Suddenly, she grinned, and if he had a vagina, he would advise her to turn that grin to the room because it was almost cute, definitely playful, and showed she had a sense of humor. All of this in a way that, with her big hair, nice tits, and show of skin, would mean her dry spell would end in about the time it would take to walk back to the bathrooms or get to a car.

“I see your point,” she said through her grin.

“Thrilled, babe,” he muttered around his bottle of beer before he took another pull and moved to sit on Frankie’s stool.

She sucked back some of her cocktail.

When she did, Benny threw her a hint. “Just sayin’, might be good you troll for talent in a bar that’s not the bar where you work.”

She looked at him.

“Yeah. I see that. Problem is, I make some cake here, but it’s the only bar close. I’m not about to get nailed for drinkin’ and drivin’ so I cab it when I hit the scene. And me payin’ hefty cab fares means I can’t buy six packets of Oreos for my boy every week ’cause that kid eats the whole damn thing the minute I take it out of the bag.”

Another thing that would make her a winner if a man knew about it: she gave more of a shit about getting her kid Oreos than getting herself laid.

“Then maybe you should widen the net and not just fish in bars,” Benny suggested, and her head jerked in surprise.

“Like where?”

Shit, he walked right into a discussion he did not want to be in and it was a discussion with no exit door.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “What kinda man you want?”

“A man who looks good, f**ks better, and likes kids.” She gave him her limited wish list and tipped her head to the side. “Got any friends?”

“You willin’ to move to Chicago?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

She gave him another grin, even as she told him, “Just to say, you’re crampin’ my style.”

He glanced through the bar that wasn’t packed, but it wasn’t a slow night either, then looked back to her. “Anyone here you’re even remotely interested in?”

“No.”

“Then let me buy you a drink and you tell me about your boy.”

Her grin turned into a smile at the mention of her boy, a smile that, if she put it out there, might get her more than just laid, just as Frankie came back, asking, “I miss any action?”

Benny started to make a move to give her back her stool, but she made her move faster, sliding in in a way that forced him to shift a thigh and twist on the stool so she could press her hip and side to his crotch and chest between his legs that were up, feet on the rungs of the stool.

Much better than him standing behind her on the stool, pressed to her back.

“No action,” Cheryl answered. “Night’s a dud.”

“Yo, babe.” They all heard.

Ben was about to twist his neck to look, but he didn’t when he saw something flicker over Cheryl’s face when she heard the voice and her eyes shifted beyond Frankie.

It was only there a second, but he caught it, and if he wasn’t mistaken, it was pain. The kind you get when you want something you can’t ever have, you know it, you’re resigned to it, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“Yo, Merry,” Cheryl replied, and Ben finally looked to the good-looking, tall, dark-haired man who stopped at their sides. “Merry, this is Frankie and Benny,” she went on. “Kids, this is Garrett Merrick. J&J’s regular. Detective at the BPD. Decent guy, as far as I can tell, who can hold his liquor and is smart enough to laugh at my jokes.”

“Jesus, Cher, you wanna share my shoe size?” Merrick asked, smiling down at her in a friendly way that said that was all it was. Friends. He had zero interest in getting in there.

“Shoe size ten,” Cheryl stated, turning to look at Frankie and Benny.

“One off,” Merrick muttered, and Cheryl looked back at him.

“Which direction?” she asked.

“Not sayin’.” he answered.

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Please, God, for all my sisters, make it one size up.”

Merrick burst out laughing. So did Frankie. But Ben just chuckled and he did it feeling shit.

And he felt shit because she was a good woman. A hard one, but a good one. And now she was a good one going out of her way to be funny because she liked this guy, but knew he was not the kind of man who had an interest in taking on whatever shit made her hard. He preferred soft. She had no shot, it didn’t enter his mind, and him being a regular meant she read that on him every time he showed. So she was grasping on to all she could get.

Friendship and making him laugh.

Merrick took his mind off these thoughts when he greeted them both, ordered his beer, and joined them, standing close to Cheryl, shooting the shit with her, laughing at her jokes, giving shit back, and generally torturing her not having that first clue he was doing it.

An hour later, Merrick took off, Cheryl announced she had to go home or find a place to sell a kidney in order to pay her babysitter, and Ben loaded both women into his SUV so Cheryl wouldn’t have to pay for a taxi.

When he stopped in the driveway of her crackerbox house, which was crackerbox but still tidy and well cared for, he put his truck in neutral and angled out, even as Cheryl was saying her good-byes.

He caught Frankie’s eyes and said, “Walkin’ her to her door. Safe inside. Be back.”

That got him her look that said he’d fulfilled a promise he didn’t even know he was giving as her lips said, “Okay, honey.”

He grinned at her, closed the door, and rounded the hood, meeting Cheryl on the short, cement walk that led to her front door, a walk that was trimmed on each side with a thick, bushy, healthy line of what looked from the outside light to be little white flowers mixed with purple ones.

Probably not making enough cake to hire a gardener, he knew she did that and that was surprising.

It also said a lot about her that no man who would look at her would know.

“I can make it to my front door, you know,” she muttered, sounding vaguely annoyed.

“Figure you can,” was all the answer he gave her.

They made it to her short stoop, she opened the screen door, then the inside door, and that was when he stopped her.

“Smile,” he said, and her head tipped back to look up at him.

“What?”

“You are far from hard to look at. You smile and mean it, that ups significantly. You wanna get some, let a guy in. And to do that, all you gotta do is smile.”