by S. E. Hall
As we line up, I steal a quick glance to the crowd, trying one last time to pick her out—nothing. The place is packed with hordes of college guys seeking the rush and even more college girls seeking those guys; it’s a big ass meat market. There are more female heads of dark hair than not and exactly how many people are wearing a yellow fucking shirt?
Know who I do see? Laney Jo Walker.
When you climb onto the bleacher rail and wave your hands in the air, people tend to pick you out in a crowd.
I give her, and Dane, who’s standing beside her shaking his head and laughing, a wave. I’m surprised that he’s here at all. What happened to the whole “stop with the destructive behavior” speech?
I turn my attention back to the flag, the familiar surge of exhilaration taking over. When the flag drops, the flight of ten bikes takes off, slinging up dirt and clouds of dust. It only takes me three laps to gain a huge lead, so I use it to my advantage. I will get her attention.
I’m having a fucking blast, taking the hills a tad faster now that I’m out of the pack and adding some kick twists when I’m airborne. Purposely allowing some fishtailing, flying sideways around the corners, I keep my eyes on the track, despite the need to check the stands. Thoughts of her race through my head as fast as the testosterone through my veins. Is she watching yet?
The last foothill before the finish line, I go all out and turn out a flip…easily landing it and crossing for the win. The horn blares and I rip off my helmet, lines of sweat dripping down the sides of my face. A flip. She had to have noticed that, right?
I don’t know how or when Daney, my clever combination of their names a nod to the single person they’ve fused into, make it across the track, but here they are beside me. That had to be like a real life game of Frogger, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he carried her across the traffic.
“You won!” Laney screams. “The shenanigans at the end scared me a little,” she slaps my arm, “but you won!” She’s gushing, literally bouncing up and down. See—the electricity of a race is contagious, ‘cause Laney Jo Walker doesn’t bounce.
“Nice job, man,” Dane chimes in, holding up his fist for a bump.
“Thanks.” I flick my eyes to him for acknowledgement, but just as quickly back to the stands. Get a pattern, one row at a time, left to right… It’s the best way to make sure I don’t miss her. Back and forth I scan as quickly as possible, getting disoriented every time a group moves. “Damn it!” I yell, throwing my helmet on the ground.
Laney gasps. “What? Are you okay?”
I sigh, running a hand down my face. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.” I lean over to pick the helmet back up, still unable to stop my eyes from wandering around hopefully.
“Don’t you have the finals?” Dane asks, curious arch of his brow.
He’s right, I had advanced to the big race, but I couldn’t care less about it at the moment. Add racing to the list; one more thing getting the fun sucked right out of it. Sucked out of it. Damn. I shake my head at the ironic pun that peaked my misery in the first place.
“Fuck the finals. I suddenly don’t give a shit,” I grumble, fiddling with the snaps on my helmet.
“You want to go out or—”
I cut Dane off, tired and frustrated. “I’ll meet you guys at home later. I’ve got some shit to do.”
“You sure? I have at least one beer in me,” he offers.
“Nah, man,” I pull Laney into me and kiss the top of her head, “but thanks for coming. I thought you hated me racing.”
“Yeah, well, your roommate can be pretty persuasive.” He chuckles, pulling his woman from my arms to his own.
“Saw, what’s wrong?” Laney asks, her brows dipped with a worried frown.
“Not a thing, Gidge. I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Okay.” She looks back as they walk away and I give her the best smile I can muster.
“Sawyer, your phone’s ringing.”
So answer it, dumbass.
“Sawyer, it’s Dane. You want me to grab it?”
I think I manage a thumbs up.
“Hey, drink this, Dane’s on his way to come get you.”
I lift my head and see that I am… Huh. I’m shitface plastered, sitting at The K. “What?”
Kasey’s behind the bar, pushing a drink towards me. “Drink up, man. Dane’s on his way to come get you.”
“What time is it? Who called Dane?” My mouth tastes like ass, my voice a gravelly inconvenience much like sandpaper across my skin.
“He called ten times and I finally answered it,” he explains. “And it’s three in the morning.”
I grab the glass and down it, bubbles tickling my nose. “What the fuck did I just drink?”
“Homemade hangover cure. You’ll thank me in the morning.” He laughs, turning to make me a refill.
Maybe it’s a play of the drunken mind, but I actually start to feel less fuzzy halfway through the second serving. “You should patent this shit, man. You’d be rich.”
“Alka Seltzer and Aleve might not like that. Finish it, your ride’s here.” He looks behind me and offers a shaky smile. “Hey, boss!”
“Thank you, Kasey,” Dane says through clenched teeth. “I’ll lock up, go ahead and head out.”
“Thanks, Kasey,” I mumble, turning to face my angry friend. “What’s up?”
“You tell me.” He pulls up the stool next to me. “Laney and I offer to take you out for a drink and you decline, yet you went and got hammered at your place of employment? Your phone broke? It’s three in the fucking morning; Laney cried herself to sleep, she was so damn worried!”
“Ugh,” I groan, letting my forehead drop on the bar. “I’m fine. I’ll apologize to her.”
“Yes, you will. Right after you tell me what the fuck is up with you. I’m done, Sawyer,” he says firmly, slamming his hand on the bar. “Start talking.”
“Can you even remember what you felt like before you met Laney?” I turn my face up to him. “Empty and meaningless and jealous of every happy motherfucker you knew?”
He nods, waiting patiently for me to go on.
“She was there, at the race. Now she thinks I’m shit before we even really meet.”
“Who is she?”
“Skipper Stripper, the most beautiful girl on Earth. And her voice, ahhh,” I moan, letting my head fall back and my eyes drop closed. “Her fucking voice, those lips—my God. And she’s cool! I knew it!”
“Why would she think badly of you?”
I rub my both my hands furiously over my head. “She may have walked up on me gettin’ a blowjob.”
“At the race?”
“At the race.”
“Only you.” He shakes his head back and forth. “So we’re talking about the girl from Parker’s party, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Sawyer, that was months ago. That’s some serious pining time you’ve put in, bud. What if she’s not everything you’ve built her up to be?”
I turn to him, thinking about it for a minute. “What if she is?”
He stands, giving me a knowing smile. “What if she is? Come on,” he pats my shoulder, “let’s go home.”
Chapter 4
Interview with a Vixen
—Sawyer—
I’m stacking glasses, “Hurt” by Johnny Cash cranked up, when Dane comes strolling into The K. He reaches for the panel and turns down my soundtrack.
“How’s life? Any better?”
“Well, I fired Brock, the douchebag,” I grumble. He’s lucky I didn’t kick his ass while I was at it. “So I moved Kasey to security with a raise and myself behind the bar. Oh,” I snap, “and I finally figured out what the fucking fox says, so yeah, I’m golden.”
Chuckling, he hands me some papers. “Good to hear. I forgot I had this interview and Laney’s waiting for me. Could you do it?”
I skim over the resume he’s handed me. “What are we hiring for?”
> “Waitress for nights and behind the bar for lunch if she wants it.”
“Yeah, I got it,” I assure him, not feeling like looking at his happy-in-love face. “Get outta here.”
“See ya, brother.” He slaps the bar and winks at me.
Why the fuck is he winking at me? God, I hope he gets some…from his WOMAN.
I start to make my way up the stairs to Dane’s office, not at all in the mood to play nice through an interview, when Dane calls out and stops me. “Sawyer?”
“Yeah?” I say as I turn. What the fuck does he want now?
“Do you trust yourself?”
“What?” I back down the two steps I’d taken and close the gap between us. “Dude, you’re winking at me, asking weird shit…did someone leave glue open around you or what?”
“Do. You. Trust. Yourself?” he repeats, quirking one brow like he does when he’s challenging someone.
“Of course I do. Why? Do you trust yourself?”
“Absolutely.” He nods. “Which is why when naysayers give me shit or try to plant doubt, I have no problem ignoring them.”
I just stare at him, trying to discretely discern the size of his pupils; I honestly think he sniffed glue.
He puts one hand on my shoulder and grins. “You and I, we’re go with our gut kinda guys. Don’t change.”
It takes me a minute to file all that gibberish away and head up to the office. If I thought he’d just thrown me for a loop with that weird talk, then what happens next is a full-out circle around the fucking globe. When I open the door, I’m dumbstruck.
Her name is Emmett L. Young, and I finally know this because that’s the name on the resume I’m holding and she is sitting in Dane’s office.
I told you—that guy has scary ways of making things happen. And he can wink at me and sniff glue any fucking time he wants, ‘cause I kinda love him right now.
“Hi,” I manage as I walk further into the office and offer her my hand. “Sawyer Beckett.”
She stands with a subdued smirk, her wide, shocked eyes quickly grazing over me. “Emmett Young,” she says as she shakes my hand. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Beckett.” Her voice pours out like warm honey as she retakes her seat.
“What’s the L stand for?”
There’s a slight flinch of her face—she’s as thrown off by my question as I am. It just came out.
“Louise?”
“You sure?” I flirtingly challenge her as I take a seat behind Dane’s desk.
“I’m sure, uh, it was kinda weird you asked. Not what I was expecting.”
“Mine’s Landon, also an L. That’s why I noticed.” That is so not why I noticed. Much like the fact that I know she had cinnamon gum recently, that she tried to cover the small butterfly tattoo behind her left ear with makeup, and that she used to bite her nails but she’s trying to let them grow back… I noticed.
“So, um,” she fidgets, “this is kinda awkward. If you want to cancel, I’d understand.”
“Do you want to cancel?” I refuse to look away, forcing my eyes to stay on hers despite my embarrassment and mortal fear she might say yes.
Her head shakes back and forth rapidly. “No, not at all. I really need this job. Mr. Kendrick said it pays fifteen dollars an hour. That’s unheard of for a waitress. It’s more than I make at both my current jobs combined.”
“All right then, Emmett.” God, her name tastes good in my mouth. “Let’s talk.”
A smile as timid and sweet as a baby deer takes over her gorgeous face and I have to grip the arms of the chair to keep myself in it. Fuck, she’s hot. I want to know what she tastes like everywhere. Are her sighs high or low, quiet or loud? Which curls and digs into the sheets first, her fingers or her toes?
“Mr. Beckett?”
“Hmm?” Oh. “Sorry. And call me Sawyer, please.”
She nods and looks down, her cheeks slightly flushing. I’ve never gotten hard just from looking at a girl before, but I could lift this desk off the ground with my dick alone right now.
“Let’s get it out of the way, okay? I manage The K, so you’d be working more for me than Dane. Mr. Kendrick, I mean.” I cough. “We both know what you saw. Will you be able to take direction from me, respect my authority, after that?”
She crosses her left leg over her right and pulls at the hem of her shirt. “Absolutely.”
I lean back in the chair and steeple my fingers under my chin. “Are you sure? I can’t have you thinking poorly of me. How can you listen to someone you don’t respect? You can’t even look at me right now.”
Her head snaps up, eyes defiant and locked tight on mine. “It was just a blowjob.” She slaps her hand over her mouth, her entire body (every inch I can see, at least) blushing furiously. She lowers her hand and whispers, “I mean, it wasn’t a big deal. Not that it wasn’t big, it was…oh my God.” She drops her head and covers her face with both hands, talking through them. “Please kill me.”
My laughter can’t be stopped and soon she’s joining me, peeking at me through her spread fingers.
“I’m gonna try this one more time.” She graces me with her unencumbered face once again. “While your choice of public venue may have been a tad shocking, the fact that you get blowjobs was not, especially from Mariah. It’s fine and will not affect my ability to work for you.”
“Good,” I reply with a straight face. “And for what it’s worth, I’m very sorry you witnessed what was not one of my proudest moments.”
“Can you tell me about the job?” she asks sweetly, fidgeting just a bit.
She means this job, not that job, right? Right. Pull it together, Beckett.
We sigh together, both relieved that conversation is finally over. I’m still worried what she really thinks of me, but I’ll have plenty of time to prove myself to her soon enough.
I briefly describe the job, which isn’t complicated, and ask a few questions. “So tell me about what you’re doing now, Emmett.” I notice exotic dancer is not listed on her resume.
“I wait tables at Granny’s Kitchen and hostess at The Crossbow.”
Interesting…she’s either lying to me or changed jobs and I was looking in all the wrong places. I assure you, I never went looking for my stripper at Granny’s Kitchen. Maybe they fired her because she’s such a horrific dancer. I can’t tell ya how happy the thought makes me.
“So you’re 21, right? Do you know how to make drinks?”
“I’ll be 22 soon, and yes, I can make almost anything. I’ve tended some before.”
“Are there any hours you can’t work?”
“I take one class at Community, Wednesdays from noon to one. Other than that, I’m all yours.”
Oh, sweet Emmett, how you taunt me so.
“I’ll take all the hours you’re willing to give me, any job, any shift.”
The anxiety in her voice, along with her imploring eyes, triggers some baser instinct in me. Something is off, my gut telling me this girl needs me. I want her to need me. I already need her, after all.
“That’s great,” I answer. “I’ll keep it in mind. So, how much notice do you need to give your current jobs?”
“Will you think badly of me if I say none? I wouldn’t do that here, but I need the increase in pay to start as soon as possible. They only give me about twenty hours a week each anyway. How bad could they possibly miss me?”
“All right then.” I smile, letting her know I understand her standpoint.
“Does that mean I’m hired?”
“Yes,” I nod, “I’d love to have you.”
“Oh, thank you!” She leaps from her chair and runs over to hug me.
Very pleasantly shocked, I’m already standing when she gets to me, more than happy to return her embrace. She’s so tiny in my arms, barely reaching the middle of my chest, her arms struggling to reach around me. Far too soon, she pulls back and looks way up at me.
“I’m probably out of line,” she starts, her voice soft, “but you don’t understa
nd how much this means to me. Thank you so much. I promise to do a great job for you!”
“It’s my pleasure, Emmett.” I clear my throat and step back. “How about you come in Sunday? We can do all your paperwork and go over a lot of logistical stuff when no one’s here to interrupt. I think we’d get more accomplished that way, so you can be on your own faster.”
“Perfect. What time?”
“Nine?”
She nods, her huge smile contagious.
“All right, I’ll see you then. Let me walk you out.” My hand reaches for the small of her back, itching to touch her, but I pull back quickly, actually contemplating my pursuit tactics for perhaps the first time ever. “Unless you’re hungry?” Even I can hear the hope in my voice; I’d kill for more time with her. “Can I feed you?”
The sweetest giggle reaches out and sucker punches me in the chest. “No, thank you, I’m fine.”
Disappointed our time together is in fact ending, for now, I turn to walk her out, moving slow and battling the hint of a shot-down scowl. Daney meets us at the bottom of the stairs, the blonde of the duo eyeing Emmett anxiously as my boss and awesome friend smiles coyly.
“I’m guessing you’re our new waitress? Emmett, is it?” Dane offers his hand.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Kendrick. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I promise you won’t be sorry.”
“I’m sure I won’t. This is Laney, my beautiful girlfriend,” he introduces. “Laney, this is Emmett. Sawyer hired her.”
Laney looks at him like he’s a circus sideshow, probably wondering why he reiterated what she’d already heard. “Hi, Emmett, welcome. You’ll love it here. Everyone’s wonderful, even my weirdo boyfriend here.”
“I can’t wait to get started. I’m so excited.” Smart girl; breeze right over the owner being weird part with a grin to the girlfriend.
Laney’s too sharp for her own good, her eyes smiling at me as she nods at Emmett’s response. “I can see you’re in good hands. Sawyer will take excellent care of you.”
I air kiss her over Emmett’s head and laugh when Dane growls audibly and pulls on her arm. “Come on, Emmett,” I say to my newest employee, “Mr. Kendrick’s gonna blow.”
