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on her upper lip. She licked it off with a grin. “I’m out of practice drinking from a mug. Usually I’m sipping it from a bottle while I’m sitting around the barn with the other trainers.”
    “And you’re in your element there, I’ll bet.”
    “I’d say so, yes.”
    “That’s something I always admired about you, Trina. You’re down-to-earth.”
    She blinked. “You admired me? Since when?”
    “Since…” He stopped to think. “I guess the first time I noticed you was the summer between my junior and senior year.”
    She pointed a finger at him. “And I’ll bet I can guess when. It was the day my mother made you, Nash and Jack take me along to the swimming hole. I’d been driving her crazy and she wanted me out of her hair.”
    “That’s the day, all right. You wore a bright yellow bikini.” He could still picture her in it. The memory had an effect on him even now, and his groin tightened.
    “My mother had no idea that’s what I had on under my jeans and tank top. She thought I’d worn the virginal white one-piece she’d bought me in Jackson. When Nash saw that bikini, he was not happy.”
    “I was.”
    “Really? Then why did you treat me like a bratty little tagalong all day?”
    He took a fortifying sip of his beer and set it back on the scarred wooden table. “Because you were Nash Bledsoe’s little sister, and if he’d guessed what I was thinking, he would have cleaned my clock.”
    She gazed at him in obvious fascination. “You wanted me back then?”
    “With the heat of a thousand suns.”
    “Damn it, Hutch! If I’d known that, it would have changed my entire image of myself. My high school career would have been completely different. It would have—”
    “Landed us both in a heap of trouble. You were fifteen . You weren’t ready for the kind of action I had in mind.” He should probably stop talking about this. The more he did, the more this little booth warmed up, and he didn’t have a plan.
    “Meanwhile you were a worldly seventeen .” She took another drink of her beer. “I’ll bet you were still a virgin.”
    “No, I wasn’t.” He hadn’t meant to say that, but there was no taking it back, now.
    “Is that so?” Her eyebrows lifted. “Do I know her?”
    “A gentleman doesn’t discuss such things.”
    “Oh, come on, Hutch. I’ll tell you who my first was if you’ll tell me yours. On second thought, let me guess. Candice Melbourne.”
    He did his best to stare her down without giving anything away, but apparently he failed.
    “It was her. I can tell by the way your eye is twitching. She had the biggest rack in the junior class. Of course you’d go for her.”
    “I refuse to confirm or deny.”
    Trina began to laugh. “Okay, then, I’m not telling you who was my first.”
    He suddenly had a burning desire to know. Then again, knowing might be a bad thing. If the guy was still in town, Hutch would rather not know. What if he was someone Hutch actually liked? That would end any potential friendship, because he couldn’t imagine being friends with anyone who had—
    “Simon Flear.”
    Hutch groaned. “Not him .”
    “Why not? He had a poet’s soul. He used to write odes to my beauty.”
    “You do realize that everyone called him Simon Qu—”
    “That’s because you Neanderthals didn’t appreciate someone who was a million times more sensitive to a woman’s needs than you were.”
    Hutch shook his head in disbelief. “The guy had no cojones .”
    “Oh, yes, he did. In fact, he had very impressive—”
    “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear about it.” He gulped more beer. “When did this take place?”
    “I thought you didn’t want to hear about it.”
    “I just need some historic perspective.”
    “He took me to my senior prom. He came home from college specifically so he could do that. I was touched.”
    Hutch grimaced. “In the head. You know, I would have gladly taken you to your senior prom.” And now he wished he had, if only