The men squared off for a tense moment before Carmine’s bald friend tilted his head one way, then the other. “Hold up. Sarge Purcell?” He elbowed Carmine in the ribs, who grunted and doubled over. “Old News. It’s the guy from Old News. I fuckin’ love that band, man.”
While everyone in the bar seemed to swell closer, repositioning themselves to get a better look at Shoulders with cell phone cameras at the ready, Jasmine’s jaw hit the floor in utter astonishment. Nuh-uh. No way in Hook was this giant enforcer with Tarzan body parts the kid she used to babysit. When he’d left Jersey, he’d been eighteen. Tall, sure. Handsome, yeah, okay. But growth spurts the likes of this weren’t possible, were they? She’d seen him on TV, of course. But television-size and life-size were two very different things, apparently, because Sarge had been remodeled from a one-story colonial into a big brick mansion.
Jasmine slid her grip around his elbow, noticing his muscles go taut, but too curious to analyze that reaction. She turned him around to face her and couldn’t stop the words poised on her tongue from stage diving. “Hol-y, hol-y shit.”
Sarge Purcell had turned into a man while he’d been gone.
And when he stepped closer, forcing her head back, and ran intelligent blue eyes over her face, Jasmine realized she needed to block all further thoughts pertaining to shoulders or Tarzan or soap rivulets. Those thoughts made her a pervert, didn’t they? Claro que si. Of course they did. Worse than a woman who simply found a too-young man attractive in passing, because she’d known Sarge as a preteen for God’s sake. Ribbed him when he shaved for the first time and nicked his face in ten different places.
Oh, but there was nothing left of that preteen inside this man with the bleeding lip and a five o’clock shadow. Until he stopped drilling her with those baby blues and smiled, the edge of his mouth kicking up just a notch. There he was. Thank God. Deep breaths, girl.
“You still know how to pick ’em, huh, Jasmine?”
“Hmm—what?”
Sarge jerked his chin toward Carmine. “You shouldn’t be in this place, with that guy, looking so pretty.”
You babysat him. You babysat him. “Turned into quite a smooth operator on the road, didn’t you?”
A little bit of light left his eyes. “Something like that.”
Why did she feel guilty all of a sudden? Shaking herself out of the weird trancelike state she was encapsulated in, Jasmine forced a welcoming smile onto her face. The kind you gave to the sweet kid you were babysitting when you’d brought him cookies as a surprise. “Word on the street is you’re staying with me tonight.”
His headshake was unrushed. “No. I’m not.”
A little insulted, Jasmine poked him in the chest, declining to consciously acknowledge he was hard as granite. “What? You’re too much of a star now to stay in my tiny two-bedroom apartment?”
A rain cloud moved across his face. “It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like?” Jasmine didn’t take any pleasure from delivering the guilt trip, but she needed to come through for River. Her single-mother friend had been dealing with far too much lately without wondering if her brother was spending the holiday in an impersonal hotel room. Even though the thought of Sarge’s mile-wide frame squeezing through her front door gave her an uncomfortable case of nerves.
She needed to stick to a game plan. As of now, that game plan was to treat this hot rock-star ass like the twelve-year-old boy in her memory. And if she was worried he would look around at her meager possessions and throw sympathy in her direction, she had to put it aside for tonight. “You still like grilled cheese? Come over and I’ll make you one.”
He barked a laugh. “Jasmine, I just handed your date his ass. How’s about you start treating me like I’m twenty-two?”
Twenty-two. Jesus. She’d still had stars in her eyes at that age. Ready to take on all comers. Giving the finger to anyone who said you can’t do it. But Sarge? Sarge had done it. “You might be older now, but you’re still a kid compared to me. I’ll be thirty years old—”
“The day after Christmas.” He’d obviously surprised himself with the interjection, but hid it with a cough into his fist. “I know.”
He wasn’t the only one nursing shock that he’d remembered her birthday. Damn, she was usually the one putting people through their paces, but Sarge two-point-ohhhh couldn’t seem to stop surprising her. “Look, it’s late. If you want to find another, fancier place to lay your head tomorrow, I won’t stop you. But your sister asked me for a favor and that means I’ll drag you home caveman-style tonight, if necessary. So what’s it going to be?”
“There you are, Jas,” Sarge murmured before pausing to consider her. “All right. Let’s go.”
Chapter Three