Cocktails & Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

you positive you’re a guy? How many stores do we have to go into before you find the ‘perfect jeans’?” Making exaggerated air quotes as she uttered Travis’s ridiculous phrase amused her, at least.
    Travis snorted. “What do you do? Just grab the first pair you see in your size?” He looked horrified as Jena’s face turned bright red. “You do, don’t you? Jena, Jena, Jena…”
    Jena muttered something with the word “mangina” in it and pulled herself up from the mall bench with a sigh. “Let’s just get this over with.”
    “Sit back down for a minute.” Jena complied, and Travis settled beside her. He started in with a lecturing tone. “Jena, ask yourself this: have you ever seen me be alone when I didn’t want to be alone?” She shook her head, waiting for his point as a slow smile began to spread across Travis’s face. “It’s the lure of the perfect jeans, I swear. Between my mom, four sisters, and you, it’s been pointed out repeatedly to me that the ass counts on a man. Perfect jeans, equals perfect ass, equals never lonely.” He seemed smugly satisfied by his logic.
    Jena skeptically studied his carefully tousled mane of dark blond hair streaked with honey, his chiseled features and flawless skin with its carefully cultivated growth of stubble. “And you don’t think your perfect face and perfect hair have anything to do with it?”
    He was complacent. “Sure, once the girl looks there.” He grinned. “I just want to make sure I keep her attention long enough to get that far.”
    Jena slapped his head while pulling him up from the bench. “You are a sick, sick man, Travis Walker, and a danger to women everywhere.”
    Travis wrapped his arm around her and kissed the top of her head as they continued down the mall. “It’s not my fault you’re up half the night, Jen. Those dreams must be something.”
    “Oh, my God! Was I noisy again?” Jena felt her face flame, remembering the particularly vivid dream of the night before.
    “Jena, sweet, you never shut up. You should just look the guy up, girl. I can practically assure you that he would be flattered as hell if you did. Especially when I tell him about all the noise you’ve been making.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
    “Exactly why it’s never gonna happen, doofus. Besides, I don’t even know where he lives now.”
    “One word: Facebook. Or is that two words? Fuck, I don’t know! My point is that it’s not impossible, sugar. This has been going on for months now. You officially passed the fuckdrunk stage a month or two ago, hon, and now you’re into obsession. Or love.”
    He looked at Jena slyly.
    She shoved him toward the nearest store, and headed for a chair at the edge of the food court. “Go find your panty-dropping jeans, idiot. I’m shopped out.”
    With a grin, Travis entered the store, and Jena bought yet another cup of crappy coffee from a different shop. Travis was right; this was getting ridiculous. She spent most of every night dreaming of Nicholas. Settling against the back of the chair, she closed her eyes and enjoyed a particularly vivid mental replay of the shower sex dream of the night before.
    “Daydreaming again, Jena Baker?” a voice suddenly whispered behind her.
    Jerked out of her happy memory, Jena blurted out, “Oh, fuck!” and jumped. Coffee flew everywhere.
    She heard a giggle. “Definitely you.”
    Turning, Jena was immediately assaulted by flailing arms and a huge smile, dressed in an elegant pink suit, as her friend leaned down for a quick squeeze.
    “Leisa? Holy shit, you’re back?” Jena pushed a cloud of hair from her face and squeezed her assailant’s arm, the only part of her she could catch. “I thought you were in Atlanta with your company.”
    Leisa shook her head. “Done with that for a while. I’ve been staying with Momma and Daddy in Little Rock for the last few days.” She grabbed Jena’s cup out of her hand and gulped down the rest of the coffee. “God, I