For the Win

by Brenna Aubrey

  Twenty minutes after we arrived, a group of young women from Draco--April among them--entered the room. No sign of that creep Charles. Good. However, I did notice a lot of male heads turn as they walked past. I knew what was going through their minds. They were categorizing each woman based on coloring, body style, height and looks. Some women had gorgeous bodies but so-called "butter face"--meaning she was hot, "but her face."

  April was most definitely not in that category. She was shorter with a more petite build than her friends--the shortest one in the crowd. She trailed behind the other three, most noticeable because of her long, dark hair, which she wore down and to the middle of her back. I'd spent more time than I should looking at that hair, wondering if it was black or dark brown, studying how it reflected the light, wanting to smell it. It was silky, shiny and I wanted to run my fingers through it. Wanted to wrap it around my hands while I fucked her.

  I jerked my eyes away, taking another sip of my unleaded drink. William was sulking, watching me with his dark eyes. As usual, he was dressed in mismatched clothing. He didn't have a knack for fashion--nor did he have a stylish haircut. Nevertheless, half the women on this side of the bar were checking him out and he was completely unaware. Figured. Although Adam had a better sense of style, the family resemblance was unmistakable and my best friend had a similar effect on women. What was it with that family, anyway, that made them women-magnets?

  The group of Draco interns took a table near the other side of the bar from us, but in clear line of sight. Sometime after work, April had changed into a short purple dress that accentuated her pale complexion and her curves perfectly. Eyes followed her as she walked by, and I wanted to stab out every one of them for looking at her and thinking the same dirty thoughts that were going through my mind at this moment.

  "I still don't understand the point of us being here," William said in his usual blunt monotone.

  "Well, when you asked me how I talked to women, I told you it was hard to explain--that I'd have to show you. I figured I had the time tonight. I could show you."

  He frowned. "I don't like this at all."

  Over his shoulder, a blonde about thirty years old had not stopped staring at him. It was clear she was waiting for him to look up so she could meet his gaze and give him a 'come-hither' smile. Good luck with that, lady.

  "Consider this practice. I have acquired our first target. There's a blonde on the other side of you who appears...interested."

  William scowled. "This isn't what I meant when I said I wanted to learn how to talk to women. I already have the woman in mind that I want to talk to. I told you. I want Jenna."

  "Women, William. Plural. You know what they say, there are a lot of fish in the sea."

  He shook his head. "I don't like fishing."

  I scratched at my chin then threw another glance at the interns from Draco. A couple of guys had joined them and were chatting them up, beer bottles in hand. April did not appear to be engaging with them but was staring intently at her cell phone.

  Across from me, William harrumphed. "You aren't here to talk to women plural either. You've been staring at those Draco interns since they came in. Especially April Weiss."

  I jerked my head back to William. "Listen, do you want to learn what I do or not?"

  He said nothing, returning a heated glare at me, his eyes dropping almost immediately.

  "Have you tried just, you know, asking her out?"

  William kept his eyes on the tabletop. "I don't know what words I should use. That's why I was asking you. And after I ask her, if she says yes, I have no idea how to talk to her."

  "Talk to her like she's your friend, or a member of your family. It might be less scary if you ask her to go out in a group--like, for instance, find something you like to do with friends and see if she wants to go along."

  He appeared to be fixated on every word while staring at the tabletop.

  "But while we're here, we can practice on these ladies..." I took another sip of my drink and slid off my chair. "Watch and learn, kid."

  "We are nearly the same age. I am three weeks older than you. I'm not a kid. I'm not even relatively a kid compared to you."

  I waved him off. "Relax, William, jeez. That blonde who's been staring at you? I'm going to go get her number for you."

  Before he could protest, I made my way over to her table where she sat with her friend. As soon as she saw me approach, she said something to her friend and they both turned to smile at me.

  "Hello, ladies, how are you tonight?"

  "Hello there." The blonde and her friend both looked me up and down with a smile. They were prettier from a few tables away than they were up close, but they seemed nice enough.

  The brunette next to her perked up, giving me a wide smile, and leaned forward, providing me with a nice view of her ample cleavage. "Hi! I'm Skyler. This is Avery."

  "I'm Jordan, and my friend over there, the shy guy, is William. Would you like to join us for a drink?"

  The ladies exchanged glances and the blonde nodded enthusiastically, her eyes fixed on William, who had pulled out a pocket-sized sketchpad and was writing or drawing something. At a bar. We'd have to have a chat about that.

  The ladies joined us and I ordered another round of drinks, then proceeded to spend the next half hour in the most stilted, awkward conversation ever while attempting to get William to open up--he never did.

  He kept his head down, answered questions in monosyllables and continued to sketch. This was going to be a long night. I found myself constantly checking the other side of the bar where men were on that table of nubile young interns like a fat kid on a Twinkie.

  My blood pressure shot up every time one of them talked to her. Fuckers. If looks could kill, they would all be dead.

  She spotted me not long after the women came to join us at my table for drinks. It was fairly amusing to watch her do a double take when she'd glanced over, recognized me and looked back, her eyes narrowing.

  Not long after that, she started sending me her own looks of death. She did not appear happy to see me here. Tough shit. What was she going to do, order me to leave?

  As the minutes passed, I became less and less aware of the people at my table and more and more fixated on the goings-on over at intern-central. The two women eventually finished their drinks and drifted away, but William's dirty looks were not lost on me. He continued to draw and I ordered another Coke, vowing to myself that I wasn't going home until she left the bar alone. If it took the closing of the bar to do that, then so be it.

  Chapter 9

  April

  My eyes flicked again to the Beast, who was doing his best to mad dog me from across the room. What was he trying to prove by being here, anyway? I shot him another set of invisible daggers across the room. He was sitting at a table with two women and a good-looking, dark-haired guy who looked really familiar for some reason. After puzzling it out for a moment, I remembered that I'd seen him at Draco. A fellow employee.

  "So what do you think of my plan?" Cari was muttering to me on this end of the table, completely ignoring the two guys talking to Ingrid and Sheila at the other end.

  "What plan again?"

  "You know... about a certain devilishly handsome CEO we both know."

  I poked my straw into the dregs of my drink, twirling it around the ice cubes. When she'd first proposed this absurd "plan" to me a half hour before, I'd finally decided she must be insane. Of course, I was too chicken shit to say it. I shrugged.

  She scowled. "Come on, April. We were all in marketing working together last year. You, me and her. Why did he pick her...do you ever wonder that? Over you or me? What does she have? It's like...he was totally unattainable to all of us, and then one night at the employee party in Vegas, he started drinking and then dancing with Mia. The next thing everybody knows, they're a couple. Did she put Rohypnol in his drink or something?"

  I suppressed rolling my eyes. "We have no idea what happened. They could have been da
ting before that, Cari." I licked my lips. "Anyway, it's crying over spilt milk now. He put a ring on it. He's engaged."

  Her eyes were burning with a strange sort of intensity. "He hasn't put a ring on it yet. At least not the ring that counts. And even if he had... well...it wouldn't be the first marriage I'd broken up." She batted her eyes and swished her impossible amounts of blond hair. "My senior English seminar teacher, to be specific. His wife left him because of me."

  I raised a brow. His job probably left him because of her, too.

  "So you have a superpower?"

  She tilted her head haughtily. "Why certainly, if I do say so myself. And now my sights are set on Adam."

  "But you don't seem to have gotten very far."

  She flicked her eyebrows up as if sharing a lurid secret. "I catch him checking me out sometimes."

  I sighed. I highly doubted that.

  "Why not? I've got more tits and ass than she had even before she got sick."

  I pushed my cup of ice cubes in my face to hide the utter shock and disgust I felt at her words. She was a piece of work, and I wondered what had possessed me to join her and her cronies out here tonight.

  Oh yes, it was because she had pestered me incessantly for two days straight and punctuated it with her pointed concern: "I hope no one finds out it was you in the video. I'm so nervous for you. You must be stressed out. Can I buy you a drink?"

  There'd been a clear message there. Play nice with her or she could make trouble. I wondered how I could get out of this before she started increasing the pressure with more threats. As usual, I'd keep my mouth shut and play nice while trying to think my way out of the situation.

  But there might not be an easy way. Besides avoidance. I could do that...I was an expert at it. My dad had been trying to get a hold of me for almost a month now. And my mom would be needing a PI soon in order to get a call through to me.

  If they gave degrees in avoidance, I'd have a Ph.D. and everyone would be calling me Dr. Weiss.

  "I'm going to get another drink."

  "Is this one going to have alcohol in it?" she asked.

  I slipped off my stool and shrugged. I was still honoring my vow to never drink alcohol again. She called after me as I headed to the bar. "When you get back, we are going to discuss the plan."

  I resisted shaking my head, afraid that she would see. I pressed up against the bar and noticed the nearest bartender was talking to a pair of tall and very beautiful blondes. I gave the front of my dress a tug to show some cleavage and then leaned forward. Another bartender appeared in front of me in one minute flat. I smiled, shaking my empty glass. "Can I get another Shirley Temple?"

  He frowned, apparently certain he'd misheard me.

  "Yeah, you heard it right."

  His brow twitched and he smiled. "Coming right up, beautiful."

  I smiled. Even if he was milking me for a bigger tip, I didn't care. Tonight especially, I really needed to hear it.

  The bartender turned back to me, placing the drink down on the bar. I handed him my money and he rang me up. But to my surprise, he didn't move on. "I'm Chris. How are you tonight?"

  "April. Nice to meet you. Currently, I'm trying to avoid my psycho friend."

  He flicked a glance over my shoulder. "The blondie over there? She does have a bit of the crazy eyes going on."

  I smirked, pressing the drink to my lips. "It's not the only thing crazy about her."

  He laughed and gave me the once-over. Okay, I'd already paid and tipped him, so I decided he wasn't just trying to snag a bigger tip from me. I gave him my best flirty smile.

  "That's not the only crazy-ass thing about this night. My even crazier boss is over on the other side of the room trying to hit on women twice his age."

  He threw his head back and laughed. "Well, who said we didn't have entertainment?"

  I licked my lips and he followed the motion, his gaze lingering on my mouth. "So I'm off in an hour. You planning on hanging around?"

  "I just might be." I flashed him another smile. He was cute. Not overwhelmingly gorgeous, but my track record with those types was not good. I swallowed as I remembered not too many days before when I'd had a heart-stoppingly gorgeous man all over me.

  I flicked another gaze across the bar at him. He was chatting with the women at his table, but his eyes were on me. When our gazes met, his eyes visibly narrowed. What was he, my babysitter?

  I pressed the drink to my lips again, this time clasping the glass so that my middle finger was visible to him, obviously positioned that way on purpose. When he saw, his eyebrows rose. With a wide grin, I put the drink down and shot the bartender another flirty smile.

  "Be right back...where's the ladies' room?"

  He pointed. "Don't lose your way back to me, lovely April."

  Ugh. That was cheesy. But my grin remained pasted to my face as I slipped away from the bar and weaved between crowded tables toward the back of the room and down a dark hallway.

  I twisted the knob on the scuffed-up bathroom door, finding it locked. Damn it. I didn't frequent this place at all, but if it was like other bars, there were probably people fucking in there. I didn't have to go to the bathroom that badly. It had been an excuse to get away, maybe spend fifteen minutes sitting in a stall reading on my phone. This whole night was proving deeply annoying, between Cari's "plot" to go after Adam--and somehow, vaguely involve me in it--and Jordan's unexpected appearance and subsequent social butterfly routine. Personally, I would never have pegged him for a place like this. I would have thought he did his woman-trawling at private parties for the rich and famous and incredibly hot model and actress hopefuls.

  With a sigh of frustration, I stepped away from the bathroom door and pressed my back up to the fake wood paneling on the wall in the narrow hallway. Well, the good news was that, wherever I was--whenever I didn't want to be there--as long as I had my phone, I had an e-book I could read. And I was currently in the middle of the steamiest, most lurid romance novel ever, complete with a rotten-to-the-core motorcycle gang biker dude chasing after the virginal preacher's daughter.

  I slid back along the wall when I heard someone coming toward me and flattened to make room for the person to move past. But the person stopped right beside me, and I had the sensation he or she was reading my phone over my shoulder. I looked up into Jordan's face.

  "What the hell are you reading?" he asked.

  I clicked the phone off, shoving it into my shoulder bag. "None of your business. What are you doing here?" I spun, facing him. Now that I was seeing him up close, I couldn't help but notice he looked particularly fetching tonight. He was wearing black jeans that hugged his slim hips and a dark green button-down shirt, open at the collar to reveal his strong neck. I swallowed and looked away.

  "I was thirsty," he said with a mocking gleam in his eyes. He glanced around the narrow hallway then his eyes fixed on the back door. "What are you doing back here?"

  "Waiting for the bathroom. It's locked."

  "There's probably somebody fucking in there."

  I turned and pressed my shoulder against the wall, folding my arms. "So how's the hitting on the old ladies going? Get any of them to take out their dentures for you?"

  His eyes flashed dangerously. "The older ones know what they're doing. Sometimes better than the young ones."

  His comment knocked the breath right out of me. That same old hurt from Gunnar and my mom. My mouth fell open and then I snapped it closed again, turning around because he blocked my way back into the bar. And I really didn't want to go back in there anyway, because tears were now prickling my eyes. So I turned and grabbed the back doorknob, gave it a twist and ended up in the alley behind the bar. I slammed the door behind me, but two seconds later Jordan pushed his way through.

  It was dark and quiet back here. The only lighting came from a distant street lamp. Tiny puddles of gross water collected in dips of asphalt. And naturally, there was a distinct stench coming from the direction of a big green dumpste
r.

  Jordan glanced around and then looked at me, eyes wide. "What the hell was that about?"

  I turned my head away from him, quickly brushing tears away with the back of my hand. "That was about getting the hell away from you. Too bad you can't take a hint."

  His eyes narrowed as he watched me, then his thumb brushed across my cheek as if to verify what he was seeing. "Are you crying?"

  I gave a sniff and jerked my head away. "No. Go away now."

  He ignored me, of course. "What's going on, Weiss? Did that bartender say something to you? I'll go fuck him up."

  "No. I'm fine. He was nice. Nicer than any other guy I've talked to in months."

  He didn't say anything in reply, just scowled. If possible, he looked even hotter when he scowled--it was an intense sort of look, with his eyes narrowing like darts that could punch a hole right through me. Then he cleared his throat and looked away. He pulled a bar napkin from his back pocket and handed it to me.

  I took it without a word, blotted tears from my cheeks and blew my nose. "How much have you had to drink?" he asked quietly.

  "No alcohol. I do stupid shit when I drink."

  He frowned. "So what's with the crying then?"

  I shrugged. "You're my boss, not my psychotherapist."

  "Are you going home with that bartender?"

  "Is that any of your business?"

  He moved in close, standing right in front of me, bracing a hand on the wall above my head. My heart hammered in my chest. He ran a finger along the line of my jaw, giving me that intense look again. His Adam's apple bobbed as he visibly swallowed.

  "I'm making it my business." Then his finger slipped down the column of my throat, over my collarbone and right to the deep cleavage of my neckline. Where his finger traced my skin, his touch burned. I felt it clear down to my bones. My chest squeezed tight. I couldn't breathe. He pissed me off and turned me on like no other man could. I froze as his head dipped so that his lips were mere millimeters from mine. I could feel his breath on my face. And I didn't smell alcohol like I'd expected to.