She nodded and he went back to pool. Ryland was still flirting with two women, and she had to wonder: What was the worst thing that could happen if she let her hair down and enjoyed herself for a few minutes? After all, it was her birthday. “Maybe just one drink.”

Hot Guy nodded to the bartender, who promptly ambled over. “A Shirley Temple for Grandma here on her birthday.”

Piper laughed. She shocked herself with her reaction, making her realize how long it’d been.

Hot Guy took in her smile and almost gave her a small one of his own. “Or . . . whatever you want.”

She bit her lip. What did she want? That was a very big question she’d tried very hard not to ask herself over the past decade plus, because what she wanted had never applied. In her life, there were need to do’s and have to do’s . . . and nowhere in there had there ever been time for what Piper wanted’s.

Which was probably why she made lists like it was her job.

The bartender’s name was Boomer, and she’d known him for a long time. He was waiting with a smile for her to admit the truth—that she loved Shirley Temples. But she didn’t admit any such thing. She just rolled her eyes—honestly, she was going to have to learn to stop doing that—and nodded.

When Boomer slid a Shirley Temple in front of her, she took a big sip and was unable to hold in her sigh of pleasure, making Hot Guy finally really smile.

And, oh, boy, it was a doozy.

Just a little harmless flirting, she told herself. There was no harm in allowing herself this one little thing, right?

The lights flickered again, and this time they went out and stayed out.

She wasn’t surprised, and by the collective groan around her, she could tell no one else was either. Boomer hopped up onto the bar. “Storm—one, the bar—zero!” he yelled out to the crowd. “Everyone go home and stay safe!”

In the ensuing mass exodus, Hot Guy grabbed Piper’s hand and tugged her along with him, not toward the front door with everyone else, but through the bar and out the back.

Where, indeed, the storm had moved in with a vengeance, slapping them back against the wall.

“How did you know about the back door if you’re new here?” she asked.

“I always know the way out.”

That she believed. She took in the night around them, which was the sort of pitch black that came from no power anywhere and a dark, turbulent sky whipped to a frenzy by high winds.

“The rain’s gonna hit any second,” he told her, not sounding thrilled about that.

This tugged a breathless laugh from her. “Chin up, Princess, or the crown slips.”