The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(19)

"Thanks. So you're a flight attendant?"

I eyed him skeptically. "No, I just like to wear this outfit to pick up guys in bars."

He laughed.

Tonight I was a hard-ass and according to Andrew, quite an intriguing one at that. So far my "analysis" was right on course.

I chugged down the rest of my beer, and he rushed to order me another one. "A girl who likes football and knows how to drink beer. I can certainly appreciate that."

"If every woman had to be sweet and cheerful to the *s I deal with on a daily basis, they'd chug beer, too."

He laughed again. "That bad, huh?"

"It's like f*cking sugar and spice up there. Makes my teeth hurt."

The bartender brought my beer and we clinked glasses, offering a hopeful toast to the doomed fate of our beloved Michigan Wolverines, just in time to turn our attention back to the screen as the commercial break ended.



TWO HOURS and seven beers later, Andrew and I were wasted. Well, actually, Andrew and Ashlyn were wasted. I was fine. I never allow myself to get drunk on an assignment. I've spent the last two years building up my level of tolerance to alcohol for specifically that reason. Alcohol makes you lose focus, makes you do stupid things. Case in point: seventy-five percent of the men who have failed my inspection were under the influence of at least some amount of alcohol, if not a very large amount. Some people might try to argue the legitimacy of the inspection because of this factor. My public, professional opinion: The legitimacy decision is entirely up to the client. But my own private, personal, would-never-dare-share-with-anyone opinion: They can shove their legitimacy issues up their asses. Alcohol is an everyday part of life. If you can't drink it and still manage to stay faithful to your wife at home, then you either shouldn't be drinking it or you shouldn't have a wife at home.

But that's just one of my own humble opinions. I keep those to myself.

Andrew and I had moved from the bar to a table in the corner, where we commiserated together and washed away the pain of a bitter loss to USC.

"I guess it's better that we lose to an undefeated than a nobody," I said, holding my head in what could only be interpreted as drunkenness mixed with wallowing in despair.

Andrew finished off his beer in one definitive gulp, slammed the empty glass down on the table, and then leaned across and looked me straight in the eye. "Has anyone ever told you how hot you are?" His eyes were starting to glaze over.

"Okay, no more beer for this one!" I called out to the now-empty bar, raising my hand up in the air and pointing at the top of his head.

He reached up and pulled my hand down, holding it in his own. "I'm serious. You have no idea, do you?"

I stayed in character, waving away his comment as if it was ludicrous. "Stop. You sound like a f*cking lame ass right now."

He pulled my hand closer to him, and I immediately felt the wedding ring on his fourth finger. He hadn't even bothered to take it off. Or rather, he hadn't remembered. It made me believe that he was probably a first-timer. Not a professional like Raymond Jacobs, whose wedding ring slides on and off like a pair of flip-flops.

But it doesn't really matter. First-timers, old-timers, seasoned pros – they all blend together in my mind once it's over.

And anyway, it's not my place to judge. If a wife or girlfriend or fiancée chooses to forgive him on the grounds that it was his "first time" and he more than likely learned his lesson, then that's their choice. I only deliver the information that was requested of me. I don't tell them how to use it. And I don't make recommendations.

"Would it be weird if I asked to kiss you?" he asked, his expression suddenly turning serious.

I considered this for a moment, placing my fingertip thoughtfully on my chin, in an effort to continue my act of silly intoxication. "Um, no... but it might be weird if you asked to smell me."

He laughed. "Oh, I already smelled you at the bar. And you smell good."

"Hmm. Like airplane food?" I asked, struggling to maintain a serious expression, and then eventually bursting into uncontrollable drunken laughter.

Andrew laughed with me. "Do you want to get out of here?"

"Good idea."

"My room?"

I nodded vigorously, as if it was the best idea I'd heard in years, and how come it had taken him so long to suggest it.

His body shot up from his seat like a rocket, and with his hand still tightly grasped around mine, he pulled me behind him.



IN THE end Andrew Thompson never actually asked to kiss me. Once we were behind closed doors, he just went for it. He kissed me like a drunk boy at a frat party. Sloppy and horny. It was almost as if the football game had brought him back to his youth, and now he was reliving his carefree party days as a student at the University of Michigan. And to top it all off... with a flight attendant.

As he continued to kiss me, slowly peeling off the layers of his fantasy ensemble, he silently marveled to himself that it was just as amazing as he'd always imagined it would be.

Andrew never did take off his ring. It was almost as if he simply forgot it was there. Like it had become a part of him and his everyday life, but somewhere along the way its symbolic meaning had evaporated into the air of a monotonous marriage.

I didn't forget about it, though. I felt it every time his hand brushed over my skin. The cold, hard metal interrupting every inch of his touch like a constant reminder of exactly what I was doing. And, more important, exactly what he was doing.