by J. Sterling
“This one better end in a kiss this time. Or even better, start with one.” She waggled her eyebrows like some old creeper.
“Please never make that face again.” I gave her a teasing glance before focusing back on the road.
“Fine. But I still think you should attack him with your mouth the second you see him.”
“Noted.” I smiled, but knew I would never do it.
Britney frowned at me and let out a sigh. “You won’t do it.”
“You’re right. I won’t.”
She made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and an annoyed huff. “Knowing Frank, he’d probably be turned off if you attacked him. Or it’s exactly what he’s waiting for. I wish he was easier to figure out!”
“You wish?” I let out a laugh. “How do you think I feel?”
“Lucky. Because you like a Fisher brother, and he actually likes you back.”
Her tone wasn’t resentful or angry, but it was tinged with a hint of sadness. It wasn’t easy to forget that the whole reason I’d even met Frank in the first place was because of Britney’s crush on Ryan. I glanced at her, noting she’d turned almost wistful as she looked out the passenger window, and neither of us said anything more.
She was right, though. I was lucky.
And I knew it.
Losing Control
Frank
When Claudia had mentioned coming by the bar again, I couldn’t tell her no.
I’d wanted to.
But I couldn’t.
No, that wasn’t true at all. Because I hadn’t wanted to tell her no; I simply knew that I should have.
Just the idea of seeing her beautiful smile spurred me on. The thought of getting to know her better fueled me. So when Claudia asked if she could stop by the bar after work, my fingers were typing out the hell yes response quicker than my brain could stop them.
I realized in that moment, if I hadn’t realized it before, that my willpower wasn’t strong enough to keep her at a distance, especially when she tried to close it. All my carefully laid-out thoughts and plans halted the second anything with her became a possibility. I tossed everything out the proverbial fucking window the moment I spotted her reflection in it. My heart was in the lead. Or maybe it was my dick? An image of her body sprang to my mind, and I instantly hardened.
Shit.
My brain had definitely gone on hiatus, taken a vacation, filed for an extended leave. And since Nick’s girlfriend, Jess, was sick and he’d asked if he could take the night off to stay with her, Ryan would be here again to witness my failure at keeping my distance from Claudia. So here we were, about to have a repeat of the night before.
“She’s coming in again?” Ryan asked as he mixed a new concoction for me to try.
I’d given him a heads-up about Claudia so he wouldn’t be surprised. Or maybe I’d simply wanted him to know. Either way, I’d filled him in.
I nodded and waited for him to finish my drink. He topped it off with a spritz of something, then zested an orange and ran the peel along the rim of the glass before sliding it over.
Breathing in the citrus mixed with whiskey, I was intoxicated. It smelled amazing but tasted even better. “I don’t know how the hell you do this. You have a gift.”
“It’s good, right?”
“It’s really fucking good.”
Ryan grinned. He scribbled a note into his Moleskin before folding it and tucking it into his back pocket. “I can’t believe she’s coming here again.”
I didn’t really want to talk about Claudia, about my fucked-up priorities and decision-making skills since meeting her. We’d already said everything there was to say last night. My telling him before she arrived tonight had been a courtesy. Or a warning.
“You’re going to get in trouble. Seriously, how long do you think you can put off kissing a woman like that?”
It wasn’t as if those thoughts didn’t run through my mind constantly. They did. I imagined her long, lean legs and all the ways I could wrap them around my body as I slid inside her. I wanted to plant kisses all over her tanned skin as I made her moan my name over and over again.
“Probably not very long.”
“No shit. So, what the hell are you going to do?” When I merely shrugged my shoulders, he said, “Just tell her. Tell her you’re in a relationship, but it’s over. It’s been over.”
A cough bubbled up and escaped, and I pounded at my chest. “You want me to tell Claudia that I have a girlfriend? But not to worry, because it will be over soon? She’d probably rip off my head with her bare hands and spit on my corpse. Both pieces.”
Ryan laughed. “I was just thinking that a little honesty might be your best option at this point, but you might be right. Maybe it’s too late to tell the truth.”
His words struck me like a sucker punch. Was it ever too late to tell the truth? Was there a line you crossed where the truth was no longer relevant, or no longer mattered? Or was honesty always your best option, your best bet?
I downed the rest of the new drink he had made as the door swung open and Claudia walked in. When my eyes met hers, she gave me the most genuine and beautiful smile as her long legs propelled her toward the bar. She was wearing a pair of skinny jeans and a fitted white tank top. Her outfit might be simple, yet the woman wearing it was anything but.
The moment I saw her face, I forgot what I’d been thinking about. I swear, I might not have been able to remember my own name if anyone asked.
“You look gorgeous,” I said as she took a seat in front of me, resting her elbows on top of the bar.
Her face crinkled for only a moment before she thanked me. “You look all right,” she said, her lips lifting into a half smile.
“What about me?” Ryan jutted out his hip and struck a ridiculous pose like a runway model.
“Oh yes, Ryan. You look magnificent. Utterly perfect.” She brought her fingers to her lips and kissed them with European flair.
“I knew it,” he said in a horrible British accent. “Can I get you something to drink, milady?”
She glanced at me, almost as if she was waiting for a sign as to whether she should order something, and my stomach rumbled. It was in that moment when I wished our bar had a kitchen.
Food was pretty much the only thing missing from Sam’s, but we’d decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. Yes, people did leave the bar when they were hungry, but they always came back. Plus, not having food hadn’t hurt our sales in the slightest, so there wasn’t any real incentive to add a kitchen, to get licensed and deal with additional staff and food. It would only add a whole new level of things to manage, and the three of us weren’t very interested in the dining side of things.
Except apparently my stomach. It growled again, and Claudia laughed.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“A little.”
“I’ll hold off on that drink, Ryan. We should probably get some food into this guy’s tummy,” she teased, batting her eyelashes at me.
Ryan immediately perked up. “Pizza. Definitely pizza. And bring me back some.”
I turned toward Claudia. “Do you eat pizza?”
She scoffed at me, offended. “Do I eat pizza? Oh, because I’m Colombian, I don’t eat Italian food? Is that what you think?”
I held my hands in the air and grinned. “Calm down, feisty. I was just asking. Maybe you hate cheese? Maybe you have a gluten allergy?”
“No and no. I love cheese. I could live off pizza. Feed me pizza or lose me forever.” She gave her long black hair a dramatic toss, and I couldn’t get around the bar and over to her quick enough.
“I was serious about bringing me back some. Don’t forget,” Ryan called out as we headed toward the exit. “Don’t forget!” he shouted again, and I stopped and turned back.
“Jesus, Ryan, we won’t,” I told him as I placed my hand on the small of Claudia’s back.
God, it felt good to touch her, to feel her warmth underneath my palm. She leaned into my touch, pres
sing harder into me than she had a second earlier, and I wasn’t sure if she even realized she was doing it.
Once we were outside and in public, I dropped my hand. I wanted to lace my fingers with hers but stopped myself from being that forward, from crossing that particular line.
Smiling at her, I pointed toward the pizza place across the street, and we walked there side by side. Every few steps, her hip would brush against my leg, making my dick twitch. My mind ran wild with want, my body hummed with desire, but some sliver of self-control remained. Thank God we only had a few feet left to go, or I was certain I would have lost my mind and mauled her up against the brick wall beside us.
I held the door open as she walked through it, and we stopped to check out the chalkboard menu just inside the entrance.
“Are we taking it to go?” Claudia asked absentmindedly as she stared at the menu.
“Let’s eat here.”
She ducked her head, her hair dropping into a curtain that nearly hid her smile. “Are you going to make fun of me if I order a salad?”
I tried to keep my face serious. “I thought you ate pizza? Loved cheese? Could live off pizza alone? Told me to feed it to you or lose you forever?” I poked at her shoulder.
She swatted my arm. “I meant with the pizza.”
“Order whatever you want, babe,” I said, then froze when I realized I’d just responded as if she were my girlfriend. Her cheeks flushed, and I knew I was screwed. It wasn’t like I could take it back, but I could pretend it had never happened. Stupid fucking mouth.
We ordered more food than we could possibly eat, and I paid, not wanting to let Claudia buy anything when we were together. She tried to argue with me, reminding me how I always paid for her drinks at the bar, but in the end, I won. Her wallet stayed in her purse, and her purse stayed on her shoulder.
Looking around the small space, I was glad it wasn’t busy, and urged her toward a small table in the back.
Claudia sat down across from me and smiled. “Thank you for dinner.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Next time I’m treating you,” she insisted, and I knew better than to fight her on it. I simply nodded and wondered how the hell I’d pull off a next time with her.
When we finished eating, I grabbed Ryan’s pizza and our leftovers before we headed out into the chilly evening air. Claudia wrapped her arms around herself as we hustled back to the bar. I’d left Ryan alone for way too long, losing track of time as Claudia and I ate and chatted like we’d been doing it for years. Even though Sam’s would be all but empty on a Tuesday night, none of us liked working alone. Not to mention the fact that there was safety in numbers, and being the lone person tending bar wasn’t all that smart.
I was glad when we walked inside to see only a small handful of patrons. Ryan seemed to have everything under control, laughing easily with them as he prepared a drink.
“Let me put this in the back,” I said to Claudia, and she smiled and gave me a quick nod. I left the pizza on the desk in my office, then returned to the bar.
“Pizza’s in the office. Go eat. I’ll take care of things out here,” I said before giving Ryan a slight shove. Before I knew it, he had the pizza box in hand, and rather than eating in the office, was headed toward where Claudia gone to sit in the back of the bar, at the same table we’d sat at last night.
I bit back a scowl, wanting to strangle my brother as I answered nonstop questions from two guys who wanted to know how long we’d been open, what our plans were for the future, and why we didn’t serve food. Jesus, I wanted them to shut the hell up. I kept my responses short, my tone gruff, and they eventually stopped being so damn chatty. If they wanted a bartender best friend, they’d have to wait for Ryan to come back.
Claudia’s laugh filled the room. I jerked my head around to find she and Ryan were laughing so hard, they looked like they each might fall off their chairs. Jealousy ripped through me. As irrational and immature as it was, the emotion still seared my every fiber. I wanted to make her laugh like that. I wanted to do so many things both to and with Claudia.
Needing a distraction, I reached for the empty beer tumblers and started washing them. I kept my head down and scrubbed furiously, letting out all my pent-up emotions on the poor glass cylinders.
Ryan’s voice startled me. “Whoa, bro, what’d those glasses ever do to you?”
I had no idea how long I’d been standing there, my hands moving furiously, my knuckles white from my grip.
“She’s really cool,” he said in a low voice as he gently removed the glass from my hand.
“I know she is,” I bit back before casting a glance at her direction. She sat at our table alone, her eyes on me. Not on Ryan, but me. I couldn’t wait to get back over to her.
The door opened and several loud female voices floated into the bar. I looked up, immediately recognizing one in particular, and froze in shock as Shelby and three of her coworkers stepped inside the bar. The group had clearly already been drinking, and Shelby was apparently more than simply buzzed, based on the way she carried herself and the higher-than-normal volume of her voice.
Ryan stomped on my foot. “What’s she doing here?” he asked behind a smile meant for my girlfriend and her friends.
“I don’t know,” I ground out behind a plastered-on smile of my own, trying not to freak the fuck out.
“Hey, baby!” Shelby hopped onto a stool, reaching over the bar to loop an arm around my neck and plant a kiss right on my mouth.
With my eyes still open, I met Claudia’s confused gaze, then looked back at Shelby.
She frowned. “Did you forget we were coming? I told you this morning.”
My mind sifted through foggy memories for a conversation where Shelby had mentioned coming by the bar tonight, but came up empty. With my luck, she had probably told me while I was still half asleep.
I mumbled something in response that she assumed was my recognition. Obviously, I had no idea she’d be stopping by the bar tonight.
She gave me a big smile and waved it off. “Anyway, it’s Suzi’s last day, so we’re out celebrating and saying ’bye.” She faked a pout in Suzi’s direction, or in what I assumed was the direction of whoever the hell Suzi was. I didn’t know any of the females currently drooling over Ryan.
“Where were you ladies before this?” Ryan asked them.
Thankful for the distraction, I tried to pull myself together and failed miserably. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, unable to breathe, every second feeling like the life was being choked out of me.
How the hell was I going to get out of this? How could I explain this to Claudia? This wasn’t how I wanted her to find out.
When Shelby said, “We were at Don Tequila’s, the Mexican place down the street,” I almost lost my dinner. She and her friends had just been three doors down from where Claudia and I had been eating dinner.
What the hell had I been thinking? My heart made me careless, foolish even.
“Let me guess. Pitchers of margaritas?” Ryan winked, his tone flirty as he chatted with the group. They all laughed as Shelby made her way behind the bar and tugged on my arm.
I looked down at her and forced a smile. “You okay?”
“Yeah, but I might be a little drunk,” she admitted before covering her face with her hands.
“That’s okay, babe,” I said as she fell into me, wrapping her arms around my middle and pulling me tight against her.
“I still love you, you know,” she said, her breath warm against my chest. She tightened her grip and I hugged her harder in response, but didn’t say anything. “I know things are weird between us, but I still want to be with you.” Her tone was desperate, as though she knew I didn’t want this anymore, as if she’d sensed it somehow but had been keeping it all inside.
I swallowed hard, everything around me blurring. I didn’t want to say the words back to her, fought them from coming out of my mouth, the lie bitter on my tongue. So I kissed the top of her he
ad, absentmindedly rubbing the length of her back as I stayed silent.
“You don’t.” She pulled back slightly to look me in the eye. “You don’t feel the same anymore, do you?”
Her slightly unfocused eyes reflected her sadness, and my stomach twisted. This was a worst-case scenario, not at all how I wanted any of this to go down. Yes, a conversation about our future needed to be had, but not in the bar, and not while she was drunk. And most certainly not with an audience.
I opened my mouth to say something, but I had no idea what.
From the corner of my eye, I caught Claudia moving toward us. I hadn’t looked at her since that first time, too scared that her hurt expression might tear me apart. But I couldn’t stop myself this time. She was too close. And while I worried for only a second that she might cause a scene, something inside me trusted that she wouldn’t.
I looked directly at Claudia, and my breath caught. I half wondered if Shelby felt me stiffen as she followed suit, staring at the woman I’d been secretly falling for behind her back. Claudia’s eyes were tear-filled but furious, shooting daggers. She paused for only a moment before she all but sprinted from the bar.
Shelby looked up at me. “Who was that?”
Thank God, Ryan immediately jumped in.
“Be right back.” He slapped me on the back and handed me the drink shaker before bolting out after Claudia to handle what I so clearly couldn’t. If there was a Brother of the Year award, he should win it for how he handled that moment.
“Another of Ryan’s groupies, I guess? She looked really upset. I wonder why?”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t.
A Girlfriend?!
Claudia
Squeezing my eyes shut, I repeated the word no in my head at least twenty times. This couldn’t be happening. There was no way that I had fallen for a guy who wasn’t available. Frank hadn’t just deceived me. There was no way he had a girlfriend . . . was there? Everything had been going so well, until . . .
