My smile faded away when I saw Ian’s expression change. His eyes shifted between mine and I saw something intense flare in his irises before his gaze dropped to my lips. I watched his eyelids lower, his mouth soften…
My heart back-flipped and a dizzying current surged from my fingertips to my toes. Holy hell…is he about to…?
Ian’s eyes shot right back up again, and for a fraction of a second, he stared at me like he’d never seen me before.
Then he blinked and swept me up into his arms, spinning me around twice. “You know me,” he said with a strange laugh. “Gotta look out for my girl.” When he set me down, it was with an easy smile.
I felt an odd twinge of disappointment that took me completely off guard.
Ian slung his arm around my shoulder and squeezed me to his side while leading us towards the stairs. “Come on, Slugger, let’s get you some ice for that hand.”
***
I was still waiting for my pulse to resume its normal pace when I arrived back at the table. Amery and Casey sat with their heads together, staring out at the dance floor.
“What are you two plotting?” I asked.
“We’re scoping hot chicks.” Amery pronounced each word with the slow precision of the very drunk. “Casey needs to get laid.”
“I’m not looking to get laid,” Casey said in exasperation. “I told you, I’m looking for a nice girl.” He grinned. “For a start, anyway.”
“Oh, nice, okay,” Amery said, turning back to the dance floor. “Shh. There’s one now.”
“Shhhh,” Casey repeated, laying his head on Amery’s shoulder and pointing to a cute brunette. “That one?”
Amery followed his finger with a nod. “She’s pretty. Go for it, Tiger.”
Casey stood and bounced on his toes, then rolled his neck around as if he was about to go into the boxing ring. He looked at me. “It’s all about the self-confidence, and I’ve got a full-proof plan from The Master.”
Winking at me, he set off with a look of determination on his face. “The Master?”
“Ian gave ‘im tips,” Amery said with an airy wave. She hiccupped and then belched. “Oh, ‘scuse me.” She frowned at the arm I held to my chest. “What’s wrong with your hand?”
I took the seat Casey had vacated. “Yeah, this guy ran into my fist.”
Amery’s head tilted to the side, before my meaning seemed to penetrate her haze. “You hit him?”
“More like she cold-cocked the bastard.” Ian appeared at the table with a makeshift ice pack he’d fashioned out of a scrap of Hefty bag. He crouched down beside me. “Okay, Rocky, let’s see that hand.”
“Would that be Balboa or Marciano?” I asked, defaulting to humor to veil the sudden weirdness I felt around him.
“Your choice; they both hit.” Ian placed my hand flat on the table and lightly placed the bag on top of it. “Keep that on for at least fifteen minutes. It should cut down on the swelling.”
“Thanks, Ian.” I lowered my head in an attempt to catch his eye. I don’t know what I was looking for – a sign that I hadn’t imagined what happened upstairs or just to make sure we were still okay. He gave a faint smile, but I was pretty sure his eyes were trained on my forehead.
“Anytime.” He stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You want another drink? It’ll help with the pain.”
I nodded. “Sure.”
I followed his retreating back with my eyes as he crossed over to the kegs. He grabbed a cup and the tap, then glanced over at me. When he saw me watching him, his eyes darted away. In that moment, I would have given my ability to speak to know what he was thinking.
“Why are you hitting guys?” Amery asked, drawing my attention.
Seeing the perplexed expression on her face, I decided simple explanations were probably the best. “He called me the C-word.”
Amery popped up straight in her seat. “He didn’t! Let’s go kick his ass!”
My mouth quivered. “I already did, sweetie.”
“Oh. Right.” She collapsed back against the chair.
My attention wandered back to Ian. He’d been joined by a blonde Barbie in a ridiculously short white skirt and a pink tube top. She held her hands behind her back as she shifted her weight from one hip to the other, displaying her long legs to the greatest advantage.
I squinted, trying to read the look on Ian’s face. I wanted to know what he was going to do. His eyes traveled the length of her curvy body, lingering on her thighs beneath the short skirt. When he looked up into her face, it was with a cocky grin I knew all too well. Invitation accepted.
I sat back in my chair and blew out a breath, wondering why I expected anything different. Had I really thought he would turn down what she was offering because we may or may not have had a moment upstairs?
Get a grip!
“Not that I can blame her,” Amery said. I think she’d been babbling in my ear for the past minute or so, but I hadn’t been paying attention. “I can’t imagine there’s a girl on campus that hasn’t at least thought about hooking up with Ian, myself included.”
Now, I was paying attention. “What?”
Amery looked at my face, then laughed, as if she found my reaction hilarious. “Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch. I don’t want him. He’s just one of my…‘get there’ guys.”
“Your what?”
“You know…‘get there’.” She watched me, waiting for me to understand. I had my suspicions of what she was getting at, but hoped I was wrong. Her throaty chuckle told me I wasn’t. “You know, when you’re about to reach the big ‘O’ and you need that one last thing that flashes in your mind to push you over the edge? Ian’s my favorite last thing.”
“Since when?” I asked, unable to believe I was hearing this.
“Since I first saw his hands,” Amery said with a dreamy sigh. She brought her arms over her head and stretched like a cat, casual and elegant, then rolled her lower body as if she was actually imagining his hands on her. “I mean, he’s hot, yeah, but he has such beautiful hands. I just want them all over me.”
“I’ve never really noticed before,” I said, my voice tight.
“Oh, come on,” Amery said in disbelief. “Are you blind? I know you’re friends or…whatever,” she rolled her eyes, “but you have eyes. You can’t tell me that you’ve never noticed how sexy his hands are? Or how sexy he is in general? I mean, his body, that mouth, those intense eyes…” She licked her lips.
“If you like him so much, why haven’t you ever made a play for him?” I snapped.
Wow, that sounded bitchier than I meant.
Amery snickered. “I don’t like him. And even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. He’s…taken.”
“By her? She’ll be gone in the morning.”
“That’s not what I…” Amery stared at me for a second before groaning and dropping her head back to stare at the ceiling. “God, never mind.”
“Never mind, what?”
We both jumped when Ian put my beer on the table, his gaze swinging between us. Amery giggled and looked away. “Nothing,” I said with a tight smile.
Ian gave an indifferent shrug. “Well, whatever. There’s your beer. I’ll catch up with you later.”
I watched as he turned away and joined the blonde, who waited a few feet away from our table. “Where are you going?”
“Duty calls,” he said with a meaningful lift of his brows. Translation: he’d found his bimbo du jour. He put his arm around said bimbo’s teeny-tiny waist and grinned down at her.
I stared at his hand for a moment before looking up. “I thought you wanted to leave.”
“Changed my mind.” He cocked his head to the side, and he and the girl walked away. I followed their steps until they were swallowed up by the crowd.
A sharp red swell streaked over my knuckles. I gasped, forcing my hand to relax from the death grip it had clenched into at some point.
“Ian better watch for that one,” Amery said. “That’s Des
iree Newkirk. She’s in my Pilates class at the rec center and brags about the details of her sex life in the changing room. Girlfriend says some of the filthiest shit I’ve ever heard. I mean, this one time, she--”
“Hey girls!” Chelsea approached with a cup of beer in her hand.
“Hey, you actually came,” I said, motioning for her to sit down.
She grabbed a chair and sat. “Yeah, we were at Sullivan’s and some of Parker’s friends wanted to stop by.” Sullivan’s was a local watering hole, popular with yuppies and Young Republicans. It was a mecca for a guy like Parker. This party was probably his idea of hell.
Looking around Chelsea, I quickly spotted Parker standing about five yards away with some of his friends. He was so Mr. Joe College, the kind of guy you found smiling up at you from the front page of a campus brochure. He was tall, with closely cropped blond hair, dark blue eyes, rounded cheekbones that always had a flushed look to them, and a perfect aquiline nose, which he was always looking down over those he deemed not worth his time. Even at the distance, I could see the sour curl of his mouth as an intoxicated couple stumbled by.
His gaze met mine for the briefest second before moving on, as if I didn’t exist. It was no secret he disapproved of my and Chelsea’s friendship and living arrangement. I was the antithesis of everything he viewed as a proper woman; strong, outspoken, and full of opinions. He worried that my big mouth and attitude – or my feminist bullshit, as I once overheard him call it - would rub off on her. I wished it would, if only so she’d start standing up for herself.
I really didn’t know what she saw in him.
I focused on Chelsea, noting the happy glow on her face. “You found out about Winter Queen?” I guessed. After spending the afternoon recording next week’s dry tracks and sweepers for the station, I’d come home to find her all tied up in knots about not having heard if she made the cut yet.
Chelsea danced in her seat. “I made the top five!”
“Congratulations!” I said.
Amery echoed me, raising her half-empty cup in salute. Some of the beer spilled over the rim of her cup, dripped down her wrist and forearm, and fell into the valley between her perky breasts. She looked down with her mouth agape, patted it dry with her sleeve, then shrugged and gave up. It’s how I knew she was beyond drunk. Normally, she’d scream about ruining her beautiful top.
I brought my beer to my mouth, then stopped and peered into the cup when I saw the top three inches was pure foam. “Aww, massive fail, Ian. I could stuff a pillow with all this fluff.”
“Here, have mine,” Chelsea said, handing me her full cup. “I don’t even like beer.”
“Thanks.” That solved my beer issue, but I was still silently cussing Ian out. Was his bimbo really so captivating that he couldn’t concentrate on pouring a simple beer? She hadn’t looked all that special to me. Sure, she was curvy and pretty, like they all were, but there had been a vapid look on her face, and Ian couldn’t stand airheads. So what was so damn great about her that he had to run off with her immediately after thinking about kissing me? It was rude and insulting.
I huffed and knocked back the rest of the beer.
“What’s next?” Amery asked.
“Now, I start campaigning, write my speech and plan my skit.”
“Any idea what you’re doing?” I asked. Winter Week was always held at the end of February to align with our Founder’s Day celebration. Instead of a pageant, Winter Queen contestants prepared a skit, which they then performed for the students and alumni in attendance. Every year the performances got more and more elaborate and outlandish. Chelsea was going to have to come up with something really creative to win.
Chelsea shook her head. “Not a clue.”
Amery held up her beer. “Well, let us know what you need, girlfriend. We are here for—oh! Look, there’s Casey and that girl!”
Chelsea and I followed her point to where the small brunette looked to be totally engrossed in what Casey was saying. “Ooh, look at that body language,” I said, noting the way her body was free of non-verbal barriers.
“Yeah, and as long as he doesn’t ask her to dance, he’ll be in good shape. That would be…whoo.” Amery grimaced.
I smiled. Casey danced with his whole body, jerking and spinning around like one of those drumming monkeys. It wasn’t pretty.
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I checked the time. I hoped the others would be ready to go soon.
“My tummy is rumbling,” Amery announced, right on cue. “Is anyone else hungry?”
“A little, but it’s not like we’re in any shape to drive, and our D.D. has abandoned us for big boobs and a bleach job.”
“Whose car did you come in?” Chelsea asked. Amery waved her hand. “I could drive. I’m getting a little tired, anyway. Just let me go tell Parker.” She stood and left.
“She means ask him,” Amery hissed in her drunken stage-whisper.
I pushed myself up and held out my hands to balance myself. “Should we tell the guys we’re leaving?”
Amery frowned. “I don’t want to ruin Casey’s chances.”
“He’d be worried if you left without telling him.”
“Yeah.” She chuckled. “That puts you on Ian detail.”
I sighed, still feeling that slow burn in my chest. I really, really hated talking to Ian when he was charming one of his skags, and it would be doubly awkward after that moment upstairs that I just couldn’t seem to stop thinking about.
Ian would happily jump in to cockblock if he were in my shoes. Maybe it was time to repay the favor, to give him a dose of his own medicine. But how? It couldn’t be anything too mean. I frowned as I slogged through the fog in my brain, trying to come up with something that would scare Barbie off. “Hey, let me see your purse.”
Amery shot me a confused look, but handed it over. “I’m not driving. You don’t have to confiscate my keys.”
“I’m not conf…confiscating your keys.” I stumbled over the word. All the beer was catching up to me and my tongue was numb. The room started listing on its side, and I held out a hand to steady myself. “Whoa.” I laughed at myself. Pursing my lips together in determination, I rifled inside Amery’s purse for her makeup pouch. “I’ll pay you back,” I told her, hoping it wouldn’t cost me as much as getting my car fixed had. She didn’t buy the cheap stuff.
I set off to look for Ian. It took a minute, but I finally tracked him down on the opposite end of the dance floor, where he and Barbie were hanging out. Her back was against the wall, and Ian leaned over her with one arm braced above her head. His long fingers stroked her bare stomach as he whispered in her ear.
Okay, enough of that. I strode forward, tapping him on the shoulder. “We’re ready to leave.”
Ian held up a finger to Desiree and turned to face me. The look of dismissive annoyance she shot my way made me want to pluck her false lashes out one by one.
“Already?” he asked.
I tore my eyes from the Barbie and nodded. “Yeah, we’re tired.” I moved my tongue around, trying to get it to work correctly. It felt like I was trying to talk around a mouthful of marbles.
“Just give me five minutes, and then I’ll be ready, okay?” He flashed me a smile.
I stared up into his green eyes and gave him a simpering look. “Wow, five minutes? Is that all it takes? And I always heard you had loads of stamina.”
His brows drew together. “Very funny.”
I shrugged. “I thought it was.”
“How drunk are you, exactly?”
“Not nearly enough,” I said, “since someone,” I jabbed my finger at his chest “can’t pour a beer for shit.”
His mouth thinned. “Sounds to me like you’ve had plenty. Come on. Let’s just go.”
He reached for me, but I evaded his grasp, not at all liking the patronizing look on his face. It said I was drunk and irrational. Well, screw that noise! “No, I don’t want you to drive me home. I don’t want anything from you.” I poked
his chest again. “Chelsea’s driving. You can stay here all night, for all I care, and kiss whoever you want or screw whoever you want, and you won’t have to worry about little ole’ drunk me. I didn’t even want you to come in the first place.”
“What’s with you? You’re acting nuts.”
I groaned. “That’s soooo typical. A woman asserts her independence and a man just writes her off as crazy.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ.” He rolled his eyes.
“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Ian Hollister. I know what I’m saying. Oh, and take all this crap back. I’m sick of carrying it around for you.” I pulled out the makeup I’d taken from Amery’s bag – eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick - and shoved the items into the pocket of his shirt. “If you wanna do the drag thing, I’m cool with that, but I’m not gonna carry it around for you. Get your own purse, okay? And just remember what Amery said about wearing this lipstick with anything pink. It’ll totally wash you out.”
Desiree’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o’.
“Excuse me,” Ian said to Desiree. He grabbed my bicep and pulled me a few feet away. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
“What? Oh, you can dish it, but not take it, huh?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“It’s payback. You wanna cockblock me, I’ll cockblock you.”
“And that’s the best you can do? Lame.” His looked at something over my shoulder, and I turned to see my friends were waiting for me.
“I’ve got her,” Chelsea told him.
Ian nodded and looked at my face. “Go home and get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I watched him walk back to Desiree and wave his hand. “Don’t mind her.”
“It’s okay,” Desiree chirped, flipping her hair. “You know, I think guys who wear makeup can be kind of hot.”
Oy-my-fricken’-vey.
CHAPTER SIX
A sharp tug on my hair roused me the following morning. Determined to ignore it, I batted at my hair and rolled away, only to be rewarded by a soft thwap of a paw in the middle of my forehead. I pulled Nonni Rossini’s patchwork quilt over my head and mumbled, “Go away.”
The Truths about Dating and Mating Page 10
