Brazing

by Lila Felix

  Chapter Six

  Tate

  Bridger’s deep southern lilt didn’t just float down my spine; it latched on with velvet and silk and caressed it, inch by so-slow inch. The shiver that rocked me to my core hit me in the same way; a sultry tingle that began at my nape and rolled over me until my toes curled and my breathing hitched.

  Where had that come from?

  Just hours ago, I had to blackmail him in order to get him here and now he was working on getting me to spontaneously orgasm in the middle of the stickiest, filthiest bar in Nashville.

  Good lord.

  I picked up his requested libation and turned equally as slowly around so that our bodies were nearly pressed chest-to-chest. God, I could feel the heat of his body wrap around me and the pure masculine strength that he pulsed with.

  For the record, this was not me. I did not swoon over boys, especially boys like Bridger Wright. I wanted my men to love fun as much as I did and to smile more than they could sulk. I wanted a man that embraced life and hunted down adventure. I wanted the life of the party and the optimist in every situation.

  Because, the Lord knew, I needed optimism in my life.

  I did not want Bridger’s constant frowns and gloomy forecast of thunderstorms. He was blotting out my perfect view of the sun and I didn’t like that I felt a sudden urge to buy rain boots and turn my face to the wind.

  I didn’t like any of that.

  That’s exactly why I lifted his short tumbler of straight vodka and took a generous sip. That’s exactly why I held his burning green eyes the entire time. And that’s exactly why I let my hip bump into his when Carter “accidentally” brushed by me.

  I couldn’t help it. I could admit that on occasion, I turned into a shameless flirt. But the night was young; hell, I was young. My twenties were made from nights like this and Bridger had the opportune advantage of being a childhood point of immature obsession.

  Why not make him suffer just a little bit?

  Just as soon as these butterflies quieted down.

  When my hip touched his, it met his fingers instead of the perfectly shaped bone that would be corded with muscle beneath his worn jeans. They immediately flexed inside his pocket and his eyes popped with the electrifying sensation. The touch had been simple, short and so very innocent.

  So then, why did my skin feel as if he’d lit me on fire and the flames had sucked all the oxygen from the room?

  “I have it right here,” I finally answered him.

  With stilted movements, he pulled that same hand from his pocket and took the water-beaded glass from my hand. Our fingers brushed, but I had a feeling the touch had been purely accidental. Bridger’s attention focused directly on my face, but instead of the interested expression that had heated my belly and touched me in a very physical way, he now looked at me like he was a detective and I was a homicidal murderer caught with a knife plunged deeply in my latest victim.

  So… not in a good way.

  Grumpy Bridger had joined us this evening.

  Time for a distraction.

  I leaned in so that he could hear me over the raucous of the bar and the terrible bellowing from the karaoke machine. I took up my whisky and lemonade from the bartender and held it out to him. He took it, looking down at my deceptively girly drink with mild disgust.

  I smiled. I couldn’t help it.

  I didn’t want to find his bad attitude so compelling, but there was something about that little-boy pout that reminded me of the little-girl crush I’d once had on him.

  “Better get that table now so you can enjoy the show!” I shouted over the music.

  “What show?” His thick brows dipped over those electric eyes and the corners of his lips turned down.

  I winked at him and blindly grabbed at Carter’s hand behind me. I yanked her with me as she tripped in her four-inch heels and sloshed her drink on some unsuspecting patrons. Not missing a beat, she righted herself and dropped her drink off on an empty table as I hurried her toward the stage.

  “I thought we weren’t singing tonight!” she hollered at me.

  I tossed a smirk over my shoulder and shouted back, “I’m feeling inspired!”

  “God, I love it when you get all spunky and spontaneous!”

  We giggled and linked elbows. Walking straight up to the pair of guys standing near the stage pretending like they could care less they were next in line. I decided to use their too-cool-for-school attitude to my advantage. The girl on stage started the last chords of her upbeat pop song and the DJ pulled out two mics to pass off on the ballers with their gold chains and exposed boxers.

  Bleh, did guys really think girls still went for the slobbish-gangster look?

  Not this girl.

  Give me a boy in well-worn jeans and a snugly fit t-shirt every day of the week. Add in some super-sexy cowboy boots and tussled, bed-head hair and I was a goner.

  Oh, shit. I’d just described Bridger!

  What was wrong with me?!?

  Focus, Tate.

  “Hey, guys,” Carter started with the guys holding the mics. They looked a little green with stage fright. That was the thing about most people and karaoke. Everyone that thought they held any degree of talent wanted to go on stage and show it to the world, but only in theory. In reality, standing in front of a room full of people, baring your soul and singing your guts out was the worst kind of torture known to man. That was a fact. A tried and true fact.

  Don’t argue with me.

  It was at this point, just mere feet from the stage, with the hot lights melting your face and the mic a live explosive in your hands, that people started to form serious second-thoughts.

  Luckily, neither Carter nor I were bound by silly things like insecurity or fear.

  At least with a little liquid courage and each other to hold onto, anyway.

  “Hey,” they answered her in unison.

  “So, see our friend over there?” I asked. “He has to leave in a few minutes and we promised to serenade him for his birthday. Do you care if we cut in line and take your song? We know it’s a rude thing to ask but-”

  The mics were shoved into our hands. “Take it,” one of them demanded.

  And then they disappeared into the crowd without a backward glance.

  “Well, that was easier than I thought.”

  “You’re going to hell for all those lies. You know that, right?” Carter laughed.

  I shook my head and let my ridiculous curls fly. “Mmm-mmm, no way. Jesus’ favorite people were sinners. It was all those religious guys he couldn’t stand.” I grinned at her and waited for her next smart-ass remark.

  Before she could come up with something snarky, the stage cleared and our turn was up. I looked at the monitor that revealed our song and burst into laughter. Carter joined me when she saw the title of our song.

  Oh, gosh, no wonder these guys had chickened out.

  I grinned at my partner in crime and then turned my attention to Bridger as he sat alone at a small table in the middle of the room. His arms were crossed against his chest and his drink had been drained. He looked obnoxiously uncomfortable. Part of me loved that he got so easily unsettled- especially if I was the one doing the unsettling. But the other part of me hated that he seemed so itchy in his own skin.

  There was something seriously going on with this boy and I decided karaoke was just step numero uno in my new crusade to save Bridger Wright from himself.

  Maybe I needed a little cloud cover in my life to save me from skin cancer- or, er, all the cancers. And maybe Bridger needed some sunshine in his world.

  “All right, stop,” I rapped as the familiar music popped to life in the speakers all around me. “Collaborate and listen. Ice is back with my brand new invention…”

  Thankfully, as Carter and I rapped our little hearts out to Ice, Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice, the music drowned out our own voices. Sure, the room would be able to hear them no problem with the amplifie
rs and mics, but our own ears were blissfully lost in the soundtrack.

  Carter and I laughed throughout the song but hit most of the lyrics. I couldn’t sing any better than a stray dog howling at the moon, but my rapping skills were surprisingly skilled.

  Plus, Carter and I loved to dance, so there was plenty of that on stage. By the time I shouted out, “Word to your mother!” the entire place was on their feet shouting and clapping for us.

  I threw my head back and laughed at their easy praise. Talented we were not, but our entertainment value could not be beat.

  We passed our mics off to the DJ and jumped off stage. Two guys headed straight for us as soon as our feet touched the ground. They were both attractive and easily eye-catching with their pretty boy looks and clean cut style. By the familiarity they eyed Carter with, I had no doubt this was Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. So I ducked under one of their arms and darted off for Bridger.

  I would be courteous later, but right now I had to see Bridger’s reaction to my impromptu rapping. I’d lost sight of him when everyone stood up, plus I’d been a little wrapped up in the music.

  When I finally pushed through to the table I’d spotted him at earlier, he sat there with his arms still crossed and his legs stretched out. A bored expression twisted his lips downward and even though I knew he could see my red curls and vibrantly cherry-red mini skirt, not to mention my favorite pair of purple cowboy boots, out of the corner of his eye, he refused to turn to look at me.

  So I did the only thing I could think of.

  I let out a weary sigh and plopped myself right down in Bridger’s lap. When his head snapped my way out of shock and not a little bit of horror, I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him on the forehead.

  “You’re next,” I told him. “I signed you up for Celine Dion. You’ve got about five minutes to get ready.” He sputtered and his mouth made these fish-out-of-water movements that made me laugh hysterically. “I’m completely kidding! Do not have a heart attack on me! My Granddaddy would for sure condemn me to hell if I killed you!”

  His lips twitched like he wanted to smile, but the only thing I got out of him was a mumble that sounded suspiciously like, “It’s not the heart attack that’s going to kill me, it’s this damn skirt.”

  That made me exceedingly happy.

  “Not a fan of bad-nineties-rap? Or were you just disappointed that you’ll never rap as well as me?” I pulled back my arms because he’d started to look a little panicky and I wasn’t kidding before, I really didn’t want him to die on me. That would be so bad for my afterlife.

  “Who are you, Tatum Halloway? And what did you do with the girl I used to know?” He looked at me with a mixture of awe and confusion and something deeper, something that looked like fear and hurt and despair. I wanted to smooth all those rough lines on his handsome face and promise him that she was still in me somewhere, that I hadn’t completely lost the once-innocent-and-naïve-tomboy I used to be.

  But that wasn’t entirely true. I’d done everything in my power to erase that little girl’s virtue from my soul and I’d replaced her with a free spirit that knew exactly who she was and what she wanted. There had been nothing wrong with that good little girl, but there had been a hell of a lot of bad in the girl in between that one and this one. And after that, there had been a hell of a lot of growing up before I’d become the girl I am today.

  It wasn’t that I mourned my lost innocence, but I wasn’t ignorant enough to believe I could go back. Life had happened in between then and now. A lot of life. A lot of scary, eye-opening life that had forced me to mature and demanded I dig down deep and figure out exactly who I am. So I embraced this “me.” I stepped into this skin and decided I never wanted to leave. Maybe I would mature, maybe I would become wiser and more experienced, but I would never give up who I was or who I wanted to be. Not ever again.

  So to Bridger, I said, “Obviously, I killed her and then fed her body to the pigs.” He blanched at my morbid reply and I started giggling all over again. For being such a downer, he made me laugh constantly. I swatted his chest for letting my candidness bother him. “She grew up, Bridger Wright. Same with the obnoxious little boy you used to be. Life happened and we stopped being those silly kids and started being us, who we are today.”

  “And you’re just happy with who you are today, aren’t you?” He seemed mildly amused by that fact.

  And cocky because he knew he was right.

  So, I decided it was time to throw him off balance again. “I’m pretty happy with who you are today, too.”

  He all but dumped me on the floor as he tried to jump from his seat.

  “Ah!” I screamed as his body moved into standing and mine slid off his lap, which had disappeared into muscular thighs bent akimbo. I flailed and headed gracelessly toward the ground.

  He caught me under the armpits right before my ass landed on probably three decades of congealed cheap beer.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled as he helped me to stand.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” I told him as soon as we were as eye-to-eye as we could ever be. He was so tall that I had to crane my neck up to look at him.

  He snorted. “You didn’t scare me.”

  “You all but threw me off your lap! Am I just that repugnant?”

  He snorted again and his eyes darted down to my little red skirt- that had ridden up higher than it should have. Oops. I smoothed it down and raised an eyebrow at him.

  “You’re not repugnant, Darlin,’” he said in a deeper-than-usual tone. He kept his eyes focused on mine this time, without another inappropriate glance. We stared at each other, locked in some kind of unspoken staring contest. Somehow this was more intimate than anything else that had happened tonight. This burned into me as hot as fire and flickered with some secret of his that he would never tell me. A secret so deeply buried, I wondered if I would ever find out.

  This time the tremble started in my ankles and slid upward over my thighs and across my belly. I shook out my curls to hide my reaction, but the shade of red his face turned made focusing on anything but his lips extra hard.

  “There you are!” Carter’s happy voice shouted behind me. “You just ran off, I didn’t know where you went!”

  I forcefully tore my eyes from Bridger’s and back to my best friend who was now flanked by those same two guys that could not have been more different from my childhood nemesis than if they were aliens and Bridger was a grizzly bear. They silently screamed of different upbringings and flashed with dissimilar impending-futures. Bridger on one cliff, Sawyer and his friend on the other. An endless gorge of contrasts and convictions kept them separated.

  The thing was, it wasn’t even money that separated these guys. I knew Sawyer and his friend had money just from looking at them. They were clearly well-classed and not wanting for anything. But my Grams had told me the same thing about Bridger. Stockton, Bridger’s older brother, had recently expanded his father’s business and the entire Wright family had benefited.

  No, it wasn’t money that separated them, it was something much more intrinsic, something innately them, something they couldn’t separate from who they were if they tried.

  Carter’s guys were all refined gentlemen and clean-cut pretty boys. Bridger was salt and earth; southern gentlemen in a way that proudly wore hard work and honest labor like a badge of honor or a blue ribbon around his neck. Carter’s men were gym-muscles and name brand clothing. Bridger boasted hard-earned strength and just enough rough edges to make him sharp enough to do serious damage.

  Carter’s guys were safe.

  Bridger was the pinnacle of a precipice and the top of a mountain.

  Carter’s guys were bright, happy and boring.

  Bridger was a dark, swirling abyss of something dangerous and forbidden.

  I had given up playing it safe when I was fourteen-years-old.

  And then I’d given up gambling with my life when I’d turned seventeen be
cause I needed all the life I could get.

  So why-oh-why was I ready to take a flying leap off Bridger’s brink just to see if he would reach out one of those carnal, masculine hands to catch me?

  “This is Jake,” Carter hitched a thumb at the guy on her left. “And this is Sawyer, the guy I’ve been telling you about!” She winked obviously. Typical Carter. To the guys she said, “This is Tate and her friend Bridger.”

  Sawyer- a guy with wavy, pomade swept hair and two dimples that offset his chiseled features- reached for my hand and shook it firmly but familiarly. “Hi, Tate, I know we just met, but I feel like I already know you from how much Carter is always talking about you.”

  Oh, geez. Not a pick up line.

  I smiled politely and turned subtly so that Bridger could be included, too. “Don’t believe a word of it,” I ordered Sawyer.

  Bridger leaned in and shared a conspiratorial look with Sawyer. “Believe every word of it,” he told the guy. “This one’s trouble.”

  My mouth came unhinged and I stared at Bridger. Had he really just passed me off to some random guy from Carter’s Econ class?

  The nerve!

  I had just been dismissed. By Bridger Wright.

  Again!

  Sawyer laughed at Bridger’s joke and then the two men reached out and shook hands.

  Before I go on, it is important to note the boy-behavior in this particular scenario. They did not growl at each other, they did not gnash teeth or throw me over their shoulders like caveman or bucks fighting for the doe they both set their sights on during rooting season. They simply shook hands, made jokes at my expense and went on with their lives.

  There were some men that would have acted like alpha-douchebags if presented with that awkward introduction. And there were a lot of catty girls who would have acted worse.

  But the truth was that neither of these guys had any claim over me or my dating life and instead of baring their knuckles and smashing beer bottles over each other’s head, they’d tucked whatever aspirations they had for me away and made an effort to be cordial with each other.

  And in the end it worked.

  Because not only had they been kind to each other, but they’d forced me respect the hell out of both of them!

  I tuned back into their mundane conversation when Bridger announced, “Thanks for the invite, Tate, but I should get going.”

  “Yeah?” I asked with a hand on my hip and fingers tapping impatiently against the silk of my skirt. “You got things to do?”

  “That I do,” he nodded and took a step back.

  I didn’t believe him, but I wasn’t going to make a public scene about it.

  “Homework?” I pressed.

  “Always.”

  “You’re leaving this for homework?” I asked incredulously.

  He shrugged a helpless shoulder and I noticed for the first time how tortured his eyes looked. Hmm…

  “I’m leaving this place before you make me perform Celine Dion,” he tried to joke. “Careful, Sawyer, she’s been trying to make me sing female power ballads all night. Don’t let her con you into it.”

  Sawyer laughed.

  Butt out, Sawyer! Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?

  “Fine, leave!” I shouted playfully. “I’ll sing It’s All Coming Back to Me by myself!”

  He had made it almost to the door when he called out. “I’m just sorry I’m going to miss it.”

  “Don’t worry,” I warned him. “I’ll call you tomorrow and tell you all about it!”

  He didn’t say another word. He just turned and left. But not before I caught the look of pure terror on his face after my threat.

  I wanted to toss my head back and let out an evil cackle.

  Oh, Bridger. We were so not done with this.

  Well, metaphysically I meant that.

  Practically-speaking, we were definitely over. He’d already left. And I had been forced to turn back to Sawyer and have a grownup conversation that required me to refrain from making all those classic Mark Twain jokes that sat idling on the tip of my tongue.

  Like I said, Sawyer was perfectly nice.

  Perfectly nice just wasn’t what I was looking for.

  Bridger might be the darkest rain cloud on the darkest day but now that he’d removed his presence from the bar, I felt more down in the dumps than ever. Was that how this worked? Or just how Bridger worked? Did he somehow superheat his raincloud so it gave off warmth instead of chill and safety instead of paranoia and fear?

  If so, that was what I missed. Not anything but that comfortable heat I felt whenever I was near him and the mostly-uncomfortable tingling he brought out of me.

  “Are you really going to sing Celine Dione?” Sawyer shouted at me over the screeching background vocals.

  I smiled at him and shook my head. “Not for another…” I glanced at the clock and then at my drink, “five drinks. At least.”

  He threw his head back and let out a big laugh. When he met my gaze again, he was smiling a very charming grin at me and seemed to be genuinely amused. “In another five or so drinks, you might be able to convince me to join you.”

  I laughed too just as my stomach took a sharp dip and a cold line of sweat broke out on my forehead. No… No, no, no, no, no! The nausea hit me so hard that I swayed forward and just barely caught myself on the edge of the table.

  “Whoa, there,” Sawyer, grabbed my arm to steady me. “You alright?”

  Crap. This was not exactly first date material.

  I looked up and tried to smile at him. “I, uh, man, that drink really caught up to me! I’m such a lightweight! I was so kidding about all that before.” I pressed my lips together and swallowed like thirty times in quick succession to keep from puking all over poor Sawyer’s jeans.

  “Oh, no!” And to give him some points, he sounded really bummed out. “Are you sure someone didn’t put something in your drink? I don’t mean this in a bad way, but you look really bad.”

  I let out a bark of bitter laughter. I knew he was right. Going by experience, I bet I was a lovely shade of putrid yellow right about now and the sweat beading on my upper lip probably the most attractive thing he’d seen all day.

  “Someone definitely put something in my drink,” I mumbled. “Just not tonight.” I stood up on shaky legs. It was only going to get worse from here on out. The actually being sick part of my treatment wasn’t supposed to hit me so soon. I’d only just gone in. Dumb, stupid, life-saving drugs that screwed with my social life.

  “You alright, T?” Carter asked from across the table.

  I shook my head and pulled on my earlobe casually- our signature sign for I-have-to-leave-now-don’t-try-to-stop-me. “I hit a wall. I need to get back to the dorm before I start making really bad decisions.” I winked at Sawyer. He looked terrified. I didn’t know if it was because clearly something was wrong with me and I was trying to play it off or if he was that disturbed by my attempt at sexy.

  “Do you need help?” Carter was already standing and gathering her purse.

  “No!” I all but screamed at her. The last thing I wanted was for my smoking hot, super healthy roommate to spend her Friday night trapped in a stuffy room the size of an outhouse tending to me and all my stupid needs. She was young and gorgeous and her white count was normal, she should definitely stay out and make the best of that. “I’ll be fine,” I promised her. “As long as I leave now.”

  “Tate, seriously-”

  I cut her off with a wave of my hand. “Carter, for real, it’s just a couple blocks. Stay. Have fun. Sing Celine! I’ll catch up with you later, yeah?”

  She nodded slowly, her resignation to my wishes the sign of a true friend. “Yeah.”

  Another intense wave of nausea crashed over me and I closed my eyes to fight off the dizziness. “It was really nice to meet you, Sawyer. I’m sorry I’m such a drunk lush.”

  “It’s fine, Tate,” he rushed to assure me. I hear
d him stand and then his big hands cupped my biceps in an effort to steady me. “I’m really glad we got to meet though. Carter has been telling me so much about you. I’m just sorry you feel so-”

  My eyes popped open and I sprinted from the bar. I could not hear him say the word “sick” out loud or I really was going to be sick. As horrible as I felt, the motivation to throw up in my own toilet was enough to spur me on.

  I flat out refused to puke in the bushes.

  It looked like Bridger wasn’t the only one going home early tonight. I had a late-night date with the porcelain bowl and my hot water bottle.