by Jessica Roe
Ivy smiles and leans across the table to kiss her cheek. “God, Jem! Look at you! The last time I saw you, you were still in dungarees and pigtails.”
Jemma scoffs. “Please. I've never worn dungarees in my life.” She snaps her fingers. “Now, who's going to go buy me a drink. Something strong and fruity.”
I drop my head and sigh.
+++
The night sails by, just like old times. We talk and poke fun at each other and laugh and dance. At some point Ivy manages to persuade Nathan and Silver to have a shot competition, but Blair soon puts an end to it when Silver starts getting cross eyed. Poor guy never could handle his booze.
A blonde at the bar with legs that go on for miles and a perfect rack shoots me a come hither look from under her lashes at least once every five minutes. I send her the look back, the smoldering one that drives chicks wild, but I don't go over there, though I do consider it. I just can't seem to kick up the motivation to go flirt, and damn does that piss me off. Eight months ago I would have been there in an instant, leaving my friends and sisters in the dust because hell, I was never one to turn down a hot woman. Screw that, eight months ago we'd have already been back at my place by now, getting to know each other carnal style.
But I'm just not feeling it. I've been ruined.
“Aw, Jesus” Nathan drawls with a heavy sigh.
“What's up?” Ivy asks.
“Nothing,” comes his far too quick reply. His gaze flickers to me and then behind me to the bar entrance, before settling determinedly on his drink.
I turn to check out whatever it is because his poker face needs some serious work. Sure enough, like I've summoned her with my very thoughts, the reason for my great ruination stands there, looking right back at me.
I cringe down in my seat even though she's already seen me.
“Who's that?” Jemma wants to know.
“No one,” I answer gruffly, though it's obvious by the curiosity on all of their faces that none of them are going to let this go.
“That's Bambi,” Nathan fills in, and if I wasn't trying to hide then I would have punched him. “And her date, I guess.” He nods at the tall, gangly dick standing beside her. And then, because Nathan clearly doesn't know how to take a fucking hint, he adds, “She's Nash's ex.”
Jemma splutters on her drink, like the idea of me having an actual girlfriend is out of this world. Which, to be fair, had been true up until I'd met Bambi. “Your ex? As in she was your girlfriend? But you don't have girlfriends!”
I heave a sigh and ignore her, trying not to make it too obvious that I'm watching Bambi and her date as they take seats at the bar. I can't help but wonder if this guy is intellectual enough for her.
“Bambi was different,” Nathan tells the others, and I could just about kick his ass into tomorrow. “She was the first girl our guy here actually wanted to date for longer than it took to get his rocks off.”
Nathan is right, for once. Bambi was different. But she was more than just some girl I wanted to date. She was special. She was incredible. She was the only girl I'd ever wanted to be serious with. Hell, she was the only girl I'd ever wanted to settle down with.
We'd met eight months ago at the art gallery Nathan owns. I'd been there to pick him up so we could hit the gym, and she'd been there simply to appreciate the art. She'd smiled at me, so I'd flirted, and she'd started talking about the painting she'd been stood in front of. It had been cute, how passionate and into it she'd been, waving her arms around in the air like she couldn't control them. I'd nodded and pretended I had a clue what she'd been talking about, about the perfection of the brush strokes and the realism and the. . . Yeah, I don't even remember half of what she'd said, honestly. Mostly I just remember watching the way her lips moved and liking it, liking it a lot.
She'd been so unlike any of the girls I'd hooked up with before. Art wasn't the only thing she was passionate about. She loved literature and poetry and black and white movies and culture and old fashioned teacups. Sure, it's not like I was into any of those things, but I loved that she loved them. And yeah, maybe she didn't get any of the things that I was into. She thought that me taking over my dad's architecture firm one day was a cop out, didn't get how hard I'd been working all these years to earn it. And she thought that I spent too much time at the gym, or hanging with Nathan, and that the video messages Ivy and I sent each other were weird. But still, she was smart and funny and interesting and I liked that she had opinions about everything, even if Nathan thought she was obnoxious.
Bambi had been the first girl I'd ever asked on a second date. The first girl I hadn't slept with on the first. The first girl I'd considered introducing to my parents though we'd never ended up making it that far. The first girl I'd. . . Just the first.
That had meant a lot to me – more than I'm willing to get into, even with my friends. No one needs to hear about how she stole my heart then squashed it mercilessly beneath the heel of her foot.
Under the table, I feel Ivy's soft hand slide into mine. She's always been the best at reading me, at gauging my mood and knowing when I needed her comfort most.
“What happened?” Jemma asks. “Why did you break up with her?”
I shrug, feigning indifference.
“She broke up with him,” Nathan blurts out. I glare at him. I mean, I love the guy and all, but I could kill Silver for up and moving to the city and leaving me alone here in Fortune with him. With him being the only one around before Ivy got back, he ended up being the one here for all that shit. He knows too much. “a couple of weeks before you came home, Ivy. The first girl to ever break up with him. Why do you think he hasn't left us to go hit on chicks already? She broke him.”
I pointedly ignore him, but the guy ain't wrong. I just can't get into the game like I used to; Bambi changed me. And just as I was falling hard for her, she was deciding she was done with me. She'd sat me down one night and told me we didn't share enough of the same interests. That I was too much of a jock, and she was more of an intellectual. Those were her words. Her exact fucking words, like I'm some kind of brainless monkey.
“Aw, Nash,” Jemma says, sniffing as she lays her head on my shoulder.
I roll my eyes, both at her and myself. Picking up a napkin, I wad it up and throw it at Nathan's face. “Dude, you're so lame.” Sitting up straighter in my seat, I laugh as I play the whole thing off. “Broken my ass. See that blonde at the bar? I could take her home with me right now if I wanted.” I wink at her, and she flips her hair over her shoulder and lowers her eyelashes in that fake shy way chicks seem to think we believe.
The reason why Nathan is one of my oldest and best friends is, despite being a big mouthed son of a bitch most of the time, he knows when to have my back. He must sense something in my face, even though I'm hiding it well – that's the problem with knowing people as long as we've all known each other – because he plasters on a grin and holds out his hand. “Twenty says you can't get her number in under ten minutes.”
“Thirty says I can do it in five,” I return smugly, shaking his hand and standing.
I walk over to blondie with all of my usual swagger, but inside, it's hurts. It fucking hurts, and I hate that it does.
And worst of all, despite everything, I just want Bambi back. More than anything, I just want her back.
Chapter 3
Ivy
“Of course you dated a girl named Bambi,” Jemma teases when Nash returns to our table five minutes later, a number scrawled across the back of his hand in cursive, black ink.
Nathan counts out the money and hands it to Nash, unfazed. But then Nathan is from a rich ass family so money has never exactly been an issue for him. “Bambi with an i,” he adds.
“Well how else would you spell it, dumb ass?” Nash demands, cuffing him over the back of the head.
Nathan pats down his dark blond hair – though I don't know why he bothers since it usually grows wherever the hell it wants to, no matter how he tries to tame it. “
You're better off without that one anyway, bud.” I can't help but silently agree with him, even though I've never met the girl. But as far as I'm concerned, nobody that puts that miserable look on Nash's face deserves him. “She's a grade A bitch, disguised in pretty packaging.”
“She's not a bitch,” Nash grumbles. He stares longingly at the beer bottles littering the table, clearly cursing his designated driver status tonight.
“I'm sorry, how are you still not seeing her for who she really is? The girl's an opinionated know it all who believes anyone thinking differently from her is a stupid Neanderthal.” Nathan seems overly passionate about this, but I get where he's coming from. It's from a place of love, loyalty and friendship. I'm not the only one who hates to see our friend hurting.
“She knows what she thinks, that's all,” Nash disagrees, but it's without Nathan's certainty, like it's just something he's trying to tell himself because he doesn't want to believe that she might not be as incredible as he thought.
+++
Nash tortures himself over the next couple of hours watching Bambi dance and laugh and flirt with her date. He tries to hide the fact that he's watching, but I know him too well. I can see the way his whole body stiffens each time his eyes drift her way like a magnet finding its opposite. I see his struggle, but he just can't seem to tear his eyes away from her.
Bambi is beautiful, in a delicate sort of way. She's tall, her figure willowy and lithe. Long, copper colored hair tumbles down her back in graceful waves, and her little nose turns up at the end in a way I've always wished mine would. I can see exactly why Nash was drawn to her.
I realize that he truly liked this girl, and that she really did hurt him deeply. My heart aches for him, because the idea of my big, impossibly strong friend hurting is just wrong. So wrong. He doesn't deserve it.
Observing the heartbroken look on his face that he's doing his best to hide, I wonder if the only reason I recognize it is because it's the same look I see in the mirror every single day.
Not that I'm thinking about that. Not that I'm thinking about him. I left all that, and him, behind in San Francisco, along with my dream job and my beautiful apartment and my fake friends. I'm not thinking about him. Not at all. Not at least once an hour. Not every time I see a pair of laughing brown eyes, or a shock of black hair, or even a damned coffee shop because. . .
No, I'm not thinking about him at all. And I'll keep telling myself that until it becomes true. Because it will have to become true eventually, right?
Bambi glances over here at Nash every now and then, like she wants to make sure he's still watching her, like she wants to rub her date in his face. Fury seeps into my veins, washing through me like a prickly poison. Nobody messes with one of my guys like that. I begin to rise, totally ready to go full Kung Fu Panda on this chick, when Nathan places a hand on my wrist to stop me, obviously sensing how completely ninja I am right now.
“I wouldn't,” he advises quietly. He eyes Nash, who isn't paying us the slightest bit of attention. “He wouldn't appreciate it; he's still caught up in her web.”
I pout, but concede his point and sit my butt back down. Scratching her face off would most definitely make me feel better, but I guess it might irk Nash just a little. “Fine. I could've taken her though.”
“Sure you could. With your flailing arms and your teeny tiny little girl fists.”
“Hey, I'm a bad ass ninja and you know it.”
He grins, patting me on the head condescendingly. “I love that you think that.”
I grumble, but it's true that my ninja status will probably have to be revoked. Mostly because I've never been in a fight in my whole life and if somebody actually came at me with their fist raised I'd probably pee my pants and hide. “I hate seeing him reduced to this,” I say, sighing sadly as I glance at Nash again.
“Give it time. He'll realize what a colossal bitch she is eventually. Now if you'll excuse me, there's a redhead at the table over there who needs my attention.” Nathan winks at me, then abandons us. It takes literally only minutes for him to somehow persuade the redhead onto his lap. She whispers something in his ear that has him grinning salaciously.
I sigh again. This isn't who Nathan is, not really. Not this womanizing, commitment phobic ladies man. There was a time, when we were teenagers, that he was committed. The kind of committed we all thought would last forever. But. . .well, that didn't happen, and he's never been the same since. But he's better than this. I just wish he could see that.
Silver and Blair move to the dance floor. After the shots, which I admit maybe hadn't been the best idea, the poor guy is a little worse for wear. He's running his hands over Blair's body in a way he totally normally wouldn't do in public, and he keeps laughing into her hair and neck for no reason. She just smiles softly at him, complete and utter adoration shining in her eyes, and I know for sure that at least one of my guys no longer needs me to worry over him.
Jemma, who has been busy texting back and forth with her boyfriend all night – or sexting, if her rapidly reddening cheeks have been anything to go by – vanishes after one particular text that has her spluttering out her drink. In my head she's still the little kid who used to follow me around Nash's house with her thumb in her mouth and her teddy bear trailing behind her, so I'm going to pretend I don't know that she's going home to have phone sex with her boyfriend.
And now Nash and I are alone at the table, me watching him watching his ex. I've been asked to dance a few times, but the thought of leaving him here alone to stew is just wrong.
Enough is enough.
“That's it, get up!” I demand, standing and tugging at his wrist. Luckily he rises, because there's no way I would have been able to force a freaking giant like him to do anything he didn't want to do.
He looks down, towering over me even though my heels are stupid high. “Why? Where are we going?”
“To dance, you big dummy.”
He trails behind me unenthusiastically as I lead him to the dance floor, my hand tugging on his. “Ivy, I really don't feel like dancing right now. . .”
I turn as we reach the throng of dancers, grinning diabolically and slipping my hands around his neck. “Don't you wanna make her jealous?”
His eyes flicker towards Bambi again, who I'm sure is watching right back. He looks at me and shakes his head, fighting a smile. I see it there though, tugging at his reluctant lips. “What is this, high school?”
“Nope, this is much better. In high school we couldn't drink our troubles away. Legally, anyway.” Not that it stopped us.
“I can't drink my troubles away now,” he points out sullenly, though he does slide his large hands around my waist. We move slowly to the music; a soft tune, with a deep, throbbing bass that I can feel vibrating throughout my entire body. “Designated driver, remember?”
I shrug. “So leave the car here and come back for it in the morning. We could walk home from here. Everything in Fortune is in walking distance.”
He chuckles. “You're such a bad influence.”
“Said no one ever! You, on the other hand. . .”
“Psh!” he scoffs. “I was just a poor, innocent boy until you got your devious little hands all over me.”
“Tell that to Mr Trudy and his gnome family.”
“Hey, you were the one who made us bury those stupid gnomes in the park!”
I concede, but I can't help the grin that stretches out my cheeks at the memory. “True dat. In my defense, those gnomes glared at me every time I walked by them to go to my house. Mr Trudy was a bad neighbor.”
He starts laughing as he remembers. “And when he came out to find them all gone he tried to have us arrested!”
“I guess that was my bad for leaving the ransom note.” His laughter is infectious, and I begin to giggle uncontrollably.
“You remember they made us dig them up?” he asks, chuckling so hard he has to rest his forehead on my shoulder. “But we'd forgotten exactly where we'd put them so it took
us like, a whole day of digging up holes before we found those little bastards.”
“And the whole time,” I get out through wheezes. “Keegan – I mean Silver – kept bitching about how he'd told us it had been a bad idea, so Nathan pelted him with all that mud. . .”
We're laughing so hard by this point that we have to grip onto each other just to keep standing upright.
It takes us a few minutes to finally calm ourselves, and when we do, Nash looks happier than he has all night. He pulls me close as the beat of the music picks up, swaying us back and forth. Our bodies are flush, from chest to knees. I press my cheek against his shoulder and reach up to twirl my fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. His hair grows straight for the most part, except for that one little swirl there right at the top of his neck. He smells good tonight, underneath the sickly sweet scent of alcohol and second hand smoke. He always smells good, likes limes and spice and something fresher, something outdoorsy. Something Nash.
“Are you smelling me?” he demands, and I can hear the smug grin in his voice.
“Maybe.”
“Weirdo.” But even as he says it, his hands glide up my back and down again, so low they just barely brush the top of my butt.
“Dude,” I warn, not really meaning it. “Hands.”
When he chuckles again, I can feel it beneath my cheek in the most reassuring way. “Sorry. Habit. Blame the hands – they get a life of their own whenever I'm dancing with a woman.”
“Yeah,” I tease. “Blame it on the hands. Because you're so innocent.”
“Not my fault – I always forget that you're an actual girl.”
“Gee, thanks.” Though my voice is dry, I'm not really offended. I get it. Nash and the guys and I have all known each other for so long that I've just sort of morphed into a genderless being when it comes to them, and vice versa. . .most of the time.
We continue to move against one another. His hands, obviously forgetting themselves again, the pesky devils, slip around my waist. He rubs circles with his fingers before sliding upwards until his thumbs are just beneath my breasts.
