Wes fills your glass for a third time, and you watch him from your vantage point for a moment before reaching for your cell phone to check it. You don't have any texts, but the red bubble next to your email app declares that you have 17 new emails. With a sigh, you tap into the inbox and give it a quick glance, just to make sure there's nothing too pressing happening at the office.

Nope. Just POTLUCK NEXT THURS PLEASE SIGN UP and Girl Scout Cookies!!! and Staff photo reminder 7/10.

You make a mental note about the cookies and put your phone back down to see your beer sitting on the counter in front of you. You know he offered you a free drink on the house, but you're naturally assuming beers number two and three are on your dime. Not that you mind paying. It's just what you needed after your day got off to such a crappy start.

"This is really nice of you, Wes," you say, reaching for it. The interview is half-forgotten. You take your first long swallow. "I feel like I'm getting the VIP experience."

"You are," he replied with another handsome smile. "And beer ain't all that's on offer."

He certainly implied before that he was interested in showing you a good time, but you declined, and you're not keen on leading this guy on. You're not the sort of woman to fling yourself at a man you just met—or to allow that man to fling himself at you. "You're sweet," you say, taking another drink.

"Not interested?" he asks, looking disappointed.

"I didn't say that, Wes. Maybe we can get together sometime for a date, and we'll see how it goes." Maybe he's getting the sense that you're interested because you've accepted three drinks from him. You reach into your messenger bag, rooting around in a front pocket for a crumpled $20. "I really did need this today."

"What are you gettin' your money out for, darlin'?" he asks, giving you a nonplussed look.

You leave the twenty lying on the bar. "Paying?" You take another sip of the beer.

He shakes his head, putting two fingers on the bill and sliding it back toward you across the bar. For a second, his hand blurs before your eyes, and you blink, wondering if you have something in your eye.

You laugh, mimicking the gesture and sliding it back toward him. "Fine, then. Tipping my bartender."

"I ain't your bartender today, Kendall."

You cock your head and lean slightly toward him. The minor motion makes you dizzy, and you wonder if you drank far more than your limit without realizing it. But this is only, what—two and a half beers? You're going to have to take a walk before you get behind the wheel and wait to sober up, that's for sure. "Then what are you?"

"You're about to find out." He smiles, leaning against the bar, his posture—his lowered head, with a fringe of hair falling over his brow, the rolling line of his shoulders, the taut muscles of his arms—putting you in mind of a wolf.

Shaking your head, you say, "So cryptic," but when the words come out of your mouth, they do not sound as you meant them to sound; they are slushy, slurred. You put a hand to your forehead, closing your eyes. Even as you do this, the world tilts and spins around you. How can you be drunk already? You were barely buzzed before. Unless...

"You all right, Kendall?" Wes asks. His tone is unconcerned and sly.

"What did you put in my drink?" When you open your eyes again, Wes is sidling around the bar toward you. You notice this as if through another person's eyes, and somewhere, your mind says, Run!, but when you try to slide off the barstool, you manage to get just one leg under you.

Wes is at your side now. He slides one strong arm around your shoulders. "Poor girl don't know her own limits," he says. You reach up and try to push him away, batting weakly at his shoulder, but all the strength has flooded out of your limbs. You feel like a rag doll.

He lifts you easily into his arms. You try to say, Stop! Don't!, but you cannot make the words come, and the last thing you see before darkness closes around you is the smiling, sultry face of Betty, the bottle cap girl.

[[Go to Chapter 17.]]