His hand closed over hers, pressing the darts into her palm. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
“At a little bar near the University of Washington.” The heat of his hand warmed hers. “I worked there nights to put myself through school.” She tried to pull away, but his grasp tightened and the shafts dug into her flesh.
“Isn’t Hooters around there?” He finally let go of her hand and she took a step back.
“No, it’s across the lake from the university,” she answered, even though she figured he knew exactly where Hooters was located. His car could probably get there on its own. He was just trying to rattle her.
It wasn’t working until he took a step toward her and said next to her ear, “Were you a Hooters girl?”
Despite the heat creeping up her neck, she managed a cool and collected, if not quite a Honey Pie, response. “I think it’s pretty safe to say I’m not Hooters material.”
He lowered his voice, his warm breath touching her cheek as he asked, “Why’s that?”
“We both know why.”
He stepped back and looked at her mouth before slowly raising his gaze to her eyes. “Tank top the wrong color?”
“No.”
“You don’t like the shorts?”
“I’m not the kind of girl they’re looking for.”
“I don’t think that’s true. I know for a fact they hire short girls. I’ve seen them in there.” He paused a moment, then added, “Of course, that was in Singapore.”
They both knew they weren’t talking about her height. “You’re trying to rattle me so you’ll win, aren’t you?”
Tiny creases appeared in the corners of his blue eyes. “Is it working?”
“No,” she lied and moved to the sideline where the Chinooks stood. “Did you come through with those beers, Rob?”
He patted her on the top of her head. “Sure did, Sharky.”
Sharky? Well, she’d earned a nickname, and it was better than what she was sure they called her when she wasn’t around. And he’d patted her head as if she were a dog. Progress, she thought as she watched Luc raise his hand, snap it forward, and bury the dart in the bull’s-eye.
“Luc hates to lose more than anyone I’ve known,” Bruce told her.
“Maybe you shouldn’t beat him,” Peter warned. “It might snakebite his game.”
“Forget it, guys.” She shook her head as Luc buried the second dart in the out area and swore like a hockey player. “I’m not going to let anyone win.”
“Losing might make him play with a real mad-on at the Compac Center tomorrow night.”
“Yeah, remember when he lost at bowling by one pin and the next night he duked it out with Roy?” Darby reminded everyone.
“That probably had more to do with Luc and Patrick’s trash-talking than a bowling score.”
“Goalie grudge match.”
“They played old-time hockey that night.”
“Whatever the reason, they mixed it up at center ice, and man, it was beautiful.”
“When was that?” Jane wanted to know.
“Last month.”
Last month, and he still had more than half the season to go. For several long moments, Luc stood at the toe line, staring the board down as if he were in a contest of wills. A trail of light poured across the cheap red carpet and lit up his leather shoes and black pants to his knees. Then, as if he were launching a missile, he buried the dart deep in the double twenty for a total of sixty-five points. The scowl pulling at his brow as he strode to her and handed her the darts told her he wasn’t satisfied with trailing behind by seventy-five points.
“If they gave points for burying the dart through the board, you’d stand a chance of winning,” she said. “Next time you might want to use finesse rather than muscle.”
“I’m not a finesse kind of guy.”
No kidding. She moved into position, and just as she was about to release the dart, Luc spoke from the sidelines. “How do you get your hair pulled back that tight?” The other Chinooks laughed as if Luc were real funny.
She lowered her arm and looked over at him. “This isn’t hockey. There’s no trash-talking in darts.”
He flashed her a smile. “There is now.”
Fine. She’d still beat him. While he continued to heckle from the sidelines, her three throws equaled an even fifty. Her lowest score so far. “You’re behind by a hundred and sixteen,” she reminded him.
“Not for long,” he boasted, then walked up to the toe line and threw a double bull and a single twenty.
Dang. Time for a little trash talk of her own. “Hey, Martineau, is that a pumpkin on your shoulders or is that your vacuous head?”
He glanced at her. “Is that the best you can do?”
The rest of the Chinooks seemed equally unimpressed.
Darby leaned toward her and whispered, “That was kind of lame.”
“What the hell is vacuous?” Rob asked.
Darby answered for her. “It means empty or hollow.”
“Why didn’t you just say that, Sharky?”
“Yeah, you can’t trash-talk using words like that.”
Jane frowned and folded her arms across her chest. Vacuous was a perfectly good word. “You guys don’t like it because it doesn’t start with an F.”
Luc threw his third dart and scored a total of eighty points. Time to quit playing around and get serious. She walked to the line, raised her arm, and waited for the heckling to begin. But Luc remained silent, unnerving her more than his insults. She managed to shoot a triple twenty, but when she took aim again, Luc said, “Do you ever wear anything besides black and gray?”
“Of course,” she said without looking at him.
“That’s right.” Then, just as she was about to shoot again, he added, “Your cow pajamas are blue.”
“How do you know about her cow pajamas?” one of the guys asked.
Mr. Information failed to answer and she looked over at him, surrounded by his teammates, his hands on his hips and a smile on his lips.
“The other night I left my room to buy some M &M’s,” she told them. “I thought you guys would all be in bed, so I wore my PJs. Luc snuck up on me.”
“I didn’t sneak.”
“Sure.” She lined up her shot and threw a double ten. Then he waited until the exact moment she released her third dart to say, “She wears lesbian glasses.” She missed the board completely. That hadn’t happened in years.
“I don’t either!” Only after she denied it did she fear she may have objected a bit too vehemently.
Luc laughed. “They’re horrible little black squares like all those NOW girls wear.”
The rest of the Chinooks laughed too, and even Darby said, “Oh, yeah, lesbian, all right.”
Jane pulled the darts from the board. “They’re not. They’re perfectly heterosexual.” Geez, what was she talking about? Heterosexual eyeglasses? These guys were all making her crazy. She took a calming breath and handed the darts to Luc. She would not let these dumb jocks rattle her. “I am not gay. Although there is certainly nothing wrong with it. If I were gay, I’d be out and proud.”
“That would explain the shoes,” Rob joined in.
Jane looked down at her boots. “What’s wrong with my Docs?”
For the first time that night, the Stromster decided to speak. “Maahhn shuz,” he said.
“Man shoes?” She looked into his young face. “Since I defended your Mohawk earlier, I expected better of you, Daniel.” His gaze slid away and he took sudden interest in something across the room.
Luc moved to the line and scored forty-eight points. When it was her turn again, all the guys on the sidelines took turns heckling her. The conversation turned severely politically incorrect when they decided that the reason she wore dark colors had to be because she was depressed about being gay.
“I’m not gay,” she insisted. She was an only child and hadn’t been raised around boys, except her father, of course, but he didn’t count. Her father was a serious man who never joked at all. She had no experience with this sort of teasing.