Nora Roberts - Times Change

“We’ll talk about that later, too.”

With her arm through his, she crossed the broken sidewalk. The swatch of formfitting leather didn’t provide much protection against the wind, but it felt good to wear something other than jeans. It felt even better to note how often Jacob’s gaze skimmed over her legs.

The cold was forgotten when she opened the door to a blast of heat and music.

“Ah . . . civilization.”

He saw only a dim room dazzled by intermittent flashes of light. The music was every bit as loud as she’d promised, pulsing with bass, blaring with horns. He could smell smoke and liquor, sweat and perfume. Through it all was the constant din of voices and laughter.

While he took it in, she passed their coats to the checker on duty and slipped the stub in her bag.

She was right. He’d needed it—not just the sensory stimulation, not just the anonymous crowd, but also the firsthand look at twentieth-century socializing.

Overall there was very little difference from what he might have found in his own time. People, then and then, tended to gather together for their entertainment. They wanted music and company, food and drink. Times might change, but people’s needs were basically the same.

“Come on.” She was dragging him through the crowd to where tables were crammed together on two levels. On the first was a long bar. There was a man rather than a synthetic behind it, serving drink and setting out bowls filled with some kind of finger food. People crowded there, hip to hip.

On the second level was a half circle of stage where the musicians performed. Jacob counted eight of them, in various kinds of dress, holding instruments that pitched a wall of sound that roared out of tall boxes on either corner of the stage.

In front of them, on a small square of floor, tangles of arms and legs and bodies twisted in various ways to the beat. He noted the costumes they chose and saw that there was no standard. Snug pants and baggy ones, long skirts and brief ones, vivid colors and unrelieved black. Women wore shoes flat to the floor or, like Sunny, shoes with slender spikes at the back.

He imagined this meant those particular women wanted to be taller. But it had the side effect of making it very pleasant to look at their legs.

He appreciated the style of nonconformity, the healthy expression of individual tastes. He knew there had been a space of time between this and his own when society in general had accepted a uniform. A brief period, Jacob mused, but it must have been a miserably dull one.

As he stood and observed, waitresses in short skirts bustled on both levels, balancing trays and scribbling the orders shouted at them.

Inefficient, he thought, but interesting. It was simpler to press a button on an order box and receive your requirements from a speedy droid. But it was a bit friendlier this way.

With her hand in his, Sunny led him up a short flight of curving stairs and began to scout around for an empty table. “I forgot it was Saturday night,” she shouted at him. “It’s always a madhouse on Saturdays.”

“Why?”

“Date night, pal,” she said, and laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ll squeeze in somewhere.” But she abandoned her search to smile at him. “What do you think?”

He lifted a hand to toy with the trio of balls that hung from slender chains at her ears. “I like it.”

“The Marauders are good. The band.” She gestured as the sax player went into a screaming solo. “They’re very hot out here.”

“In here,” he corrected. “It’s hot in here.”

“No, I mean . . . Never mind.” Someone bumped her from behind. Taking it in stride, she wound her arms around Jacob’s neck. “I guess this is our first date.”

He ignored the crowd and kissed her. “How’s it going so far?”

“Just dandy.”

Taking that to mean “good,” he kissed her again. Her satisfied sigh set off a chain reaction inside him. “We could always just stand here,” he said, directly in her ear. “I don’t think anyone would notice.”

“You were right,” she said on another sigh. “It is hot in here. Maybe we should just—”

“Sunny!” Someone caught her by the waist, spun her around and, ending on a dip, pressed a hard, wet kiss to her mouth. “Baby, you’re back.”

“Marco.”

“What’s left of me. I’ve been pining away for weeks.” He slung a friendly arm around her shoulders. “Where’d you disappear to?”

“The mountains.” She smiled, pleased to see him. He was skinny, unpretentious and harmless. Despite the dramatic kiss, they had decided years before not to complicate their friendship with romance. “How’s the real world?”

“Dog-eat-dog, love. Thank God.” He glanced over her shoulder and found himself being burned alive by a pair of direct green eyes. “Ah . . . who’s your friend?”

“J.T.” She laid a hand on Jacob’s arm. “This is Marco, an old poker buddy. You don’t want to play with J.T., Marco. He’s murder.”

Marco didn’t have to be told twice. “How ya doing?” He didn’t offer his hand, because he wanted to keep it.

“All right.” Jacob measured him. He figured if the man kissed Sunny again it would be simple enough to break his skinny neck.

“J.T. happens to be the brother of my sister’s husband.”

“Small world.”

Jacob didn’t bat an eye. “Smaller than you think.”

“Right.” If Marco had been wearing a tie he would have loosened it. But with his collar already open he didn’t have a clue how to ease the constriction in his throat. “Listen, do you guys need a table?”

“Absolutely.”

“We pulled some together back there, if you want to climb in.”

“Okay.” She looked up at Jacob. “Okay?”

“Sure.” He was already annoyed with himself. The jealousy had been an emotional rather than an intellectual reaction. He watched Sunny’s long legs as she walked between the tables. And an entirely justified reaction. Maybe men had progressed, but they had always been, would always be, territorial.

Half a dozen people greeted Sunny by name as they stopped at the table. Because most of the introductions were lost in the roar of the music, Jacob only nodded as he took his seat.

“This round’s on me,” Marco announced when he finally managed to flag down a waitress. “Same thing,” he told her. “Plus a glass of chardonnay for the lady and . . .” He lifted a brow at Jacob.

“A beer. Thanks.”

“No problem. I sold three cars today.”

“Good for you.” Sunny leaned over a bit, easily pitching her voice above the noise as she elaborated for Jacob’s benefit. “Marco’s a car dealer.”

Jacob got the image of Marco shuffling automobiles, then passing them around a poker table. “Congratulations” seemed the safest possible comment.

“I do okay. Just let me know if you’re in the market. We got in a shipment of real honeys this week.”

Jacob spared a glance at the brunette on his other side as she rubbed her arm against his. “I’ll do that.”

Relieved that Sunny’s new friend no longer looked as though he wanted to rearrange his face, Marco shifted his chair a little closer. “So what do you drive, J.T.?”

There was a universal moan around the table. Marco accepted it with a good-natured shrug and popped a handful of peanuts into his mouth.

“Hey, it’s my job.”

“Like taking little old ladies for test drives is a job,” someone joked.

“It’s a living.” Marco grinned. “None of us are rocket scientists.”

“J.T. is,” Sunny said.

“Are you?” The brunette scooted her chair closer.

She had big brown eyes, Jacob noted. Eyes that just brimmed with invitations. “In a manner of speaking.”