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for months now. Every time you’re around, I ask
to buy you a drink. And yet you never take me up on it. Why is that?”
    Mary Ellen removed his arm with delicate finality, using her
thumb and forefinger to pry the roaming digits from her shoulder. “For one,
you’re married.”
    “Just a piece of paper,” he said, falling right into their
usual argument. “And don’t give me the ‘We’re just here to have a girls’ night
out’. I’ve seen you leave with guys before. Hell, sometimes you just leave with
one.” He wiggled his eyebrows and Ariel had to swallow the urge to vomit. “You
ladies are into the sharing thing, aren’t you?”
    He was right on that one. They didn’t
mind sharing, it was fun to mix it up from time to time if they were both
attracted to the same guy. And going home with a pair of roommates wasn’t out
of the question either. But she had a good idea that Mark’s idea of sharing
involved her and Mary Ellen going at it like experimenting college freshmen
while he got his rocks off before going home to his wife.
    Pass.
    “Really, we go through this every time. It’s not going to
happen,” Ariel said, trying to keep the bite out of her tone. He was an idiot
and a cheater, but she didn’t want to be rude or unnecessarily mean. Once more
she glanced around to see if any servers had a moment to run interference. No
such luck. She slipped away from his grabbing hand by making a show of standing
up next to her chair.
    “Ladies. A Mark
Sandwich seems like a great way to end the night,” he said, his voice holding
some fake, not-so-sensual purr and he wiggled his eyebrows again. The guy had
been watching too many really cheesy eighties porn videos.
    Mary Ellen, less concerned about being rude and more
concerned about losing valuable prowling time, said, “Mark, honestly. Stop
coming over here. It’s never going to happen. There will never be a Mark
Sandwich, or a Mark Taco, or a Mark Pita. Get over it.”
    Mark’s eyes, which had a bedroom, hooded look before
narrowed into anger. “You can’t be serious. You walk out of here all the time
with all manner of boys and you won’t give a real man a go?”
    “If they want a real man, they probably wouldn’t want you.”
    Ariel looked to her left, surprised to see their savior was
not a Home Stretch employee but another patron.
    His black hair was buzzed short on the sides, tapering up
into a military-style haircut. He wore a slightly wrinkled button-down shirt
with the sleeves rolled up and dark jeans. He wasn’t a large man, almost eye
level with her in her heels, and his shoulders weren’t particularly broad. But
what he lacked in physical stature, he made up in sheer presence. His face was
one step from pissed and his arms were crossed in a don’t-fuck-with-me manner.
    “Not your concern, son,” Mark said, trying once more to get
an arm around Ariel. She sidestepped, bringing her closer to the stranger’s
side. Better the devil you don’t know, at least in this situation . She noticed Mary Ellen had risen and was inching around the
table toward their unnamed knight in shining Banana Republic.
    “When a woman says no and a male doesn’t respect it, it’s my
concern,” he said mildly, a direct contrast to his fight-ready stance. “Are you
finished here?”
    Mark’s eyes narrowed farther and his hand gripped the top of
the chair she’d vacated so hard his knuckles turned white. “When someone sticks
their nose in where it doesn’t belong, we handle that with an ass-kicking.”
    Although Ariel appreciated the intervention, she didn’t want
the situation turning into a bar brawl. But before she could say a word, their
unnamed hero stepped forward, lowering his voice so his words didn’t carry past
the table.
    “Listen up. They don’t want you, and they may not want me
either. But the fact is, you’re hassling them and I’ll do something about it if
it comes to that. I’ve got ten years in the Corps behind me and a black