The first time he’d met Sloane, she was rosy-cheeked, rocking back and forth on her barstool, and professing her intentions to marry Marcus Robertson.

“I’m going to put a ring on his finger,” she’d pronounced, index finger soaring through the air over the bar between them. “Yep. I’m going to be the one who proposes. I’m just going to do it. Like Nike. I’m going to just do it!”

Her voice had risen at the shoe company’s slogan. Then she had ended the fantasy with a laugh.

Because that’s what it was. A fantasy.

One of the many Brady had heard over the last six years of bartending. He hadn’t been sure where that particular daydream landed on the scale of what was plausible and what would only ever be fiction. Sure, it hadn’t been up there with the local drunk’s plan to become an honest-to-God, panty-dropping, selling-out-the-stadium rock star, but it hadn’t been on the same level of reasonable, either.

Brady might not have known Sloane past the fact that she could get drunk off two of their famous mixed drinks, but he did know the object of her affections.

Marcus Robertson was the biggest, richest, model-looking stick in the mud in town. Just like his twin. Who wanted to be a rock star when they could be a Robertson? The petite, dark-haired woman who’d been swaying on her barstool across from him would have to stand in a long, long line to get on that ride.

If she was even tall enough to ride it.

“That’s very progressive of you,” Brady had decided on when the woman seemed to be waiting for some kind of response. She’d apparently appreciated the one he had picked. Her mass of hair had bounced as she nodded.

“Equality,” she had said sagely. “Feminism!”

She’d gone after her glass after that, and for a second Brady was sure she was going to raise it in a toast. Thankfully, she’d just tried to drink from it. A hard feat, considering she’d already finished that drink ten minutes beforehand.

“See, I’m done with being the only one without a life,” she had continued, replacing the glass on the bar top. “Why don’t I just tell him? I mean, it’s my turn to be the one making plans. It’s my turn to be the one showing off. It’s my turn to get the pony.”

Brady had raised his eyebrow while she had quickly deflated on her last point.

“I don’t know if that’s code for something, but I’m sure one day you’ll get that pony,” he had tried. “Whatever that pony may be.”