I met her in a bar.
It was a buddy of mine's birthday, and our crew had a corner booth in this joint downtown, drinking pints of beer. I was sitting with my back to the wall, as usual, so I could scope out the action, and I caught her looking my way. She was leaning over the brass rail of the bar, wearing tight blue jeans that showed off a real nice ass and black pumps that accentuated her curvy legs. She looked over her shoulder, sipping a martini, and when I caught her looking, she didn't look away. She had oval hazel eyes, a nice mix of green and brown, with a light of mischief, and her pretty face was framed by wavy brown hair down to her shoulders. She was sucking on that straw with rouged lips.
Just my type.
It was me who broke eye contact. While she was watching, I took the opportunity to stand up and offer a toast to my friend. That way she could hear my booming baritone and check me out at full height. I'm a big dude, 6'2" and 250 pounds of solid muscle from years of pumping iron. Some girls are intimidated by my size, others like it.
One thing I've learned is to play it cool and let women come to me. At the very least, I'll wait for a sign of interest, a subtle invitation, before I come up to one.
This one seemed to like what she saw.
I didn't make my move right away. After all, I was there for my buddy. We were drinking and I had my arm around him, telling stories to get all the boys laughing.
The brunette kept glancing over at me, but when she turned back to the bar, I'd steal glances at her body. The shape her waist, her hips and her ass was really something. Goddamn, I wanted her.
Then some guy came up to talk to her, and for a second I got worried that I had waited too long. He was an older guy in his thirties who was dressed business casual after office hours. I watched the body language, and she didn't seem too interested. She stayed facing the bar, not turning towards the guy, but she kept talking to him. I told myself she was stringing him along to run a jealousy triangle. I did it myself all the time, because it worked.
Goddamn, I wanted to fuck her.
After a while, the guy excused himself and went to the bathroom, so I took a deep breath in and out and walked over.
"How you doin'?" I said with a smile.
She returned the smile and kind of looked me up and down with a hint of amusement.
"Oh, you know, another night," she said noncommittally, feigning boredom.
"You here by yourself on a Friday night?"
"How do you know I'm not here with my boyfriend?" she said, arching her eyebrows.
"Because your boyfriend wouldn't be hanging back like that while another guy was talking to his woman," I said, and nodded to the front of the bar, where Business Casual was lingering around his friends uncertainly, standing while they sat on stools.
She smiled and waved at him.
The guy smiled back, but with a desperation that turned it into a grimace.
"I don't think he's coming back," I said.
"I guess I am here by myself," she said and sipped her drink.
"Well, not anymore," I said and nodded to the bartender. He was Latino, so I said, "Let me have a llave, bro."
"A what?" she said.
"He knows."
The bartender twisted off the cap of a cold Beck's and put it in front of me. I nodded my thanks and slipped him a tip.
"See that key?" I said to her, pointing at the label of the beer. "Key is llave in Spanish."
"Ah," she said. "You speak Spanish?"
"Just the dirty words," I grinned, leaning into the bar and taking a sip.
She looked me up and down again like she was appraising me. She was a solid girl, not some floozy, not no ditz, and not some pushover who fell for any line of bullshit.
I wondered if she was getting back at me for playing hard to get and ignoring her before.
"So where's your friends tonight?" I asked.
Now she turned to face me with her cleavage showing out of a low-cut wine red blouse that matched her lips, and she looked at me directly with those hazel eyes.
"My friends? Those cockblockers only get in the way. That's why I like to go out alone these days."
I looked back into those hazel eyes and we both held the sexual tension.
"I'm Tony," I said.
"Sandra."
We shook hands. Her hand was small, soft and warm, but her grip was firm.
"Pleasure," I said with a smile and squeezed her hand in both of mine.
Sandra's full lips curled up slowly into a slow smile that seemed to try to resist. Those lips made certain images flash in my mind, and right at that moment I could've sworn that she blushed ever so slightly.
"Jeez, you look like the cat who ate the canary," she said.
I shrugged. "Well, not yet, but I will."
Sandra took her hand back and picked up her drink to take a sip. Then she looked at me again, as if considering me.
"So tell me, Tony, are you always this self-assured? Or is it just an act, with the alcohol helping?"
I smiled again and put my hand on the small of her back. "Well, I guess you're going to find out, ain't you, Sandra?"
She didn't respond at first, sipping her drink, but right then I knew that I had her number. I had found my range with this girl - well, this young woman, to be exact.
We were standing there at the bar, and she kind of looked up at me, flicked up her eyebrows, and looked at me with a new softness in her hazel eyes, and I just looked back, but I felt calm now. We were comfortable.
Her drink was almost empty.
"You want another one?" I asked. "What is that?"
"No, that's okay," she said with a serious tone all of a sudden, and she pushed away from the bar. "I think I've had enough."
For a second my heart fell, like maybe she had just been flirting. Yet she wasn't going anywhere.
