See Jane Score by Rachel Gibson

lights left over from Christmas was still taped to the mirror. It smelled of smoke and booze, barbeque sauce and roasted meat. If Jane hadn’t already eaten, her stomach would have growled.
    Jane knew that by being seen with Darby, she ran the risk of adding fuel to the rumor that they were lovers, but she also figured that there was nothing she could do about it. And she wondered which was worse, being seen as the lover of a man who dressed like a pimp, or as the mistress of Virgil Duffy, a man old enough to be her grandfather.
    Pinball machines pinged and flashed and she recognized two Chinooks playing air hockey in the corner. About five Seattle players sat at the bar, watching the Rangers battle it out with the Devils. Another half dozen sat at a table with a pitcher of beer, empty tubs of coleslaw, and Fred Flintstone–sized piles of stripped rib bones.
    â€œHey, guys,” Darby called out. At the sound of his voice, they turned their attention toward Darby and Jane. The hockey players looked like cavemen after feasting on a woolly mammoth, all full and content and sluggish, but they didn’t look too happy to see Darby, and even less happy to see her.
    â€œJane and I felt like a beer,” he continued as if he didn’t notice. He pulled out a chair for her, and she sat next to Bruce Fish and across from the rookie with the blond Mohawk. Darby sat to her left at the head of the table. The red flames and purple skulls on his shirt were subdued somewhat by the dim lighting.
    A waitress with a tight Big Buddy’s T-shirt set two cocktail napkins on the table and took Darby’s order. As soon as he uttered the word Corona, he was instantly carded. A scowl drew his red brows togther as he flashed his identification.
    â€œThat’s fake,” someone down the table said. “He’s only twelve.”
    â€œI’m older than you, Peluso,” Darby grumbled and shoved his driver’s license back into his wallet.
    The waitress turned her attention to Jane.
    â€œBet she orders a margarita,” Fishy said out of the corner of his mouth.
    â€œOr one of those wine spritzers,” someone else added.
    â€œSomething fruity.”
    Jane looked up into the shadowy face of the waitress. “Do you have Bombay Sapphire gin?”
    â€œSure do.”
    â€œFabulous. I’d like a dirty martini with three olives, please.” She glanced at the stunned faces around her and smiled. “A girl’s gotta get her daily allowance of green veggies.”
    Bruce Fish laughed. “Maybe you should order a Bloody Mary for the celery.”
    Jane grimaced and shook her head. “I don’t like tomato juice.” She looked across the table at Daniel Holstrom. The lights from the bar cast a reddish pink glow in his white-blond Mohawk. She wondered if the young rookie was twenty-one yet. She had her doubts.
    Two more waitresses in Big Buddy’s T-shirts appeared and cleared and cleaned the table. Jane half expected flirting and a proposition or two—jocks were notorious for rude behavior toward women—but nothing happened besides a few polite thank yous. Conversation took place over and around Jane and involved nothing more important or more pressing than the latest movie they’d seen and the weather. She wondered if they were trying to bore her to death. She suspected that might be the case, and she could honestly say the most interesting thing going on was the flash of lights on Daniel’s scalp.
    Bruce must have noticed her attention to the Swede’s head because he asked, “What do you think of The Stromster’s hair?”
    She thought she detected a blush on Daniel’s cheeks to match the pink tint of his hair. “I like a man who is so secure in his own masculinity that he can dare to be different.”
    â€œHe didn’t have much of a choice,” Darby explained as his beer and Jane’s martini arrived. “He’s new to