I nodded dumbly, a fist tightening around my heart. Hope filled me. The hope that one day he would look up and see me as that someone special.
“Sure.” I carefully sipped my hot latte. “I get that.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Enough about me. What about you? Are you seeing anyone?” He winked. “Anyone I need to give the once-over, make sure they treat you right?”
My face heated and I looked down at my cup, toying with the edge of the lid. “You don’t have to do that.”
I didn’t know whether it was a good or bad thing—him adopting a protective role. If his motives were more selfish than altruistic it would be a good thing. Unfortunately, he’d always looked out for me in the same way he looked out for his sister. It was sweet, but only served to underscore his very platonic interest in me. I wanted, needed, him to look at me like a flesh-and-blood girl . . . someone he protected because he wanted me for himself.
“And there isn’t anyone anyway,” I added.
“Yeah. Well, when you do meet someone make sure he treats you right, Pepper. You deserve that.” His eyes softened, but not for the right reasons. Not because he saw me. His velvety brown eyes weren’t softening because he was overcome with tenderness for the me sitting in front of him right now.
No. Looking at me, he saw twelve-year-old me. And the absolute suck that was my world—my past. A dead father. A mother God knows where. Growing up with a grandmother in her retirement community was a far cry from his idyllic life. He pitied me.
“Well, I guess I’ll get Emerson her drink.” My throat suddenly thick, I stood, securing my bag around me before bending to collect the drinks from the round table in front of me. He followed me to the door, holding it open for me.
Stepping outside after me, he gave me a quick hug, mindful of my cups. “Good talking to you. See you around, Pepper.”
“Yeah, you, too.” My bright smile slipped as he turned away. I watched him move down the sidewalk, merging with the traffic of students.
I stood there, blocking the entrance to the coffee shop until I couldn’t make out the back of him anymore. Until he became lost from sight.
All the emotion, all the desperation I felt last night surged through me again. It came back with a vengeance. I knew what I had to do. If I was going to get him to look at me differently, minus the pity, I had to be different.
Chapter 5
There he is.” Emerson shook her head. “I can’t believe I gave him to you. He’s so damn hot.” She nudged me encouragingly and waggled one of her finely arched eyebrows. “You better climb all over that or I’m going to punch you. No backing down.”
I stood several yards back from the bar, tucked half behind Emerson as I scoped out the bartender undetected. Her words didn’t faze me. “You know the small matter of his interest in me, or lack of interest, might come into play.”
She looked back at me. “You’re kidding, right? You look good tonight. Better than most of these overdone peahens prancing around in here shaking their tail feathers his way. You’ve got something they don’t.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “Yes. You’ve got . . .” She paused, searching for the word. “ . . . a freshness to you.”
I winced, feeling rather as if she’d just called me a “nice girl.” I couldn’t seem to escape that moniker.
The bartender (I really needed to learn his name) wore another Mulvaney’s T-shirt, this one a soft-looking gray cotton with blue script across the chest. I had a flash of myself wearing that shirt and nothing else, wrapped up in his scent. Wrapped up in him. Sucking in a breath, I shook off the wicked image. Probably every girl who walked up to him entertained that fantasy—along with a few choice others that I probably didn’t need to visualize. That thought made me feel decidedly un-special. I had to somehow stand out from the rest of them, and I wasn’t convinced my freshness would do the trick.
He looked as good as ever if my memory served. Better. A body made for sin and a face that was too masculine to be beautiful, but the sight of it did something to me. Made me feel boneless and trembly all over.
“No backing down,” I echoed, my resolve still there, burning hot inside me, keeping me from turning and running out of the building.
It was just the two of us tonight. Georgia was off with Harris.
“Okay,” Em announced. “I think we’ve reconned long enough. Let’s move in.”
Her words sent a wave of panic washing through me. “It’s crowded . . .”
“It’s crowded every night. Unless you want to come stalk him on a Monday. Assuming he’s even working then.”
I shook my head. No. No more delays.
“Let’s go then. You should feel good. You look great.”
I glanced down. The jeans I wore belonged to Georgia. They were too tight, but Emerson said that was the whole point. You’ve got the perfect curves. Show them off. The blouse was Georgia’s, too. Various shades of orange and yellow. Very bohemian in style and flouncy. Emerson vowed that it went great with my hair. It was wide-necked, and every time I pulled it up over one shoulder, it slipped down the other one. Again, the whole point, according to Emerson.
As we inched toward the bar, Emerson shoved me in front of her. There were only three people working the counter, and we made certain to approach the side he was working.
I watched as he poured beer into a pitcher, admiring the flex of his bicep. His gaze lifted and scanned the bar, the way I’d noticed him do last night. Surveying, assessing the crowd. Maybe for trouble? Those pale blue eyes passed over me for a split second before jerking back.
He smiled crookedly. “Hey, it’s Nice Girl. How’s it going?”
“Nice girl?” Emerson hissed in my ear. “Okay, clearly you did not tell me everything about last night if he’s already given you a nickname!”
I elbowed her, unsure how to respond to his greeting. I smiled. “Hi.”
He handed off the pitcher, collected the money, and turned to me. “What can I get you?”
I ordered two longnecks. He glanced at Emerson. “ID?”
I watched her as she dug in her purse and pulled out her fake ID. When I looked back up it was to catch him looking at me. He looked away, giving her ID a cursory scan before moving to fetch our drinks.
“So hot,” Emerson muttered near my ear as he bent to grab them from the back chest. “And he was eyeing you. Did you see that?”
I shook my head, unconvinced, but my heart beat a hard rhythm in my chest.
“Slip him your number.”
My gaze swung to her. “What? Just like that?”
“Well, you’ll know if he’s interested by his reaction. Maybe he’ll call. Or he won’t. Either way, you can get this thing off the ground or move on to someone more receptive.”
I bit my lip, contemplating. The only problem was that I had decided it would be him. He would be my test subject. If he wasn’t receptive I didn’t feel like moving on—I didn’t want to. And where did that leave me?
Sighing, Emerson dug around in her purse.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, looking in his direction and confirming he was heading back our way.
Shaking her head, she pulled out an eyeliner pencil and snatched a thin square napkin off the stack sitting on the bar. Lightning fast, she scrawled my name and number.
I felt my eyes bulge. “Stop! No!” My hand dove for her arm, but she angled herself away from me, standing on her tiptoes and stretching out her arm.
“Here you go,” she called just as my fingers clamped down on her wrist.
“Em, no!”
Too late. I watched as long, masculine fingers took the napkin from her. My gaze followed that hand up to the bartender as he set our drinks down single-handedly. Bile rose up my throat.
I heard Emerson’s voice beside me as though from far away. “This is her number.”
Her. Me. The girl with the face as red as a tomato.
His gaze moved from the napkin to me. Those
silvery blue eyes fixed on me. He flicked the napkin in my direction. “You want me to have this?”
He waited, his expression blank. The ball was in my court. Without giving me the slightest indication of whether he even wanted my number, he was asking me what I wanted.
I stammered out the words. “Uh, n-yes. Well, sure. Whatever.”
Lame. I felt like a thirteen-year-old girl. My face burned.
“She wants you to have it,” Emerson insisted from beside me.
If possible my face grew hotter. He leaned forward, setting his elbows on the bar, his gaze fastened on me with searing intensity. “Are you giving me this?”
Apparently whatever wasn’t going to work for him.
The air ceased to flow in and out of my lungs. I felt myself nod dumbly. Emerson elbowed me discreetly. “Yes,” finally spilled from my lips.
He straightened. Without another word, he slipped the napkin into his pocket, took the money that Emerson handed him for our drinks, and turned away to another customer.
With one hand on my arm, Emerson dragged me away. I risked another look back at the bar, searching for him among the multitude of heads bobbing up to the front of the counter for their drink order. I spotted him. He was pouring more beer, holding the lever down. But he wasn’t looking at what he was doing. He was looking at me.
He so wants you.”
I glared at Emerson as I took a pull from my longneck, forgetting that I wasn’t a fan of the taste. I was too annoyed. “I can’t believe you embarrassed me like that.” As the words spilled out of me, I deliberately trained my eyes on her to keep myself from glancing at him across the room again.
“We had to get things moving. Nothing was going to happen if you just ordered, paid, and moved on.”
I frowned, leaning one hip against the pool table. I refused to admit she had a point. Or that maybe he would call me now. He had put my number in his pocket, after all. Or was that just simple politeness? To spare my feelings. Maybe he’d thrown it away already.
“God.” I lifted my fingers and rubbed at the center of my forehead where a dull ache was forming.
She patted my back. “I know. It’s hard being a girl who actually emerges from her dorm room and talks to sexy boys.”
The guy beside Emerson nudged her, bumping her hip. “Hey, hot stuff, your shot.”
Turning, she lined up her pool stick and prepared her shot, earning a lot of stares when she bent over, thrusting her bottom up in the air to the appreciative gazes of nearby guys, specifically the two that had invited us to play pool with them.
The ball plunged into the pocket with a whoosh.
“Nice!” Ryan—or Bryan?—high-fived her, clinging to her fingers longer than necessary.
Emerson didn’t seem to mind. He was cute. I could tell she thought so, too, by the way she arched her throat when she laughed.
Unfortunately, his friend seemed into me, and I didn’t think he was cute. Or maybe he was. I just wasn’t into him. There was only one guy here that caught my interest and I’d just humiliated myself in front of him. I had actually muttered “whatever” when he asked me whether I wanted him to have my number. Not exactly the self-assured femme fatale I aspired to be. Really, I should just call it a night and go home now.
“You sure you don’t want to play?” He offered me a stick. I tried to view him with an open mind. After all, my phone number could be wadded up in a trash can right now. Whether I liked it or not, I might have to contemplate other alternatives in order to gain the experience I needed. A foul taste coated my mouth. Easier said than done. For whatever reason, the bartender was the only guy that I could consider kissing and touching without feeling mildly revolted.
The guy in front of me wasn’t bad-looking. A little pudgy-soft in the middle. Probably too many beers and late-night burritos. But youth was still on his side. He had nice symmetrical features. I predicted he’d be sixty pounds overweight in ten years, but right now he was okay.
“No, thanks. You guys already started anyway.”
He smiled, but looked disappointed.
For the next hour, I sat on a stool, watching as Emerson and Ryan/Bryan grew friendlier, laughing, talking, touching at every opportunity as they moved around the pool table. I made small talk with the friend. He stayed close even as he played pool, chatting me up and drinking steadily. Hopefully he wasn’t driving.
The crowd started to thin out around eleven.
“Bunch of big parties on frat row,” Scott—I had since learned his name—explained when I wondered aloud where everyone had disappeared to so early.
I nodded, but couldn’t help sneaking a glance down the length of the room toward the bar. I couldn’t resist. With the crowd dissipating, there was little to obstruct my view.
Only one bartender worked the counter, but it wasn’t him. I didn’t see my bartender anywhere. Was he on a break? Or did he cut out early? If he left early he could have talked to me. If he wanted to. Now I was convinced the napkin with my number was balled up on the floor. Stupid tears burned my eyes. I blinked them away furiously.
Taking a breath, I commanded myself to stop obsessing. He wasn’t the end goal, after all. Hunter was. I could find someone else to help give me the experience I was looking for.
“Can I get you another drink?” Scott asked, following my gaze to the bar.
I snapped my attention back to the pool table. Ryan/Bryan had Emerson in an intimate body lock, teaching her some move. I rolled my eyes.
“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”
“How about we get out of here?” Ryan/Bryan suggested, stepping back from the table and looking first at Emerson, then at me and Scott. Then again at Emerson.
The four of us leaving together? I could already see where this was headed. Emerson making out in some room with Ryan/Bryan and me stuck alone with Scott. No thanks.
Emerson and I stared at each other, silently communicating. She gave me the barest nod, understanding. I was ready to leave but not with these guys. That was the good thing about Emerson. She might be in sexual overdrive most of the time, but she never put our friendship on the back burner.
I slid off my stool. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”
Hopefully that would give her time to wrap things up with her guy and swap numbers. Or not. You could never really tell with Emerson. Sometimes I thought she was really into a guy and then she would drop him for no apparent reason. She once dumped a guy after a third date because he asked for a doggie bag at dinner. She claimed he was too comfortable with her if he did that. I didn’t think she cared that this made sense only to her. Personally, I thought she was scared to get too serious with a guy, but what did I know? I’d only kissed one guy in my life.
I crossed the room to the narrow hall leading to the bathrooms. They were single occupancy and there was usually a line, but not tonight. Once inside, I dropped the little hook in place, locking the door. Turning, I caught sight of my reflection and winced. As usual, my hair was out of control. I tried to arrange the russet-colored waves. Maybe it was time for a haircut. Layers or something.
Moments later, I finished washing my hands and pushed open the thick oak door, immediately spotting Scott waiting outside. At first I thought he was in line for the men’s room, but the way his gaze trained on me I realized he was waiting for me.
“Hey.” He pushed off the wall.
“Hey,” I murmured, stepping out into the narrow hall and wishing the light was better. The shadowy space made it feel too intimate.
He moved into my path. “Why don’t you and Em come back to our place?”
I shook my head. “I have to get up early.” I didn’t, of course. My shift at the daycare didn’t start until eleven, but he didn’t know that.
“Aw. C’mon.” He inched closer.
My back bumped the wall, rattling the picture frames and license plates that decorated it. I held up my hands in front of me as he encroached closer. “Uh, what are—”
He swept in then, p
lanting his lips on mine. I froze in shock. His sour tongue pushed between my lips and I gagged. I didn’t know if he was just too into the kiss and didn’t realize I wasn’t or he didn’t care. Or he was too drunk. Or maybe he thought I was going to have a change of heart after another minute of this and start returning his fervor. Whatever the case, his lips stayed firmly glued to mine, messier and sloppier than my last kiss. Damn it. You would think things would have improved since tenth grade.
I squeezed a hand out from between us. Curling my fingers into a fist, I beat him on the shoulder. He didn’t budge, and that’s when I felt the first thread of panic. Even as it worked its way through me, I told myself to stay calm. We were in a public place. What could happen that I didn’t want to happen? Well, besides a terrible kiss that tasted of sour beer and didn’t appear to be ending anytime soon.
I hit his shoulder harder with my free hand. He held me so tightly I couldn’t get my other arm out from between us.
Then he was gone. Just like that.
I sagged against the wall, dimly registering that the corner of a particularly jagged license plate scratched my neck. Funny I hadn’t noticed that before. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as if I could rid myself of the unwanted kiss and stepped away from the wall, focusing on the scene before me.
Scott was on the floor, and someone stood over him, gripping him by the front of his shirt. It took me a second to recognize the back of my bartender—to understand that he was here, whaling on Scott, helping me. Rescuing me yet again.
I moved, my feet covering the short distance. Peering over his shoulder, I gasped at the sight of Scott’s face. He was bleeding, mostly from the mouth. You couldn’t even distinguish the whiteness of his teeth amid the wash of blood. I latched onto the bartender’s arm just as it was pulled back, ready to deliver another punch.
“No! Stop!”
He looked down at me, his expression feral, nothing like its usual blankness. Tension lined his jaw. A muscle ticked in his cheek. I didn’t know how long he stared down at me with glittering eyes. It felt like forever before he spoke, before I felt his voice, low and deep, pulse through me. “Are you all right?”
Foreplay: The Ivy Chronicles Page 4
