Emerson waved the scrap of orange at me.
“I’ll freeze in that! It’s microscopic!”
“We didn’t get your hair looking sea siren worthy just so you can wear something that you would wear to class on any given day!”
Georgia held up a hand, staying the battle that was about to be waged if the militant light in Emerson’s eyes indicated anything. Together, we watched as Georgia moved to her closet and started pushing hangers. “I have the perfect thing.”
Hope hammered in my heart. Georgia’s wardrobe screamed understated elegance. Everything looked expensive and sexy without appearing over the top.
Turning, she brandished a gray cashmere sweater that was form-fitting. I touched it reverently, reveling in the lush softness against my fingertips. “Oh,” I breathed. “Are you sure? It will probably reek of bar afterward. And what if someone spills something on it?” I was sure it cost more than I could ever afford to spend.
“Try it on,” she insisted, pushing it toward me and shaking her head, dismissing my protests.
“With a decent bra,” Emerson inserted.
I looked at her blankly.
“Something with underwire that gives you a little push.” She motioned to her own perky B cups.
I shook my head. “What I’m wearing is fine—”
“Here.” Georgia opened a drawer, pulling out a pink bra. Slamming the drawer shut, she waved it at me. “We’re both a C.”
Sighing, I turned my back and pulled my top over my head. Unfastening my bra, I slipped on the pink one, hooking it behind me and marveling at the silk against my skin.
Facing forward, I stared at my reflection in the mirror hanging on the closet door. The bra did wondrous things to what I had always considered fairly unremarkable breasts. Not that I had ever considered them much at all.
“Oh, my.” Emerson assessed me with wide eyes, nodding in approval. I resisted the urge to cover myself with both hands. “Good thing I’m not lacking in self-confidence ’cause those cupcakes are enough to give me a complex.”
I laughed weakly. “As if.”
“Now try it on with the sweater,” Georgia encouraged.
I slipped the incredibly soft cashmere over my head and smoothed it down my torso. It fit like a glove.
“Yes!” Emerson clapped her hands once. “He won’t resist you in that. And you can borrow my black boots. At least we’re the same shoe size.”
“Those knee-high leather ones?”
“Yes.” She nodded sagely, the light catching in her fresh magenta highlights. “Also known as fuck-me boots.”
I smiled wryly. “Well. There won’t be any of that going on.”
“Probably not.” Emerson smirked. “Especially when you can’t even say it.”
“I can say it,” I protested, staring at Em’s smug expression. Georgia looked hard-pressed not to laugh.
Still, the word stuck in my throat. In reality, I couldn’t say it. It was just too, too . . . bad.
Emerson burst out laughing. “Maybe after this bartender is through with you, you’ll be able to say it.”
“Maybe,” I allowed. “But I won’t be doing it. At least not with him.”
“Hmm.” Emerson turned and started digging for shoes in her narrow closet space. “Are you sure? Nothing wrong with your first time being with someone who knows what he’s doing.”
“No. I want my first time to be with Hunter.”
“Of course you do.” Georgia nodded. “It should be with someone you love.”
“Says the girl who’s only ever been with the one boyfriend.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?” Georgia squared her shoulders. “He’s the only guy I’ve ever loved.”
“Well. How do you know you’re not missing out on something better?”
A funny look came over Georgia’s face. I had never really seen her angry before, but I thought this was close to it. Splotches of color broke out across her clear complexion. “There is more to a relationship than just sex.”
“Yes, but a relationship sure is better when the sex is good.”
Georgia angled her head. “And just how would you know? How many relationships have you been in?”
Seeing this going nowhere but ugly, I intervened. “So, Georgia, can you come out with us tonight?”
She dragged her gaze off Emerson. “No. Harris’s father is in town on business and we’re supposed to have dinner with him.”
Emerson faked an exaggerated yawn, and Georgia tossed a pillow at her.
“Maybe you guys could meet us out afterward?” I suggested.
“Mulvaney’s isn’t really Harris’s scene . . . ”
At this, Em made a snorting sound. Georgia shot her a glare. Emerson shrugged and turned her attention back to the contents of Georgia’s closet.
Georgia continued. “But we’ll try to make it.”
“That’d be great,” I said lamely, hating these rare moments of tension between them. As different as the three of us were, we had always made it work. Ever since we’d met each other at freshman orientation, laughing, not too discreetly, when we were assigned to an upperclassman who insisted on starting our campus tour with a song she wrote.
“Well, don’t be too late. You’re going to miss all the excitement when hottie bartender sets eyes on Pepper.”
I smiled, but it felt more like a grimace on my face. “His name is Reece,” I reminded her, but they weren’t listening. Both of them converged on the various cosmetic bags accumulated on Emerson’s desk, sharing ideas for what type of makeup I should wear.
Chapter 10
Our group found a spot near the pool tables, a choice location with a direct view of the bar.
“He’s working tonight,” I called over the music into Emerson’s ear. Come to think of it, he’d worked every night I’d ever been there. I could only think how tedious that must be. Pouring beer night after night. I shook off the thoughts. His life ambitions weren’t supposed to matter to me. I wasn’t looking for anything deep and lasting with him. Just like he would never consider anything deep and lasting with me. It was a bracing reminder as my gaze narrowed in on him at the bar. This was just a hookup. Assuming, of course, anything happened at all.
“Is that your man, Pepper?” Suzanne whistled approvingly between her teeth. “Nice. He’s like sex on a stick. Didn’t know you had it in you.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that he wasn’t my man. Call it a base urge to claim him for myself.
Right now several girls were lined up in front of him to order drinks. I’d noticed that before. That most of the girls went to his drink line. And yet he seemed all business. Pouring drinks and taking money with easy efficiency, not talking for too long to anyone. I wondered when exactly he was supposed to hook up with all the girls he was rumored to hook up with.
“Well. How you gonna play it?” Emerson called in my ear, eyeing the bar as if she were scoping out a point of entry.
I shook my head. “He hasn’t seen me yet.”
“Well. You haven’t gone up to the bar.”
“I thought I should wait for him to notice me maybe.”
“That could take a while. This place is slammed.”
“What do you suggest then?”
“You know me. I’m direct.” She looked me over and then looked back at the bar. “I’d get myself in front of him looking all hot ASAP.”
“Do it, do it!” Suzanne chanted, slamming her hand on the rough-hewn table. She leaned forward, her face flushed either from the warm press of bodies around us or the fact that she already practically consumed the first pitcher all by herself. From the glassy glint to her eyes, I suspected it was the beer.
A scuffle broke out somewhere in the corner. I turned my head at the sound of several shouts and a chair clattering to the floor. Glass broke and a girl screamed.
“Oh, oh, there’s your man.”
I didn’t bother to correct Suzanne. We all turned and watched in appreciation as R
eece and another employee cut through the crowd and dove into the melee.
“He’s so hot I could eat him up.” Suzanne sighed dreamily.
“Hey, back off. He’s Pepper’s,” Emerson reprimanded her and sent me a sharp look when I opened my mouth to protest that he wasn’t mine.
My gaze returned to Reece, watching his broad back as he peeled bodies apart to get to the two guys punching each other at the bottom of the pileup.
“Hey-hey, guys!” Annie descended on our table, a hot mess of corkscrew curls and breasts that jiggled dangerously close to spilling free of her halter top. She draped an arm around Suzanne’s shoulders. Immediately a bitter taste coated my mouth as I remembered that Annie was the one who’d tipped her off about Reece in the first place. It was stupid. Why should I care if he hooked up with Annie once upon a time?
“Hey, you! We’re here scoping out Pepper’s new man,” Suzanne volunteered.
“Pepper!” Annie looked me over, appraising me with her heavily lined eyes. “You’ve got a man? I thought the only thing you ever made out with was your calculator.” She laughed at her joke, slamming a hand on the surface of the table.
My face burned.
Emerson gave her a disgusted look. “Don’t be a bitch.”
She rolled her eyes. “Would you lighten up? Jeez. Tell me. Who’s the lucky guy?”
Emerson waved a hand like it was nothing. “You already know him.” I could tell she didn’t want to share his identity either. Like she felt protective of whatever this thing was I had going with Reece, too, and didn’t want to involve one of his past flings.
“Yeah?” She glanced around as if she would know him on sight. “Who is he?”
“The bartender you told me about that works here.”
Annie’s eyes widened. “Really?” She looked me over with new respect. “I didn’t think you had it in you to be so . . . flexible, Pepper.” She emphasized the word flexible, the innuendo deliberate. My face burned hotter. She might as well have called me a virgin to my face.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emerson snapped.
“Pepper is such a goody-goody. I didn’t think she’d be up for sharing him. I mean, the guy gets around, Em. He’s kissed like three girls tonight already. He’ll score with at least one of them before midnight. When I hooked up with him he was on break and we just used the backseat of my car.”
“Ew.” Suzanne wrinkled her nose. “Remind me never to sit in the backseat of your car.”
I closed my eyes in a slow blink. I wished Annie hadn’t said that. Now I had the image of them branded in my mind. The blood rushed to my head. The deep roar started in my ears as I thought of the kiss he gave me out by my car. It had seemed so spontaneous, almost as if it surprised him, too. Had I been one of many that night? My sense of betrayal was ridiculous. The guy was obviously experienced. I knew that. You didn’t get to be that good a kisser and not have a fair share of experience.
“No way. You’re so full of it, Annie,” Emerson interjected.
“Seriously,” she insisted. “I saw him feeling up a girl outside half an hour ago. And he was kissing another girl over by the dartboard just five minutes ago.” She jabbed a purple fingernail toward the corner where people threw darts.
Suzanne shook her head. “We’ve been watching him for the last half hour. No way.”
“Yeah,” Emerson agreed, looking at me as if I needed that reassurance. “She’s exaggerating. We’ve watched him for how many nights now? If your bartender was hooking up with other girls, we would have noticed.”
I nodded, the tight band around my chest loosening. She and Suzanne were right. Annie couldn’t be talking about Reece. Maybe she was jealous. Or confused. I didn’t know her motivation. I only knew that he could not have made out with three other girls tonight without me noticing.
Annie’s gaze suddenly shifted beyond my shoulder. Her bright red lips broke out in a smile. “Well, let’s just find out. There he is now.”
I shook my head desperately, determined that Annie not embarrass me in front of him. “No! Really, you don’t have to do that!”
Too late, she was calling hello and waving him over. Mortifying heat fired my cheeks. I felt a presence arrive just behind me. I was too horrified to look. I stared straight ahead as Annie stepped around the table, her arms opening for a hug. Her halter top only gaped wider, and I caught the barest flash of a nipple. The overwhelming urge to scratch her eyes out overcame me.
“Hey, babe!” Her voice dripped like honey. “How are you?”
Babe? I wanted to puke.
“Good. Anna, right?” a male voice asked.
“Annie,” she corrected, a flash of something ugly crossing her expression at his apparent forgetfulness.
“Annie. That’s right,” said the deep, masculine voice.
Emerson was already swiveling around on her stool. She elbowed me sharply in the ribs and let loose a small bark of laughter, which she quickly stifled behind her fingers.
I glared at her, rubbing the offended area. She gave me an I-told-you-so look. See, she mouthed, nothing to worry about.
“So you know my friend Pepper, here, right?” Annie asked, waving at me with a flourish.
I swiveled fully on my stool, facing the inevitable—and felt my stomach plummet to my feet.
It wasn’t him.
It wasn’t Reece. Sure, this guy was hot. He even bore an uncanny resemblance to Reece, but it wasn’t him.
“No,” he said, extending his hand to me, looking me over like he was imagining me without my clothes on. I shook his hand, at a loss for words.
“Of course you do, Logan.” Annie frowned, looking between the two of us and insisting, “You know Pepper.”
His smile flickered for a moment. “Uh, sorry, no. Should I remember you?” I could see the wheels in his head turning, searching his memory of girls he had slept with.
I shook my head dumbly and shoved at Emerson who was laughing herself silly beside me now. “No. We haven’t met before.”
Logan. His name was Logan.
His fingers still held my hand in a warm clasp. “Thought so. I would have remembered someone so pretty.” Slick. And with a face like his, I bet he didn’t have to work too hard.
Emerson, who was still laughing, held up a hand. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You work here? How come we haven’t seen you the last couple nights we’ve been here?”
“I only pick up a shift here and there. Usually I work one or two days during the week, but Reece called me in when one of the guys got sick.” He shrugged one shoulder, considering Em now with the same thoroughness with which he had examined me. Apparently he liked what he saw. He winked at her, his smile widening to reveal straight perfect teeth. “I was free.”
Em grinned back, clearly dazzled.
“Reece?” I echoed.
“Yeah. My brother.”
“Your brother,” I breathed.
Annie was laughing now, holding her sides, her boobs jiggling.
Emerson looked at me a little worriedly at this new information.
“Your brother?” I murmured. Things clicked into place in my head. I’d been throwing myself at some guy who wasn’t the bar’s resident man-whore. Logan was the younger brother Reece had mentioned. Oh. God.
Annie wiped at her eyes, leaving streaks of mascara on her cheeks. “Oh, this is too precious. Don’t tell me you were making a play for Reece. Oh, he doesn’t give the time of day to anyone.”
“Well, he gave the time of day to Pepper,” Em retorted, angry color filling her face. “He kissed her. Maybe he’s just not into skanks.”
Annie flattened a hand to her impressive cleavage. “Oh, I’m the skank?”
Logan’s eyebrows lifted. “My brother kissed you?” He assessed me with new interest, ignoring the hostile banter.
“Yeah.” Annie waved a hand in agitation. “Don’t you get it? She thought he was you.”
I closed my eyes in a slow, pained blink, my hope fleeing that th
is might somehow not get back to Reece.
“What?” Now Logan looked genuinely confused. He waved a finger between the two of us. “You came here to make out with me?”
My mortification only grew. “Of course not.”
Annie nodded sagely. “Your reputation precedes you.”
After a long moment in which I wanted to curl up and die, the confusion cleared from his features. His grin returned, and his chest swelled. “Cool. I’ve got a rep.”
I dropped down from my stool, feeling like the biggest idiot. “I have to go.”
Emerson nodded sympathetically. “I’ll go with you.” With a quick good-bye to everyone—even Annie, who I would rather have slapped—we began wending our way through the bar. We had to stop occasionally for Emerson to chat with someone she knew. I shifted on my feet impatiently, scanning faces, hoping desperately that Reece wouldn’t appear. I couldn’t talk to him right now. I couldn’t play cool and unaffected.
The crowd grew tighter. A body bumped me, and I lost my grip on Em’s wrist. I felt like a buoy at sea, tossed in the current. I stretched onto my tiptoes and called for her, searching for her among the flushed faces.
Suddenly I felt her grip back on my wrist. My chest loosened. Now we can leave.
My gaze swung up. Reece stared down at me.
The hundred-pound weight was back on my chest, pressing down hard, trapping my breath. My face burned, flamed, the encounter with his brother still fresh. Embarrassingly so. “Hey, there,” I said lamely, studying him closely, trying to gauge what he knew.
His fingers burned an imprint onto my skin. I could feel the shape of each one locked around me.
His lips flattened into a grim line. “Heard you met my brother.”
My stomach bottomed out. Great. He knew. “Oh. Yeah. He was nice.”
His pale eyes glittered at me. “Is it true? You came here looking for him? You thought I was him?”
I shook my head, words evading me.
“Oh yeah. When he could stop laughing, he told me all about it. That’s why you’ve been so . . .” His gaze raked me up and down before finishing. “ . . . friendly to me?”
Foreplay: The Ivy Chronicles Page 8
