The Checklist by Addie Woolridge (famous ebook reader txt) 📕

for Neale to exit the booth before pushing herself off the sticky seat and landing on the floor with a bounce.

Dylan listened to the pair laugh as they made their way toward the bar, giving her a chance to lift herself out of the booth without anyone hearing her groan. By the time she managed to reach them, Neale was ordering while Stacy chatted animatedly with a guy who was obviously mistaking friendly for interested.

“Do you want a Rollercoaster or a Galactic martini?” Neale asked, eyeing her with that strange combination of expectation and judgment only a sister could level. The choice between amusement parks and space was an important one. Dylan needed to select carefully.

“Coaster.”

“Told you she had excellent taste,” Neale said, all smug smiles aimed at the bartender.

“You were right. With the sweater, I pegged her for a space drinker,” the bartender said to Neale before halting, one hand on the tap of whatever dispensed her drink. Looking at Dylan, he said, “You look familiar.”

Dylan tilted her head to the side, looking hard at the guy behind the bar. His baseball cap wasn’t helping her facial recognition much.

“Did we go to high school together?” Dylan asked, hoping the question would stall him long enough to give her mind time to retrieve his name. “Roosevelt?”

The guy nodded and stared at her. Dylan realized that he was tilting his head to mirror the way she held her own head. Glancing at Neale, who seemed bemused by the situation, she took a deep breath and prepared for the most charming apology she could manage in this den of regrets. He was Neale’s . . . associate or friend or something, after all. “Honestly, I remember your—”

“Dylan? Neale, I didn’t know your sister went to high school with us!”

“Well, you and I technically didn’t go to school together. I’m younger than you,” Neale said, as if that explained everyone’s lapse in memory.

“It’s CJ. CJ Rodriguez.” He gestured to his barrel chest with both hands.

“Oh!” Dylan said. She vaguely remembered the name and had the sense that she hadn’t enjoyed his company in high school.

CJ, on the other hand, seemed genuinely excited to see her. “Neale talks about you all the time. You look different. When did you get to be so awesome?”

“She was always awesome. You just didn’t notice.”

Dylan recognized Mike’s voice before she turned around to face him. He smiled casually at CJ, his weight shifting slightly onto his right foot. The first thing Dylan noticed was his gray button-down, which fit a little snugly around the chest and was made of some soft material that looked both unfussy and warm. She wanted to touch that chest, then amended the thought. This was a science-project sort of urge. Dylan could never pull off intentionally wrinkled flannel bedsheets in shirt form, but Mike sure made it work. She just wanted to know how.

“Thank you.” Dylan took her Rollercoaster from CJ, grateful for the neon glow, which masked the heat in her cheeks. Hell, she was probably blushing all over.

“Hey, man, how’s it going?” CJ said, reaching a jovial hand out from behind the bar to shake Mike’s. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Mike’s gaze swept over Dylan, causing another flush that she was positive not even the neon glow could hide, before turning his smile toward CJ. The pair engaged in the complex man handshake Dylan never fully understood. Her handshake analysis wasn’t doing much for the flush, but it did take her mind off the fact that whatever was in a Rollercoaster tasted a lot like Pine-Sol smelled.

“I’m good. How you been?” Mike asked.

“You made it,” Stacy said, turning her attention away from the guy she was talking to and clapping her hands like a kid at a birthday party. The disappointed guy wandered away after taking one long look at Mike. Dylan couldn’t say she blamed him. The guy was not about to compete with someone that appealing, and if he had thought he could, Stacy’s reaction cleared that up real quick.

“Yeah, I was able to wrap up dinner with my brother early, so this worked out perfectly.” Mike’s deep voice rolled over whatever music was passing as a reference to the bar’s glory days. “Do any of you need a drink?” he asked, eyeing Dylan’s precariously full Rollercoaster and Neale’s surprisingly empty one.

“You can get those in a pitcher,” CJ offered, grabbing a bar towel.

“I’ll get that. And a beer, please,” Mike said, glancing at Stacy’s drink, which was less full than one would have expected given the electric taste. Turning back to Dylan, Mike added, “If you all want to sit, I can bring ’em over.”

“Sounds good,” Neale called from her perch near the bar. She began her saunter to the table, ignoring that the question had not been addressed to her.

“Thank you,” Stacy said, grabbing Dylan’s forearm and weaving her way back to the duct-taped booth, leaving enough time for Dylan to smile and mouth, “Thanks” over her shoulder before focusing her attention on keeping her drink from sloshing on the floor. Not that it would have mattered to anyone, but Dylan was rather keen on not adding additional safety hazards to the space.

Releasing Dylan’s arm, Stacy sidled into the booth, where Neale was already at home, and leaned in conspiratorially. “Oh my God. Dylan, he’s into it!”

“Please. Based on what? The fact he’s buying all of us another round?” Dylan made a small circular motion with her glass to indicate they were receiving the exact same benefit. Noticing the potential for spillage, she took another sip.

“Or the fact that he was checking you out. Get it!” Neale said, bouncing up and down and shimmying her shoulders.

“Okay, stop. I saw no such thing, and I was there.”

“Of course you didn’t. You dated that tool for how long?” Neale took a break from her shimmy to sip her drink, then yelled, “But not anymore.”

Dylan used Neale’s return to dancing as a moment to think. Mike was always flirty. She figured