuth, however, was indeed a very smooth band, so there was hope for pleasant dreams this evening. In fact, Smuth was so smooth that the two women decided to brush their hair, tuck their T-shirts into their jeans—Lulu’s was white, Bree’s was yellow—slip their bare feet into their sandals and go down to enjoy them live. They took their usual seats at the bar and ordered their usual beer, greeting and/or waving at all the regulars. As always, the television above the bar was turned on with the volume lowered, tuned to a local channel that was, at the moment, airing a network cop show. So Lulu and Bree did what they usually did on such nights out—those when Bree wasn’t pulling a bartending shift at the bar in the Ambassador Hotel—and enjoyed the music, chatted with friends, and danced on the few occasions when the mood took them.
    Until the local news came on as Lulu took the first sip of her recently refreshed beer, and her attention was suddenly snagged by a face that flashed by on the screen above the bar.
    “Hey!” she exclaimed before she could stop herself, pointing up at the television set.
    “What?” Bree replied, surprise mingling with alarm on her face at Lulu’s tone. “What’s wrong?” She turned to look at the TV, too, but by then the image had switched over to one of the news anchors, so she turned to look at Lulu again, her expression now puzzled.
    “That guy,” Lulu said, pointing more adamantly at the TV screen.
    “Who? Scott Reynolds? What about him? Besides the fact that his hair, as always, looks fabulous?”
    “No, not him. The other guy that was up there a second ago.”
    “Sorry, Lu. Missed him. Who was it?”
    Lulu shook her head slowly, as if that might negate what she’d just seen. Impossible, she thought. There was no way she could have seen the guy from the realty office Friday afternoon on the local news. He’d just made such a big impression on her subconscious that she was seeing him in places he couldn’t possibly be. After all, hadn’t he crept into her thoughts more than once over the weekend? And not just because she’d been reflecting on what a big jerk he was, either. In fact, that hadn’t been one of her reflections about him at all, since most of her reflections about him had had him dressed in a Speedo and passing a piña colada to her from the neighboring beach towel. And the rest of her reflections about him had sort of been lacking the Speedo altogether.
    But she wasn’t concerned about the errancy…errantness…errantularity…waywardness of her thoughts tonight. She wasn’t. Really. Honest. She wasn’t. Thinking about the guy from the realty office in a Speedo just meant she’d gone way too long without a beach vacation, that was all. And “beach vacation” wasn’t any kind of metaphor for anything sexual in nature. It wasn’t. Really. Honest. It wasn’t .
    Um, where was she?
    Oh, right. The man at the realty place in a Speedo. No! The man at the realty place on TV. Which he wasn’t. Was he?
    But no sooner did that question erupt in her head again than his face did indeed flash on the screen. She knew it was him, because there wasn’t a man alive who had a smile that oozed sex and charm and made women’s thoughts go all errantular the way his did.
    “That guy,” Lulu said again, wagging her finger at the TV once more. Before Bree had a chance to respond, Lulu grabbed Doug the bartender by the sleeve and said, “Turn up the TV, quick.”
    Doug arched an elegant dark brow at her, doing his best to ooze the kind of sex appeal that Realty Office Guy came by naturally…and coming in way under par. In fact, Doug’s rating on the sexy odometer