Ouch. Thanksgiving at Daniel’s with Charley, who was pissed at me. No one would want me there either. Unexpectedly, my throat tightened. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Oh, pooky.” Her voice softened. My familiar mom. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not,” I said, though I was, for no good reason at all. Except that I felt so alone and unloved, crying into my cold, wilted salad behind the potted palm at the food court. It didn’t get much more pathetic than that. “When—” I had to clear my throat. “When did you start seeing… George?”
She was quiet a moment. “Summer.”
“Since summer?”
“Well, just August. Late July. The last week of July, so practically August.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She sighed. “Because I didn’t know it would last this long. I didn’t expect to fall in love, okay?”
In love? I couldn’t catch my breath. “Wow,” I whispered.
“Look…” She was weepy, too. I could hear it in her voice. “Just meet him, okay? Give him a chance. I think you’ll like him.”
“Okay. Fine. Whatever. I have to get back to work.”
“All right.” She sounded really subdued. “Call me tonight?”
“I don’t know—will you even be home?”
“Oh, Marcia. I don’t deserve that.”
She didn’t. I knew it. I was a terrible and mean person. No wonder everyone hated me. “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask. And lunch on Tuesday. George is making reservations somewhere nice, so no excuses.”
“Fine. I gotta go.”
“Have a good day. I’ll talk to you tonight.”
I sat there for a while, staring at my phone, the rainbow-horned unicorn wallpaper blurring as the tears kept welling up. I couldn’t go back to my desk like this. Everyone would know I’d been crying. But I had to go back, or the work would just pile up and my boss would freak. Maybe I could call and say I got sick over lunch and had to go home?
No, that would be irresponsible. Put on your big girl panties and suck it up. I’d go to the ladies’ room off the food court and wash my face, fix my makeup. Maybe I’d get one of those giant M&M cookies, since I’d barely eaten any lunch.
Keeping my head down so no one would see my blotchy face, I tossed my mostly uneaten salad in the trash on the way to the restroom. “Green Christmas” by Barenaked Ladies played in the background, its faux perky beat a contrast to the self-pitying envy of the lyrics. Did the person who compiled that playlist even know what the song was about? I doubted if—
I plowed headlong into someone, packages flying, the scent of leather and too much Bay Rum aftershave, my vision going black for a second as my ankle twisted and I fell. Ow.
“Shit! Aw, fuck it all. I’m sorry, lady. Here, let me help you.”
Hands scrabbled at my elbow, and I beat them off. “Just… stop!” Stupidly I was crying again. Shit. Could this day get any worse?
“Aw, motherfucker—you’re crying. You’re hurt. Where are you hurt, lady? Should I call an ambulance? I’ll call 911 and—”
“No!” I got a hold of myself and said it more calmly. “No, I’m fine. That is, I was crying already and… I’m just having a really shitty day.”
Something about the guy’s potty mouth had clearly infected me, that I’d say that to a stranger.
“Topped off with me knocking you over.” He cocked a thin dark eyebrow at me. One pierced with a thick bar. Head shorn on one side, showing a curling tattoo, and a fall of black hair fringed down his pale cheek on the other. Six—no, seven—rings in the ear on the shorn side, and two more coiled through one side of his lower lip that gave the odd impression of vampire fangs. His eyes, though, amid all that black and white, his eyes were a startling bright aqua—like those photos of the Caribbean—emphasized by a ring of deep gray-blue. They narrowed quizzically. “Help you up then?”
I frowned, mostly for me being a dazed idiot. “Did you call me lady?”
He popped an easy grin, perfect teeth gleaming. “Sorry—thought you were older at first. Dunno why. No offense or anything.”
“Great,” I muttered, scrambling to my knees and then my feet, ignoring his helping hand. I skidded a little on the slick tile and he caught me by the elbow. “Stupid boots.” I would never wear them again.
“They’re fucking hot though,” the guy said.
I was spared an answer by a woman handing him one of his dropped packages that had spun away. Though…hot, huh? No one ever called me hot. Maybe I would wear them again. I checked my shoulder bag, making sure my phone and tablet were present and not shattered. He finished collecting a rather impressive array of packages, stacking them again.
“They do offer bags,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but bad for the environment. I always feel guilty, and ’sides, I can carry them fine. Except when hot women in blue leather boots knock me over.”
“Hey—you knocked me over. And you thought I was an old lady.”
He grinned easily, holding the stack in one hand. “Not old, just matronly, maybe. And you weren’t watching where you were going. I tried to dodge you.”
Great. I’d become matronly. Went well with spinster, at least. “I apologize then.” I sounded stiff enough to be all those things.
“Nah, it was my fault. I saw you coming—head down and charging ahead like a little French horse. I should have dodged quicker. Buy you lunch to make it up?”
A little French horse? Lunch? I glanced at my phone. “I just ate, and I have to get back to work.”
“Do you?” He dipped his chin, giving me a look I couldn’t interpret. “Do you really?”
“Um. Yes.” I spoke slowly. “That’s what grownup people with jobs do.”
He held up his one-handed pile of packages, balancing them like a juggler. “I’m a grownup with a job. Well, several. Enough to keep me from being homeless. Doesn’t mean I can’t pop off and buy a whiskey for a pretty girl to make up for knocking her on her arse.”
“Are you a Brit?”
He winked. “Can’t get anything past you, luv. What do you say?”
“About what?”
“A. Whis. Key,” he repeated slowly, just like I had. “You already ate, so let’s go grab a drinky. Take the sting out.”
“I have to go back to work.”
“So go later. It won’t take that long.”
“I can’t go to work drunk.”
He snickered. “One whiskey will hardly make you drunk.”
Well, it might, since I never drank. And I nearly told him so, but the words sounded insufferably prim and stuffy before I even spoke them. He’d thought I was some matronly woman at the food court. One who’d been sniffling over her salad and the fact that her mommy had a boyfriend. I was sick of myself.
And the idea of going back to my desk filled me with a sudden, deep loathing.
“Hey, it’s the holidays.” He waved a free hand at the decorations. “We’re supposed to live it up a little.”
“It’s not even Thanksgiving,” I replied automatically, then winced at myself.
“Looks like a party to me.” His grin widened the spacing of the hoops in his lip and added a bit of a wrinkle to his nose, a mischievous gleam in his eye. “Desks are boring.”
Just like me. Fine. Enough already.
“Okay,” I said. “Where?”
“Pub on the corner?”
I had no idea there was one. “Lead the way.”
“All right-y-oh.” He crooked an elbow for me, raised a brow when I stared at it. “Gotta keep you on your feet.”
“I’m not that bad.” But I took his arm, feeling more than a little wild. The music had switched to “Santa, Baby,” and it made me feel kind of sexy, even. I could work late to make up for the long lunch break. Again. Since I missed out on all the conversations at home anyway. It felt pretty nice to glide down the escalator holding onto a guy’s arm. A woman riding up the other way gave him the side eye, and the
n me, and that perversely pleased me, too. Not your usual Marcia.
“Name’s Damien.”
“I’m Marcia.”
“Like on The Brady Bunch? I don’t think I’ve ever met a real-life Marcia.”
I got that a lot. “You had that show in the UK?”
“Nah. Hulu. You know. Wasn’t she the good girl?”
“I think they were all good girls.”
“There it is.” He pointed his nose at a pair of heavy doors with big brass handles, opening onto the inside of the mall on ground level. After the glass and chrome of the atrium, the bar seemed unusually dark and closed in. But it smelled good. Like wood oils and peat. Maybe they piped it in for ambience. More businesses were exploring that kind of aromatherapy, which could be a career direction for me if perfume didn’t work out. Not nearly as romantic, though.
Damien led me straight to the bar in the center of the room, slid his stack of packages onto it without bobbling them, then straddled a stool. Feeling a little awkward, I hung my bag on the hook under the bar, then hipped onto the stool next to him, careful to keep my knees together so I wouldn’t flash anyone by accident. Barstools are not really pencil-skirt friendly.
“Two Jameson, neat,” Damien called to the bartender, “the good stuff.” She nodded, getting down a bottle with a black label.
“Let’s get your card first,” she said, then ran it immediately. Apparently Damien’s appearance didn’t inspire confidence.
“Can’t I have mine with Coke or something?”
“Mix good sipping whiskey with that sugary shite?” He looked horrified. “What kind of barbarian are you?”
One who didn’t drink whiskey neat. Or at all.
“Just try it.” He lowered his brows seriously, the ring in his brow dipping with it. “If you don’t like it, I’ll have yours. Then you can get Jack Daniels or some such and add all the soda pop you want.”
The bartender set down two lowball glasses with heavy bottoms, the amber whiskey refracting colorfully. Damien picked up his and waited for me. Once I did the same, he said, “To a meet beautiful. May the story get even better.” He clinked his glass against mine and took a sip.
I took a moment longer, letting the scent of the whiskey permeate my senses. Distillers called that aromatic evaporation “the angel’s share,” a term that’s always appealed to me. Places like brandy distilleries hire noses, too, to check the final blends of their products. I’d thought about that career path, except that I didn’t drink. You have to really love a thing to understand it well enough to make judgments about it.
This aroma nearly changed my mind. The Jameson had a more wonderful and layered presentation than I’d expected. Full bodied and strong, but with intense spicy notes and hints of vanilla. It reminded me of the best kind of men’s cologne, kind of sensual in a warm, masculine way, like a strong embrace, with a hint of sweetness beneath. Something to remember. Damien watched me, that pierced brow cocked over his bright eye. “If you don’t drink, it invalidates the toast.”
“That’s a myth,” I said. “Same with actually touching the glasses. Not necessary.”
But I sipped. Then paused, struck by the amazing flavor—and the way the aromatic aspects rose up from the back of my tongue to engage the olfactory component again. Wow. I’d expected a harsh bite—like whatever that stuff had been that Ice mixed for us at graduation—but this practically evaporated on my palate. Like liquid gold. Amazing.
I opened my eyes to find Damien watching me with an intent expression, a pair of lines between his brows. “What?”
He lifted his glass to take another sip, shrugging as he did. “You’re a different kind of chick.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t get your claws out, Tigger. You just have this corporate America, schoolteacher vibe going, correcting me on the cultural implications of toasting with fucking fantastic whiskey, and then…” he trailed off, bright eyes going to my mouth.
I picked up a cocktail napkin and dabbed at my lips, leaving a few pink streaks behind. I never had refreshed my lipstick. Or fixed my face. I’d totally forgotten that I must look like a hag. Too late now. Defiantly I drank a little more of the delicious whiskey. “Then what?” I asked, bolstered.
He leaned in and whispered, his voice rough and intimate. “A sip of whiskey, and you looked like a woman having an orgasm. Were you?”
~ 4 ~
I gasped. Literally. In all my naïve shock. Which made him laugh at me. He clinked his glass against mine, sitting on the bar. “Cheers, luv.”
Horribly self-conscious, I picked up my glass for something to hold, not sure which was worse—what he’d said to me or how I reacted. Of course guys flirted with girls this way, just never with me. Jeez, Charley had made herself come riding a carousel horse while Daniel watched. Then she’d told us the whole story, with Ice and Amy pumping her for details. Daniel had appealed to Charley’s wild side that way.
Damien would appeal to mine, if I had one.
Of course, he didn’t expect me to be a virgin at my age. No one did because, really, who made it this long anymore? I know I hadn’t expected to. I’d been so sure I’d meet the One in college, we’d get engaged senior year and married in June a year after graduation, giving us time to get settled in jobs and maybe even save for a down payment. Julie would have been my maid of honor and the others my bridesmaids. I’d even found the perfect pink gowns for them.
I’d just never quite met the actual guy. And now it would be two years out from graduation in the spring, and he still hadn’t come along. I’d been waiting for nothing.
“Shocked you silent, did I?” he finally said, giving me a dubious look.
“Why ‘meet beautiful’?” I asked, instead of answering that, since I obviously wasn’t going to confess the truth. He’d fall off the barstool laughing at me.
“Seemed apt. See—this pal of mine is a screenwriter, and she says when a couple first encounter each other in a flick, it’s called a meet cute, and—”
“I know what a meet cute is.”
“There you go, being a haughty schoolteacher again.”
I winced. Had a healthier sip of whiskey. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He reached between his spread legs, grabbed the edge of the barstool, and hitched it closer so our knees bumped. “It works for me. Hot, in a femme dom way. Just like the boots.” He cupped my calf over the thin material of the boot, the touch shocking in its casual intimacy. Holding my gaze, he massaged a little, squeezing, then left his hand there.
My mouth had gone dry—and, Good Lord, I’d gone wet—so I sipped at the whiskey. “Can I get a glass of water?” I called to the bartender, who glanced over and nodded, like nothing was going on with me and Damien.
Which, really, it wasn’t, right? I mean—he was flirting, sure, but putting a hand on my pleather-covered calf hardly counted as even first base in anyone’s book. Belatedly, it hit me that I’d agreed to a date—it wasn’t really an actual date, but the rest of the Fab Five wouldn’t see it that way—without even counting up the points. The way my head was floating, I wouldn’t be able to any time soon, either.
The bartender set down the water and I grabbed it gratefully, putting down my now empty whiskey glass. “Have another?” Damien asked, dipping his chin at the empty, idly stroking my calf over the boot.
“Oh, no. I couldn’t. I…” I trailed off when he took the water glass from me, turning it so he drank from where I had, giving me a sexy little grin with it. What would those lip rings feel like? I wanted to touch one with my tongue.
“Have to go back to work,” he prompted, handing the water back to me.
“Yes.” I did. I really did. What time was it? My phone was in my bag under the ledge and I didn’t want to scramble for it because then maybe he’d move his hand and I really didn’t want him to. I wanted him to move it higher, to touch the skin behind my knee. I wanted to spread my legs and feel—whoa. What was I thinking?
<
br /> As if he knew what he was doing to me, he leaned in, and—heavens—kissed my temple. Then, warm and moist against my skin, fragrant with the whiskey, he breathed the question, “Are you always a good girl?”
“Pretty much, yes,” I answered, then bit my lip.
He laughed softly, but sat back again. “Be a little bad then, just for practice.”
Could I? I was still chewing on my lip and, figuring I looked adolescent doing it, made myself stop.
“One more,” he coaxed. “I’m having one. Then I’ll walk you back upstairs to your good girl worker desk.”
“Okay,” I said, before I knew I’d decided. Not responsible, but… For the first time, I could understand why Charley had wanted to come for Daniel on the carousel horse. I felt alive and free and—and wild. Sexy. This was what sexy felt like. “Sure,” I said, tossing my hair a little. It didn’t work as well with my shoulder-length bob, but whatever. “Hit me.”
He waited until we’d both raised our refills. “Meet beautiful because ‘cute’ is not the right word for a woman like you.”
Oh. Well then. I drank, and it went down even smoother this time. My stomach felt all warm and relaxed, the girl of the wilted salad and tears behind the potted palm far away. The pub had carols going, too, playing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” the Leon Redbone/Zoey Deschanel version. Zoey was protesting that her sister would be suspicious. I wanted to be Zoey, the manic pixie dream girl, not the suspicious sister.
Damien, one hand still on my calf, leaning on the bar with his other elbow, whiskey glass dangling, watched me with a disconcerting little smile on his mouth.
“Why all the boxes?” I asked, gesturing to the pile.
He didn’t even glance at them. “Delivery. One of my jobs.”
“Oh. I hope there was nothing breakable.”
He shrugged his shoulder, moving his hand up and down my calf. “The company packs well.”
“What other jobs do you have?”
“Uh-uh, luv.” He straightened the index finger from his glass to point at me, the whiskey rolling up the sides a little. “It’s my turn. What’s this amazing job you’re so het up to get back to?”
Missed Connections Box Set Page 14
