After waiting as long as he could, he told the man checking IDs he was going inside for a quick drink of water. He made his way through the crowd just inside the door and toward the bar in the back. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light and the haze of cigarette smoke in the air, he saw her sitting at the long polished bar. Everything in him wanted to obey the force pushing him toward her, but he remained there in the middle of the room, rooted and transfixed.

The truth was, Frank had never been good at talking to women. When he was younger, he’d get so flustered he’d have to walk away from them just to be able to breathe. But as he got older, and especially once he started wearing his police uniform, he learned he was good at faking confidence. At pretending to be easygoing and self-assured. At putting his shyness in his pocket and playing the role people expected from him. It usually worked out okay, but those interactions, especially when they involved a pretty girl, left him exhausted.

As the crowd swarmed around him, he saw her only in snatches—her rich brown hair, the curve of her spine, her foot hooked behind the bottom rung of her stool. The longer he watched her, the more familiar she seemed, as if he knew her somehow, but of course, he didn’t.

He stood there watching. Go say hello, idiot.

Another man sidled up next to her. There was an open stool right there, but instead of sitting, the man squeezed in the small space between her and the person sitting on the other side of her.

That must be him, Frank thought. The owner of the arm that belongs around her shoulders. But the way the man leaned down and spoke—not to her but at her—made Frank wonder if the woman knew this guy at all. He kept at it, leaning down and grinning, gesturing wildly and talking too loudly, even for this loud place.

The woman had pulled back as far as she could without falling off her stool, clearly not sharing the man’s enthusiasm for close-talking.

Then the man slid his hand onto her back—right on the strip of bare skin between the top of her pants and the bottom hem of her sweater. With three quick steps Frank was at the bar. “Ice water, please,” he said to the bartender, then to the woman, “Is anyone sitting here?”

She gave Frank a questioning glance, then turned her attention back to the lime on the lip of her drink. “No.”

“Hey, pal.” The man leaned around her to peer at Frank. “I was just about to sit there.” He opened his eyes wider, Frank’s police uniform registering on the man’s face. He held his hands up in a silly surrender. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

Frank held a hand out to him. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Lawrence. And this is Mary.” He placed his hand low on her back again, a possessive gesture meant to show Frank his place.