“See, Jack. I can handle myself.”
“Pretty girl, I know you can, but the question is why did you have to? We have a whole table full of men that could have handled that in a few seconds, so why did you come over?”
“You know they would have started a fight and it wouldn’t have been fair. That man would have been walking crooked for a month. Someone had to step in and be the voice of reason.”
“And you thought that was you?”
“I’m sorry, but who are you?” I interrupted.
“I’m Harper and this is my husband, Jack.”
I extended my hand and shook both of theirs. “I’m Lillian. It’s nice to meet you. Thank you so much for taking care of that. He wasn’t backing down and people were starting to stare.”
“I’d like to know why your date didn’t say something.”
I looked back at Andrew, forgetting that we had been on a date. When I raised my eyebrow at him, he shrugged.
“He looked harmless. I didn’t think it was a big deal. He had been drinking, but he wouldn’t have done anything.”
“Not the point, asshole. When you’re with a woman, you protect her and stand up for her when she’s being harassed.”
“I have to say, I agree. I didn’t need you to physically hurt him, but it would have been nice if you’d said something in my defense.”
“Lillian, seriously, what would you want me to say to the man. He’s obviously not worth dealing with,” Andrew said in an uppity tone. How had I not seen this side of him over the past few weeks. I didn’t think I needed a protector, but sheesh, a little help when someone wouldn’t leave me alone wasn’t too much to ask for.
“Yet my wife had to come over because he was making such a scene.”
“Andrew, I think it would be best if we part ways here. I don’t see this going any further. Thank you for the drink.”
I grabbed my bag and drink and was about to find a different seat when Harper stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Why don’t you come join us for a drink. You can meet everyone and hang out with us the rest of the night.”
“Sure. That sounds great.” We started to walk over to her table, but I stopped her with a hand on her arm. “All that stuff that you guys were saying..it wasn’t, I mean, he was just making that up, right?”
Harper threw her head back in laughter. “Oh, honey. He was one hundred percent telling the truth, although it was taken out of context.”
“So you didn’t threaten to cut of his..” I waved my hand in the general direction of his crotch.
“Oh, no. I did that.”
“And the poisoning?”
“That never happened, although I thought about it a time or two.”
“What about the car and the jack?”
“He freaked me out when he asked me to move in with him. I told him that there were plenty of reasons it wouldn’t work out.”
“It wouldn’t work out because someone would try to kill him?” I asked in confusion.
“I think it’s best if we just skip over that one.”
“Wait. What about his friend, the one that offered to help you bury a body?”
She pointed to a tall, muscular man at the table that had his arm wrapped around a gorgeous woman. “That’s Logan, but I think he was joking.” She moved her head side to side as she pursed her lips to one side of her mouth. “I think if the situation called for it, he’d be on my side.”
I blinked several times, not sure what to make of this woman. In a way, she was kind of awesome, but I was worried I had just walked into some parallel universe. This wasn’t how any of my friends behaved, not that I had many friends.
I followed Jack and Harper over to their table where I was introduced to Sebastian and his girlfriend, Maggie. Cole and his wife, Alex. Logan and his wife, Cece. Luke and his wife, Anna. Drew and his wife, Sarah, and Ryan.
“So, how did you all meet? I mean, you all seem like such good friends.”
Logan took a drink of his beer before speaking. “Well, Cece and I know each other from when we were younger. I broke her heart and then met her again ten years later. She destroyed my house, got me arrested a few times, and tried to ruin my business. Now, we’re married and have a kid.”
I glanced around the table to see everyone else smiling. This had to be a joke. “Um. That’s..interesting.” I swallowed thickly.
“I met Harper on the side of the road,” Jack said.
I was taking a sip of wine and choked when he said that. “Excuse me. You mean, like a..” I glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping on our conversation. “Like a hooker?”
Everyone at the table started laughing. “I like her. She’s funny,” Ryan said as he took another drink of beer.
“No, my car broke down and it was raining. Jack stopped to help me.”
“Although, you were pretty scantily clad,” Jack said. “And if you recall, we did have sex that day, so some might see it as me picking up a-”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” Harper turned to me. “I was having a bad day.”
“You have a lot of those,” Jack said.
“I had to run out to a friend’s apartment. I didn’t think I’d be gone that long.”
“Most people still wear clothes when they go out.”
“No one was supposed to see me! Things just got out of control.”
“That seems to happen a lot around her.” The two of them were bickering again and my head was starting to spin, and I didn’t think it was from the wine.
“What about you?” I asked Cole and Alex. “How did you two meet?”
“Alex was being chased by a serial killer. I took her in and helped her get better. The serial killer caught up to us and tried to kill us. Alex lost her memory. We eventually got back together. Another psycho tried to kill her. I killed him, and she was in recovery for about ten months. Now, things are pretty good.”
He said everything so nonchalant that I wasn’t sure if I believed him, but then Alex snuggled into him and I could see the pain on her face.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of a downer, but things are good now.”
I gave a tremulous smile. I turned to Drew and Sarah. They looked normal. Surely someone in this group had a normal story.
“What about you two?”
“I met Drew when I moved in next door to him.”
I gave a big smile. “That sounds like a promising story.”
“I was pregnant with twins and he was a big jerk. He lost his wife years ago to cancer and he was still grieving for her. Eventually, we became friends and that turned to love. Although, I still have to compete with Harper, here. She’ll always be his first love,” Sarah said.
“Why does everyone always have to bring that up? She’s like my sister,” Drew said as he rolled his eyes.
“You have twins?”
“Yep. They’re a year and a half old. Everyone here has kids except Maggie.”
“And you’re all here drinking in the middle of the week?” I said hesitantly.
“Honey, when you have kids, you’ll understand,” Cece said.
“Anna, how did you and Luke meet?”
“Sorry, sweetie. Our story is perfectly boring. We met through Harper, fell in love, and got married.”
I smiled at the simplicity of it all. They all seemed to have such strange ways of meeting one another.
“And you and Sebastian are dating?” I asked Maggie.
“Yep. He was my bodyguard when I was a reporter.”
“Oh, that must have been exciting. What kind of stories did you cover?”
“Did you hear about the Mayor in Pittsburgh?”
“Yeah. Weren’t there a lot of people that went to jail?” She nodded. “And didn’t he have people killed?”
“Yep. That was me. I broke that story.”
“And Sebastian was protecting you?”
“Yes. I had a few bumps and bruises in the end, but overall
, we walked away unscathed.”
“Right,” Sebastian huffed out. “Gun shot wounds, pelvic fracture, concussion, and one dead team member.”
Maggie bit her lip as tears formed in her eyes. She quickly blinked them away before turning back to me with a smile.
“A few things may have gone sideways. Anyway, I moved here to be with Sebastian. I work at his security company now.”
“Aww. That’s so sweet.”
“Better for her to be here where I can keep an eye on her. She’s like Harper, she steps outside and shit rains from the sky.”
“Hey!” Harper said in indignation.
“Oh, come on, Harper. The turkey. The football game. The second turkey. The literal shit storm at Anna’s house. The sprinklers.”
“You know, I think we all know each other well enough now,” Harper said with a growl.
“I saw you talking to Sean earlier. How do you know him?” Sebastian asked.
“Sean?”
“Tall guy, black henley, jeans, built like a MAC truck.”
“Oh, I met him at school today. I’m a teacher there and he was doing a drug search. I don’t really know him other than speaking a few words.”
“So, what were you doing with that douchebag, Andrew?” Jack asked.
“He seemed like a nice man. He’s alway been a gentleman and we have common interests. He dresses well and he’s well spoken.”
“So you like him because he looks good on paper.” Jack deadpanned.
“Knock it off, Jack. Some women have standards and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Harper interjected.
I was beginning to feel a little awkward sitting here discussing my dating standards with complete strangers.
“Alright guys. Who’s up for a game of darts?” Ryan asked.
“Harper, you sit your ass down. No one wants to play with you,” Jack scolded. Harper stuck her tongue out at him and took another sip of her drink.
“Why doesn’t anyone want to play with you?” I asked. “Are you really good?”
“I threw a dart in his shoulder once when I was pissed at him. He’s never forgiven me.”
I stared at her in disbelief. These two were married? “I..I don’t know what to say.”
She shrugged. “It’s just the way we are. We fight a lot, but the making up is so much fun,” she said grinning.
I blushed at her implications. “Well, I don’t really..know anything about making up,” I said as delicately as possible. I could feel my face flaming. Gosh, this was so inappropriate to be talking about.
“You’ve never had makeup sex?” Cece asked. “It’s the best. Half of my relationship with Logan has been makeup sex. The other half was revenge sex.”
“What’s the difference?” I asked.
She looked up out of the corner of her eye for a second as if in deep thought, then laughed. “Not much. Logan and I have..particular tastes in the bedroom.”
Not being familiar with sex, I really had no idea what she was talking about. I bit my lip for a second, pondering if I should ask what I really wanted to know. However, this wasn’t really the setting for talking about this.
“Particular how?”
“Well, we get a little rough. Sex tends to be an olympic event for us. There’s some slapping and biting, nothing too outrageous. I mean, we’re not into whips and chains and stuff like that.”
“People do that?” I asked, eyes wide.
The whole table turned to me in silence. I had a feeling I had just revealed my secret to everyone. Not that I was ashamed of being a virgin, but it’s not something you just come out and tell a group of strangers. In fact, sex was never something that was discussed in my house growing up. Other than the basics of the birds and the bees, I really didn’t know anything.
“I mean..of course people do that, but I’ve just never met anyone who did.”
“Lillian, how experienced are you?” Cece asked.
“With what?”
“Sex, sweetie,” she replied.
“Um..well I haven’t actually ever..um, had sex.” I replied hesitantly.
All the girls’ mouths dropped open except for Alex.
“How old are you?” Maggie asked.
“Twenty-eight.”
“And you’ve never had sex before?”
I turned to Harper and answered her with as much grace as I could muster. “I don’t believe in sex before marriage.”
“Then how do you know if you’re compatible?” Harper asked incredulously.
“Marriage should be based on mutual love for one another, not whether or not the sex is good.”
“But sex is a big part of marriage. If you can’t make it work in the bedroom, how do you make it work outside the bedroom?” Cece questioned.
“I could say just the opposite. If you only have good sex, what’s the point of the marriage? Look, I’m not judging. Those are just my beliefs.”
“I get it. I wish I had waited. Before I met Cole, I tried to sleep with a few men to get it over with. When the nightmares started, they all ran. They weren’t with me for any reason other than sex. With Cole, he wanted me for me and that’s how I knew it was real for us,” Alex said.
Sarah had remained suspiciously quiet through the whole thing. I could only guess that was because she had been pregnant with twins when she met Drew. I didn’t know her story so I didn’t want to judge.
“So, Sean came on to you and you shot him down, huh?” Harper said with a grin.
“Well, I didn’t so much turn him down as he got irritated with me and it didn’t take much from there for him to walk away.”
“He was talking to you for less than five minutes. What could you have possibly said?” Maggie asked.
“I corrected his grammar.”
“What?” A collective round came from the table.
“I’m an English teacher and I have a bad habit of correcting people’s grammar. He said good when he should have said well. I told him as much and it pretty much went south from there.”
“So, that must be why he walked out with Vira.” Cece stated.
“I thought he and Vira weren’t together anymore?” Sarah asked.
“They weren’t, but then she was flaunting another guy in his face. What did you think he was going to do? I think she did it on purpose. She’s been telling me that she was pissed at him that he couldn’t accept their open relationship. I guess she got tired of waiting for him to change his mind.”
The ladies continued to talk around me as I thought about what I had just heard. Apparently, Sean and Vira, the beautiful woman he walked out with, were having a sexual relationship. Now I knew that no matter if I had accepted a drink invitation from him or not, there would never be any way things would go further with us. Sean was obviously a man whore and there was no way I could ever be involved with someone that treated sex so casually.
CHAPTER FOUR
Vira
I NEEDED SEAN to back off. I couldn’t take anymore of his insistence that things become more between us. I really loved his company and I had yet to find anyone that satisfied me the way he did, but I couldn’t let it be more. I would never allow someone to work their way into my heart. That would lead to give and take and I most definitely did not give.
I got in the shower to wash off our sex marathon and felt the delicious warmth of the water wrap around me. I let the water run through my long, black hair and down my chest. Grabbing my loofa, I soaped up and started to wipe Sean’s scent from my body. If I didn’t, it would be even harder to make him leave. That’s why I didn’t do overnight stays. They made everything complicated.
I quickly finished in the shower and then stepped out to dry off. When I was dressed for bed, I steeled myself to go face Sean and kick him out so I could get some sleep. God knows I wouldn’t get any sleep if he stayed. I opened the bathroom door, but he was nowhere to be seen. His clothes weren’t on the floor and the bed was put back together. I walked toward the kitchen thinking that he
was getting something to eat, but it was also empty.
“Sean?”
I was greeted with silence and for once, felt the pang of loneliness. I had wanted this. I had pushed him away, but part of me always thought that he would continue to come back to me. Tears filled my eyes at the realization that I had successfully pushed him away. I didn’t cry. Especially not over a man, but Sean wasn’t just any man. He was someone that made me feel things that I shouldn’t be feeling.
I wasn’t sure if what I was feeling was love or if it was just really caring about another person. I thought I loved him as much as I loved any friend, but as a boyfriend and lover?
Sean had stuck by me for a year and a half, never walking away from me. I had plotted against his friends and broken the law, but he didn’t leave. When I was shot in the shoulder, he forced me to go home with him and he took care of me. I had been a huge pain in the ass and he still insisted on me staying with him.
But I continued to push him away. I just couldn’t allow myself to slip into a world where my life revolved so completely around another person. I grew up in a life that dictated who I become and who I marry. I just couldn’t allow that in my life. I had broken free and become the fun loving person I was today by avoiding anyone that could influence my life so greatly.
Shaking off thoughts of my childhood, I brushed the tears from my eyes and straightened my spine. I didn’t need Sean. I didn’t need his expectations and his demands. If he didn’t want me for what I could offer, then I would find someone that did.
✯✯✯✯✯
Walking into The Underground, my face turned sour at the thought of spending my night here. I was the manager here and I hated every minute of it. The Underground was a gentleman’s club where rich, married men came to explore their sexual fantasies with the promiscuous women that worked here.
The club was very select in its clientele and you had to go through an interview process before you were admitted. Everything that happened here was kept one hundred percent secret. Every room of this club was designed to fit any man’s needs. The women that worked here could choose what they were willing to do and worked the rooms that best suited their work needs.
Sean Page 3
