Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Couldn’t argue with the music choice, though. “Miss Jackson” wasn’t my favorite Panic! at the Disco song, but it was up there. The favorite? Now that was “Northern Downpour” . . . which was the last song I’d listened to before boarding flight 826.
Fuck, why had I just thought about that? Flashes of breathtaking brown eyes invaded my memory just like they had my dreams over the past two and a half years. Isabeau.
“There goes another twenty.” Rowell leaned back against the wall, clearly resigning himself to his wallet being a little lighter after this game.
“You going to show the man a little mercy?” Torres asked, running his hand over his dark, close-cropped hair as I scanned the table. After two years in the same platoon, and one of those spent in the sandbox, he was the closest thing I’d ever had to a best friend.
“Why the hell would I do that?” I lined up another shot. “Six ball, corner pocket.” And there went another one of Rowell’s twenties. “Wishing you’d bet a little less?” I asked Rowell over my shoulder.
“I thought you were a farm boy from Illinois.” He looked around the rest of our platoon who had come out tonight. “Did anyone else know he’s a pool shark?” Everyone shook their heads.
“He’s a real chatterbox.” Torres laughed and threw back another swig of his beer.
“Damn,” Fitz remarked, leaning his lanky frame sideways to see past me as I studied the table. I’d given it a little too much spin and left myself with a shit angle for the one ball. “Pretty sure an entire sorority just took to the floor.”
Almost every head in my platoon turned, but that didn’t surprise me. It was only us single guys out tonight. Most of the married men preferred to spend their last weekend before deployment with their families.
“That’s a bachelorette party,” Torres said, a slow smile spreading across his face as I moved to the other side of the table to line up the best shot I had. A group of women danced into view, a bunch of hot-pink tank tops surrounding one in white with a light-up veil.
Yeah, that was a bachelorette party, all right.
“You would have helped me out if you’d managed to clear a few of your balls out of the way, Rowell,” I said, bending low to concentrate.
Rowell grunted in reply.
I glanced up as the closest woman on the floor spun, her arms raised and blonde hair flying as she danced to the chorus.
It was only a glimpse, but my heart stuttered and my grip slipped, causing me to miss the shot completely. The cue ball went skittering across the green felt, and I startled.
“Guess your luck had to run out sometime.” Rowell laughed as I stood, scanning the dance floor with single-minded focus.
That wasn’t her. A different blonde had taken the edge of the floor. Or was it the same blonde? Had my head pulled the ultimate trick on me?
Was it the music? The way it made the memory surface again?
There was no way it was her.
But the surge of adrenaline in my veins screamed that it was. I threw my pool stick at whoever was closest and moved.
“Phelan!” Fitz called out, but I was already in the thick of the dance floor before I even thought of replying.
The strobe light kicked on as the song changed, and faces blurred all around me as I turned left, then right, then left again, searching the features of every woman in a pink tank top who danced near me in the momentary flashes of light. There were six . . . no, seven.
And none of them were her.
Shit. Was I losing it? I’d seen some shit on deployment, and it wasn’t like the plane crash hadn’t screwed my head in ways I tried not to linger on, but hallucinations? I wasn’t that screwed up, was I?
“You okay?” Torres asked, coming up on my left as I stood in the middle of the pulsing dance floor.
“I thought I saw someone.”
That woman was brunette. That one was redheaded. Blonde. Wrong smile. Not her eyes.
“Apparently. You took off like your ass was on fire.”
“Scared I’m going to clean you out now that it’s my turn?” Rowell asked from my right, but there was a concerned tilt to his brow despite his shit-giving tone.
Like it was an act of fate or some other equally fortuitous force, the crowd parted for a length of a heartbeat, but that was all I needed.
Standing at the bar was Isabeau fucking Astor. She tucked her hair behind an ear, giving me a full view of her profile, and my heart jumped into my throat.
“Better things to do,” I said to Rowell, barely sparing him a glance before walking through the crowd.
“Better than winning a hundred and sixty bucks?” he yelled over the music.