Nice. Paid to be friends with the owner of the place. Charlie picked up his shot glass and dinged the rim to Jared’s. Both men swallowed the pale liquid and clicked their glasses back onto the bar at the same instant. Like old times, when they’d rifled their fathers’ liquor cabinets every Saturday night their senior year of high school.
It had been a long time since Charlie had the freedom to be as crazy as he’d been back then. It felt good to let loose.
“I was going to text you. See if you were up to heading back to Freeport with me.” Jared waggled his brows. “There’s a club guaranteed to have some gorgeous women. They like a guy with a fat wallet. I’ll let you hang on my coattails.”
Yeah, that was like old times too. Jared had never had a problem flashing his father’s money around, and apparently nothing had changed now that he had plenty of his own. “Sounds like a plan, but maybe another night?”
“What, like you can’t have your date wet and panting for you by eight o’clock, then shove her out the door by nine? I’ll wait.” Jared signaled the bartender for another round with a discreet circle of his index finger, oblivious to the scowl Charlie shot in his direction.
“No, I can’t.”
Not only was that one of the most classless things his former high school running buddy had ever said, Charlie would never treat a woman like that. Let alone Audra. He liked her. She was smarter than any woman he’d ever been with, and the way she’d handled those dolphins—a total turn-on.
But then what wasn’t a turn-on where Audra was concerned?
Jared shook his head as the bartender lined up the second round. “The Navy’s making you soft, man.”
“Your bank account is making you a jackass.”
Now Charlie knew why it had been so long since he and Jared had been in the same place at the same time. They’d grown into different people. Maybe they’d always been different, even when they were raising hell together at seventeen.
The private boy’s school they’d both attended in suburban Maryland had had its share of hell-raisers, but Montgomery St. Croix and Wallace Anderson had served on the board, so naturally both of their sons had a vested interest in embarrassing them as much as possible.
Of course, that had been before Naomi. Charlie had walked away from the money, the social scene, his father. Being a SEAL gave him a purpose that money couldn’t buy plus a place to shine where people prized the things that made him tick: honor, commitment, principles.
If that made him a saint, he’d own it.
“Women come and go like the tide, especially here. I tend to wallow in it a little too much.” Jared clinked his shot glass against Charlie’s and they downed the second shot. “Forgive me.”
Forgiveness wasn’t a word Charlie liked a whole lot. If people would do the right thing in the first place, no one got hurt and no one had to forgive. Easy code to live by, yet he seemed to be the only one who saw any merit to it. “Yeah, but I’m not in a hurry to let this one drift away.”
The back of Charlie’s neck prickled. Audra. He’d know that scent in his sleep. A half second later, the woman joined them, her hand warming Charlie’s shoulder as she stepped between the men.
“Hey.” She dropped a kiss on Charlie’s temple, which was oddly possessive and even more oddly noninvasive. He especially liked it when Jared’s eyebrows shot up into his carefully styled wavy hair.
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” he said smoothly and held out a hand.
“Audra Reed, this is Jared Anderson,” Charlie cut in flatly and swiveled his stool toward his date, who had put on a green dress just for him. He wanted to properly appreciate it—without an audience. “And he was just about to go charm some ladies in another part of the Caribbean.”
“My schedule mysteriously cleared,” Jared corrected as he shook Audra’s hand. “I’ve seen you at the Crow Bar a couple of times.”
Yet he hadn’t bothered to introduce himself then? Charlie’s hackles raised. There was nothing like another man’s interest in a woman to make her worthy of a second look. The problem was that he didn’t like Jared looking at this one.
“That’s right.” She laughed and tucked a lock of her glossy red hair behind her ear. “Some girlfriends and I make it a regular Friday thing when I’m at school. I’m doing research at the university in Freeport.”
“I’m a fan of co-eds.” Jared’s tone was pure silk.
Charlie slipped an arm around Audra and did not give a crap that it smacked of marking his territory. Also? The direction of Anderson’s comments did not bode well for his pretty face, which would definitely be improved with the two black eyes he was begging Charlie to give him.