Good Girl (Love Unexpectedly #2)

by Lauren Layne

  I glance at the table. “Wanna play?”

  “Are you better than Finn?” she asks warily.

  “I’m pretty sure Dolly would be better than Finn.”

  She laughs and picks up a stick leaning against the corner of the table. “Winner buys drinks.”

  Jenny’s not great at pool, but unfortunately she’s not bad enough to warrant me moving up behind her and showing her how it’s done, the way she did with Finn. A damn shame, because when she bends over to make her shot, her jean skirt rides up, displaying the backs of her thighs, stopping just short of that full, firm ass.

  A quick glance around tells me I’m not the only guy who’s noticing, and I feel an irrational surge of jealousy, soothed only by the fact that she doesn’t seem to be aware of any of them.

  Only of me.

  “Thanks for letting me tag along tonight,” she says.

  I glance up, because there’s a quiet seriousness in her voice that I don’t expect.

  “It’s not like you need my permission, princess.”

  “I know. But you could have just sent me here on my own. Maybe met up with Finn somewhere else, or dodged me altogether.”

  I narrow my eyes, bracing some of my weight on the cue stick as I study her. “And why would I want to do that?”

  Her lips twitch. “You were doing it all day.”

  “I didn’t exactly see you seeking me out either, princess.”

  Jenny sighs and looks away. “I know. I was…embarrassed.”

  “Of what, the sex?”

  “No, about the fact that it felt—”

  She breaks off, and I realize I’m on the verge of holding my breath, like some lovesick kid who wants a girl to confess she likes him.

  “Felt what?” I say, my voice a little raspy.

  She swallows, still not meeting my eyes. “It felt good.”

  Good’s not the word she wanted to say. I’d bet money on it. I want to press her. I want her to tell me that it felt important.

  I want her to tell me that she wants it again. That she wants me again.

  I step toward her, but she moves back, tugging at that horrible wig, before pasting a smile on her face.

  “I like Finn,” she says, taking a sip of her drink.

  Moment over.

  It’s a good thing, but…

  Hell.

  “Yeah?” I say. Irritably, I turn back to the pool table, lining up my shot, and send three stripes into the pockets. At this rate I’ll definitely be buying drinks. Should have known when she stipulated winner bought drinks.

  “There’s no pretense about him,” Jenny says. “He just is what he is. I like that. It’s rare, you know?”

  I shrug. “I guess.”

  Jenny is studying me. “You’re like that too. I mean, not as unabashed as Finn. You’re more careful. But you’re not like the guys in the music scene who seem to be desperately posing as one thing while their real self is something else.”

  I tense.

  She’s wrong. She’s dead wrong.

  I’m the ultimate poser, pretending to be just Noah Maxwell, when really I’ve got a whole other side. A whole other life that involves bank accounts with a shit-ton of zeros, apartments with more luxury than I possibly need, and an ex I came very close to walking down the aisle with.

  Tell her, an idiotic part of my brain urges. Take a chance on her.

  I open my mouth to do exactly that, but Finn reappears at my side, fresh round of drinks in hand, even though both Jenny and I’d declined. My first drink isn’t gone, but the ice is all melted and the drink’s watery, so I take the new one, as does Jenny.

  “So the crew cut at the bar’s got his eye on you, Ms. Smith,” Finn says, draping an arm around Jenny’s shoulder. “How do we feel about this?”

  The hell?

  I straighten and turn toward the bar. Sure enough, there’s a good-looking beefy dude giving Jenny the once-over, all but licking his lips.

  How do we feel about this? Murderous. That’s how we feel about this.

  I glance at Jenny, annoyed as shit to see that she’s checking the guy out. Seriously?

  She takes a sip of her drink before turning her attention back to Finn. “Undecided,” she announced.

  “What?” I ask incredulously, before I can think better of it.

  Finn grins, and I know I’ve walked right into his shitty little trap. I have no doubt that the guy at the bar does like Jenny, but the only reason Finn’s bringing it up is to get me to admit…something.

  “He’s good-looking, but not really my type,” Jenny is saying.

  “Huh,” Finn says, still looking at me. “And what is your type?”

  I feel Jenny’s eyes shift to mine, and I look away from my dickhead best friend to meet her blue eyes, even though I know I shouldn’t be going there.

  “Um,” she says, licking her lips nervously. “I don’t actually know that I have a type.”

  Finn tugs lightly at the ends of her wig in a playful, brotherly kind of way. “Don’t lie to me, Ms. Smith. I think you do have a type.”

  “Maybe,” she says, still not looking away from me. “But it’s sort of a newly discovered thing.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” my friend says. “Tell Finn more. Dark blond, right? Kind of frowny and mean? Let me guess: brown eyes? Doesn’t technically have a beard, but forgets to shave more than every three days or so? Big muscles, but not as big as mine?”

  I roll my eyes, because my best friend just described me exactly, and Jenny’s too smart to play along.

  Or maybe not. Because she’s still looking at me.

  “Yes, exactly,” she says, surprising me. “Trouble is, I don’t think I’m his type.”

  You are, I want to say. You absolutely fucking are. I just didn’t know it till I met you.

  “Don’t worry, Ms. Smith,” Finn says with a grin in my direction. “From where I’m standing, I’d say your odds are looking very good.”

  Jenny

  It takes me a while to figure out why I’m so buzzy on the drive back to the house when I only had two drinks over the span of three and a half hours.

  And then I realize. It’s not the whisky that’s got me buzzing. It’s the guy next to me. The way he smells, the way he smiles, the way his big hands move easily over the steering wheel…

  Oh dear.

  I’m in way more over my head than I thought if I’m lusting over the way he drives.

  Tonight was…the best. I can’t remember the last time I felt more relaxed and happy. I try to tell myself it’s because Finn’s freaking hilarious, but I know better.

  Finn’s great, but he’s not the reason I had such a good time. It was Noah and the way he stayed close, making me feel safe but never crowded. The way I felt him looking at me when he didn’t think I noticed, the way he didn’t even flinch at the casual intimacy of me picking all of the jalapeños off my portion of the nachos and put them on his plate.

  It was the way he smiled even when I got the sense that he didn’t want to, and in the way he gently but politely shook his head no to a woman who clearly propositioned him at the bar.

  Tonight wasn’t a date. I know that.

  But I was able to pretend, and for a girl who hasn’t been on a decent date in a really long time, that’s enough.

  Sort of.

  Still, I want so badly to reach across the truck and hold his hand. Actually, more accurately, I want him to reach across and take my hand.

  He doesn’t, and I try not to be too disappointed when we get back to the house, signaling that the night’s come to an end.

  On one hand, I love that we simply enjoyed each other’s company for once. Not fighting, not circling each other like wary animals in heat. It was both comforting and alarming to realize how much I enjoy his company.

  And yet he hasn’t touched me. Not once the entire night, and I expect that’s deliberate. I haven’t touched him either, because if I’ve learned anything from my time spent with this guy, it’s that once I
start to touch him, I have a hell of a time stopping.

  “You okay?” he asks as he turns off the ignition. I realize I haven’t moved, even though we’ve been parked for several moments.

  “Yeah,” I say, forcing a smile.

  “You seem a little lost in thought.”

  “Well, I am a girl,” I say.

  He laughs. “That you are.”

  “I like your laugh,” I blurt out.

  His laugh breaks off abruptly. Whoops.

  “I mean, I’m not like naming our babies or anything,” I correct. “I’m just saying you have a nice laugh. I don’t hear it all that often.”

  Noah says nothing as he watches me with those unreadable dark brown eyes. Then he looks away, the hard, defined planes of his face glinting like granite in the dim light coming from the outside porch light.

  I resist the urge to sigh as I get out of the car.

  He’s climbing out of his side as I come around the front of the truck.

  “Thanks again for including me in your boys’ night,” I say, feeling a little awkward, as though it’s the last part of a date that’s not a date. “It was nice not to feel…lonely.”

  Something flits across his face, and his hand twitches at his side, then goes still. Then slowly he moves his hand again, lifting it to me, palm up.

  I blink down at it, and then hoping like hell I’m not reading this moment wrong, I lift my hand, place my palm against his.

  His fingers close over mine, thumb rubbing briefly over the top of my knuckles before he tugs me forward. Only it’s not toward him, nor is it in the direction of the house.

  Noah walks me to the back of the truck, releasing my hand to unlatch the tailgate before going back to the cab. Rummaging around, he comes up with a plaid blanket.

  I watch wordlessly as he climbs into the truck bed and spreads out the blanket before jumping back to the ground.

  Slowly he reaches out, slides his fingers beneath my wig, and eases it off before tossing it into the back of the truck. Then his fingers go around to the nape of my neck, where my hair’s pulled back in a small tight knot. He tugs the band slowly until my hair spills over my shoulders.

  “Much better,” he whispers before shoving the band into his pocket and hooking his hands beneath my armpits. Noah lifts me easily onto the truck bed.

  Instinctively I tug at the bottom of my skirt, which has ridden up. I am a lady, after all.

  He gives me a gentle smirk. “I’ve seen it all, princess.”

  Right. There’s that.

  Still, I narrow my eyes. “Just because you’ve seen it once—”

  “Twice.”

  “Twice,” I amend. “Anyway, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to see it again.”

  “You sure about that?” He hoists himself back onto the truck bed, using his chin to indicate that I should scoot back.

  “This is your grand seduction plan to get round number three?” I ask skeptically as I make room for him. “The back of a truck?”

  He moves up beside me before rolling onto his back, both hands behind his head. “When I was a kid, my mom dated this guy—well, she dated lots of guys, but there was this one guy, Ron. He was one of the better ones. He had a truck just like this one, and sometimes he’d take me and Mom out of the trailer park. I can’t remember where specifically, just away, and we’d go somewhere and he’d bring blankets and wine for them, a soda for me, and we’d watch the stars.”

  I stare down at him in shock. Not only is it by far the most words I’ve heard him ever string together, but they’re also the most telling. The most revealing.

  I can tell by the way he doesn’t look at me that he’s feeling vulnerable, and I slowly lie down beside him on my back, looking up at the night sky.

  “There are so many,” I say in surprise. “Stars, I mean.”

  Then I wince because it’s an obvious, childlike thing to say, but it’s the first thing that came to mind. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen stars. I mean really seen them. Not since camping trips with my family when I was a kid, and back then I wasn’t feeling at all like I’m feeling now, which is…

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know how I’m feeling, but it’s both wonderful and completely terrifying.

  “What happened to this Ron?” I ask quietly.

  I feel him shrug. “Moved on, I guess. He was only around for a summer.”

  Only around for a summer.

  Just like me.

  My chest aches a little for the eager-for-attention boy Noah was then, as well as for the jaded man he is now. I want to tell him that I’ll stay, but I don’t. I like him too much to lie to him, and I like my job too much to make it the truth.

  We’re silent for several minutes, but it’s a peaceful, contented sort of quiet. Noah shifts, moving his hands from behind his head so that his arms are at his side like mine.

  I want to turn toward him. I want to kiss him. More, I want him to kiss me.

  Instead, I do something even riskier.

  My pinky finger extends outward slightly until it finds his. I feel Noah stiffen, and immediately I pull my hand back, but slowly, as though the touch was an accident and I’m not aware of it.

  Which is crap, because I’m totally aware of it. That’s how it is with this guy—a split second of pinky-to-pinky contact and I’m practically vibrating with want.

  Except tonight it’s not physical want (although that’s certainly there lurking in the background).

  Tonight, though, I want intimacy more.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. I want someone to care.

  I don’t know where the thought is coming from. I have plenty of people who care about me. I’ve never been that girl who begs others to like me, love me, adore me.

  But damn it, I want Noah Maxwell to care about me. I want a tiny bit of tenderness from this rough, gruff guy who most of the time can barely stand me.

  Keep dreaming, princess, I tell myself in a mocking version of his harsh, drawling timbre.

  But then I really must be dreaming, because his hand moves, hovering above mine with only a split second of hesitation before it closes over mine gently but authoritatively.

  I bite my lip to fight the smile, but it comes all the same.

  “Don’t make it weird, princess,” he says gruffly.

  Well, of course I’m going to make it weird after that. I unabashedly twist my hand so that I can twine my fingers with his.

  “Is this weird?” I say with fake innocence.

  “Yes,” he mutters. But he doesn’t pull his hand away. And though I don’t turn my head to look at him…I’m pretty sure he’s smiling.

  Just like me.

  Noah

  If someone was to ask me what the catalyst was for finally dealing with my bitch of an ex, I wouldn’t have said it was holding hands with Jenny Dawson, superstar, in the back of my friend’s truck, outside a house I didn’t even know I owned up until a month ago.

  But that’s exactly how it’s played out.

  It’s been two weeks since I spent all night holding hands and talking with Jenny until we fell asleep beneath the stars. Yup, you’re hearing that right. All that, and I didn’t even screw her. Not that night, at least.

  Since then, though, I’ve been seeing plenty of Jenny, in bed and out.

  And for reasons I have zero interest in dwelling on, I’m in my car on the way to Yvonne’s apartment.

  Here’s the thing you need to know about Yvonne Damascus: she’s one of those women who has completely different standards for how she actually lives her life versus how she wants people to think she lives her life.

  Case in point: the woman screws like a crazy, kinky monkey but refuses to “live in sin.”

  Messed up, right?

  I mean, granted, she hasn’t fucked me in a long time. The last time we had sex was a couple of months ago, after she made a sloppy, white-wine-fueled come-on that I couldn’t bring myself to resist considering I was gearing up to walk d
own the aisle with the woman.

  I’d like to blame our shitty sex life for her cheating on me, and I’m sure that was a big part of it, but I can’t say I wasn’t equally to blame. At some point I just…quit caring. Somewhere in the middle of her berating me for not wanting French haute cuisine small plates as our wedding meal and us fighting about my reluctance to settle into an office job, I just…lost interest.

  But I didn’t cheat.

  When you’re the product of a man who was so desperate to keep his affair with a cocktail waitress secret that he didn’t acknowledge his illegitimate child until his legitimate one died, fidelity becomes kind of a thing. And yes, not wanting to touch your fiancée but not being able to touch another woman took its toll in the form of me jerking off more than I have since junior high.

  I’d like to think it’s this sort of sex hiatus that made me go at Jenny Dawson like a starving man, although if I’m going to man up and be honest about it, I have a feeling I’d have gone after her like that no matter what my situation.

  That girl is like crack to me. Sweet, addictive, and fucking dangerous.

  And because I’ve finally come to grips with the fact that I have zero chance of keeping my hands off her for as long as she’s in Louisiana, I realize it’s time to deal with the skeleton in my closet known as Yvonne.

  I opted to move to downtown Baton Rouge after graduation, but Yvonne insisted on staying in Village St. George near her parents, friends, and adoring fan club. She lives in a four-bedroom condo her father gave her as a college graduation present, complete with a Mercedes and butler.

  Yes, I said butler.

  I don’t have many regrets in life. I try to do the whole “mistakes are just life lessons” type of mental trick. You have to when your life’s been as jacked up as mine.

  But I do regret proposing to Yvonne.

  I regret that I left the ring on her finger as long as I did.

  Most of all, I regret that I let her and my father convince me that I could live their life. A life with golf games and pointless conference calls and charity events for children whose names they’d never know or care to know. And butlers. Did I mention the butlers?

  I regret not figuring my shit out earlier—both that I’d always be happier in work boots than loafers and that the work boots would never fly with Yvonne.