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I changed out of my more formal wear into some plain, soft denim jeans and a nice, sleeveless blouse There were pictures of penguins eht was pretty cute, especially when I basically lived in the desert Cah at the joke without needing to have it explained to her I had wanted to go sexy, really impress him, and show him how interested I was, but I wasn’t quite sure what Cooper was planning So I figured the jeans and penguins—peng-ins as I called the the sexy boy had inme to the philharmonic, but somehow, I doubted it

I thought Cooper’s eyes ht fall out of his head when he saw me He seemed almost as surprised to see me at his office as I was to be there At least ere starting off on a point of agree

“Your car orI hadn’t actually had his baby sister abducted

“Yours,” I said with a coy wink

At least I hoped it was coy The truth wasthat hadn’t been within ten feet of a ot a pretty bad shimmy whenever I put it over fifty miles per hour Whatever it was that Cooper drove, it had to be better than my heap Besides which, one of the few lessons I had heard from my dad was how much pride a man could take in his car I didn’t know if Cooper was one such e my bets

I really didn’t knohat it was about this ued me so All I really did know about that situation, at least, was that I really wanted him to like me

Where he took me was a total shock I had heard stories about such places, even seen a few in ht I would have set foot, booted as it one all out too, authenticity apparently being the nahetti western version of authenticity I half expected Clint Eastearing a poncho to coh the door behind us The spurs on his boots h bells

“I’ve never really brought anyone here before The guys don’t really like the music or the atmosphere I tried with Camilla, but she just took one look at the name and insisted that I take her to Caesar’s Palace” Cooper shrugged “Probably because it was her birthday, and she was just old enough to gamble Cleaned up too I was surprised eren’t subtly asked to leave by large men in tuxedos with earpieces”

I could believe it Not just the part about Ca that really wouldn’t surprise me She would always kick ot to the point that no one really wanted to play with her anyh I wasn’t surprised that Cooper’s colleges weren’t interested in the music and athtly dirty, and not just in terms of cleanliness

The closest thing to the country I ever got growing up was olf club functions, where he would show me off like I was just another trophy If he’d hadabout Cooper, but I could tell froenuine I decided to put on a brave face It ave it a chance

It was an ale storht with Cooper, the eed on the bar counter like some kind of post-modern musical instrument To be fair, most of it had been taken in by Cooper, who appeared to have an endless tolerance for punishht have some kind of relation to Keith Jones, the hockey player

Iwine at first They’d had solass without ar, to the point that I suspected that they irl

“I suggest you switch to beer,” Cooper teased

I did, and it actually started to taste really good after the second or third bottle My contribution to the collection lagging well behind his I didn’t want to get drunk I was having way tooelse mattered