by Serena Bell
I can’t believe the one stranger I’ve had sex with in my entire life is now living next door to me.
How does stuff like this even happen?
I get the boys set up with their movie, and then I sit down at the kitchen table with a big glass of wine and text Hattie. You are not going to believe this. It’s him. The rebound guy. Living next door. What do I do?
OMG are you serious?
Dead serious.
Long silence.
Fuck him again?
I laugh. Because that’s so Hattie.
No way! Our kids are friends! He said it was a one-time thing! I babbled my whole angsty story in one big drunken word-vomit! I could barely look him in the eye today!
Okay. Don’t panic. Did he say anything about it?
Just “Well, we meet again.” And then we pretty much pretended it never happened.
That doesn’t sound so bad. Do you think you can pretend it never happened?
Do I have a choice?
Long silence.
No, probably not. Do you want me to come over?
No, I’m OK. I’ll be OK. It’s probably not really such a big deal. I just wish I’d known before I let Madden fall in friend-love with his son.
You wouldn’t have been able to keep them apart anyway. Two eight-year-old boys living next door? Fat chance.
They’re having a sleepover.
Awkward! But you can probably mostly avoid him. Communicate by text and by boy-message.
Yeah.
Text if you need me.
I set my phone down and lean my head in my hands.
It makes me mad at Trevor all over again, because if he hadn’t broken my heart, I wouldn’t have been looking for action in a bar, and if I hadn’t been looking for action in a bar, I wouldn’t have slept with Sawyer, and if I hadn’t had sex with Sawyer, I wouldn’t be living next door to a guy I can picture naked with his eyes closed and his head tipped back and the cords in his neck straining—
White-hot need flares in my stomach.
Shit!
It happened two months ago, the Saturday night after the divorce was finalized. Hattie insisted it was time for me to get my groove back on—and I couldn’t argue, because I was ready to find my old, fun self. I’d loved Trevor so much and I’d been wrecked by the betrayal, but I wasn’t going to let him ruin my life permanently, either. So I parked Madden with my mom for an overnight.
Hattie said we needed to go to Maeve’s, a bar a couple of towns over that was the best place she knew to meet someone for a hookup—but not (she promised) in a sleazy way. It was a huge bonus that Maeve’s wasn’t right in Revere Lake, because Revere Lake is a small town and everyone knows everyone else’s business. You don’t want to hook up with someone and then discover that he’s your kid’s second-grade teacher or your new gyno.
(Or your next-door neighbor. But apparently hooking up a few towns over isn’t proof against that.) I cringe.
Anyway, Hattie, Capria, Hattie’s friend Juno, and I went out together.
Maeve’s is an old roadhouse—wood walls, posts and beams, big tables and lots of booths, plastic menus. I think some of the street signs and posters and photos and maps on the walls probably date back to saloon days. It just got bought by new owners a couple of months ago—word is, they’re committed to keeping the feel the same—and the night we were there, you could hear occasional hammering from behind the back wall of the bar, where some unlucky construction overtimers were working on an addition for more seating and a stage for concerts.
The four of us ordered dinner and drinks and sat around, chatting and laughing and flirting with whoever looked our way. Unfortunately, Hattie came down with the stomach flu about an hour into the night and Juno drove her home.
Capria and I hung around for a while longer. We chatted with guys who approached our table, but none of them spun my dials and I wasn’t really sure what I’d do if one did, anyway. The drunker I got, the more I wanted to go home to sleep.
After a while, Capria took pity on me. “You want to head out?”
If Hattie had still been there, she would never have let me off the hook, even if it meant personally marching up to some guy and telling him I was looking for a one-night rebound fling. But Capria is a lot softer.
I nodded.
“Okay. I’m just going to hit the ladies’ and we’ll go.”
She’d been gone less than a minute when I noticed the guy staring in my direction from his seat at the bar. Incredibly good-looking, in a football-player-meets-male-model way—tall, built, with near-black hair, dark eyes, and a couple of days’ scruff on his jaw. He wasn’t smiling. Of course, I looked behind me to see if he was scoping out someone else. That’s how badly Trevor had messed with my self-confidence.
When I looked back in his direction, the guy shook his head. You, he mouthed, and the invitation in his eyes and on his lips was unmistakable.
A wave of warmth poured over me, like someone had doused me with heated honey. All the numbness lifted off. Everything came back to life—with a vengeance.
Oh, hello, girl parts. You are still down there.
He raised his glass and cocked his head, a clear Can I buy you a drink?
I froze like a deer in the headlights.
Suddenly Capria was standing in my line of sight, which felt like a reprieve. I could pretend I hadn’t seen the guy offer to buy me a drink, I could get a ride home from Capria, and I could go back to—
Being numb.
No way! cried my girl parts.
“Elle?” Capria peered curiously at me.
That was when I started to think about how much Trevor would hate this guy on sight, and for no legit reason. Trevor has a skinny nerd’s built-in envy of alpha males. They make him twitchy, juvenile, and competitive, like he never got the seventh-grader out of him.
I immediately wanted to have sex with the guy at the bar on principle. Not, like I said, that Trevor actually gives a shit what I do. But I thought he’d loathe the idea of me fucking this guy anyway.
“I know I said I wanted to head out, but would you hate me if I had a drink with the guy at the bar who just offered to buy me one? Don’tlooknow!” I added hastily.
She slid into her seat, checking him out. “Woo, girl! No! I would hate you if you didn’t. And I want to hear all about it after. Mmm-hmm.” She shook her head. “Next time you’re going to the bathroom and I’m taking home the prize.”
I caught his eye across the room and mouthed, Sure, with a little nod. His gaze heated in approval, nudging another chain reaction to life under my skin.
How did anyone manage to look so much like sex on a stick? The way he was staring at me, I could imagine the expression he’d wear when I went down on him, full of abandon and gratitude.
Had I really just thought about going down on a guy I hadn’t even introduced myself to yet?
Mmm-hmm, said the Greek chorus below.
“Go. Get.” Capria shooed me.
“You can go. Take your car. I’ll Uber.” That suddenly made it real, what I was about to do. “I’ve never done this,” I confessed. “Gone home with a guy I met in a bar.”
Capria grinned. “You’re like a hookup virgin! Ask him for his phone, take a picture of him, and send a text to me so I have his phone number and photo.”
“That’s not going to keep him from killing me and tossing my body in a Dumpster.”
“No, but it will probably keep him from killing the girl after you,” Capria said with a wry grin.
I made a face at her. “Thanks. Helpful.”
I slid out of my seat, then paused. On one side of the divide was safe and numb, and on the other side—
Let’s go! my body crowed.
I left Capria, crossed the crowded, noisy room, and slid onto the stool ne
xt to his. Up close, I could feel the heat of his body, and something else, a humming current of attraction. He smelled like soap and just the right amount of some spicy cologne. I wanted to lean in and breathe him deep.
“What do you drink?” No hello. He didn’t even turn his body toward the stool where I sat. Which was okay, because he had a terrific profile.
“Peach on the beach,” I told the bartender. I extended my hand. “I’m Elle.”
He turned and took my hand in his. His was big, his palm callused, his skin warm. “Sawyer.”
“Are you from around here?”
“Couple towns east. Geneva.” His speech was rough and short. I wanted to run a thumb over it, the way I wanted to reach out and feel the shadow of dark stubble on his jaw.
“I’m from the other direction, a couple towns west,” I said, smiling, noting how unafraid guys are to give out personal information, and how cautious I felt about telling him where I lived, even though I was planning, potentially, on having sex with him. “My friends said Maeve’s was the place to be.”
“It really is,” he said, looking around. Eighties music blared from the speakers and a throng had formed on the dance floor. People were kissing and grinding and groping. Sex was everywhere. I could feel it wriggling in my bloodstream, too.
Capria waved at us from the edge of the horde.
“That’s my friend Capria.”
He waved back. She gave him the two-fingered I’m watching you sign. He held up his whiskey in a toast and drank.
“She’s got your back,” he observed. “So what brings you guys to Maeve’s tonight?”
“This is my get-back-on-the-horse outing. My divorce just got finalized. Shit,” I said, biting my lip. “I wasn’t going to say that. I wasn’t going to talk about my divorce at all.”
Hattie had coached me. Keep it light…
He shrugged. “It’s okay. Divorced is good. Better, in this case, than married.”
That made me smile. “Depends on your perspective, I guess.”
“Not so good from your perspective?”
“It’s been a shitty year.”
My drink came and I drank it too fast. He raised his eyebrows. “You want to tell me about your shitty year?”
“Um, you don’t really want to hear it.”
“You should let me be the judge of that.”
“It’s in the rules book. Don’t talk about your divorce when you’re trying to hook up with a guy in a bar.”
I clamped my mouth shut. My face was bright red. I almost jumped off my stool and fled. I’d just voiced a mammoth assumption.
“Hookup, huh?” The hint of a smile tipped up the corner of his mouth.
“Shit,” I said. “You know what? Maybe I’d better leave before I totally humiliate myself.”
“No. Don’t do that. It’s a hookup. If you want it to be.” His gaze swept over me, bringing heat everywhere it touched. “I do.”
His frankness flooded me with relief. My nerves notched down.
“Yeah. My friends think it’s time to get back on the hor—”
I cut myself off, blushing furiously.
Damn alcohol. Next thing you know, I’d be telling him the sordid details of exactly how Trevor had hurt me.
“Well, lucky me for being in the right place at the right time.” He watched me intently. I was drunk enough now that I was starting to get that tunnel effect—I could feel the music throbbing, the ruckus of the voices around me, but mostly I could see him—those heavy-lidded dark eyes, his full mouth, the knot of muscle at his jaw.
I became aware that my panties were damp, my clit swollen. I was usually slow to heat up. This was some crazy voodoo chemistry. Or too much alcohol.
“I think you should tell me about your shitty year.” He raised his eyebrows. “Unless you’d rather make small talk.”
I smiled at that. “Um, not particularly.”
He had this patient way of listening. He was very still, and he looked right into my eyes.
I figured, what the hell? I didn’t need him to like me. I just needed him to sleep with me. “He left me for his high school girlfriend.”
He winced.
“Yeah. He was still dating her in college, long distance, right before I met him. I was his rebound from her, except then I got pregnant and we got married. But somewhere in there, he decided that she really was the one. They kept in touch the whole time, and I had no idea how much he messaged and texted her. Skyped her, even. He said it only ever crossed the line into being physical once, like it was supposed to make me feel better that he only emotionally cheated on me, or like I’m supposed to congratulate him on his restraint. I couldn’t stop thinking about that one time, though—trying to figure out what it was, when it happened—Shit,” I said again, “I’ll shut up now. Has anyone ever told you you’re easy to talk to?”
“Not really.” This time I was sure of it: that slight quirk at the corner of his mouth was a hint of a smile.
“I babble when I’m nervous.”
“Why are you nervous?”
He didn’t ask it in a mean way. He asked like he really wanted to know.
“I’ve never done this. I mean, I had high school and college hookups at parties and stuff, but that was different. I was married when I was twenty-two. I had a kid when I was twenty-three. So this is my first bar hookup.”
My face flamed. Way to go, Elle. Now he’s really turned on.
He finished his whiskey, and I was half expecting him to make some excuse and walk away, but instead he reached his hand out and brushed his thumb across my lower lip. “You have a beautiful mouth.”
Heat washed through me, and I drew a shuddering breath.
His eyes darkened. “Yeah? You like that? What do you need?”
I wasn’t sure I knew the answer.
He read my confusion.
“You need to fuck? Prove you can still do it? That your ex didn’t take it away from you?”
Unable to speak, I nodded. The casual way he said “fuck” had slipped under all my defenses and burrowed itself into the hot, wet center of me. And it felt good to admit the truth.
His mouth quirked in an almost-smile. “Works for me. As long as you know this is a one-time thing, though. I don’t do repeats, no matter what.”
I didn’t want a repeat. Sawyer was exactly right. I wanted to prove to myself (and Trevor, even if he wasn’t actually ever going to know) that Trevor hadn’t broken me.
And I wanted to prove it with this guy, who was still looking at me like he wanted to spread me out on the bar and do wonderful terrible things to me.
I was pretty sure no one had ever looked at me like that before.
My throat was so tight with desire and anticipation that I couldn’t speak.
His hand came up again, cupped my cheek and slid around the back of my head, fingers thrusting into my hair. He leaned down and kissed me. His mouth was warm and his tongue licked peach off mine. I moaned.
He threw a couple of twenties on the bar and pulled me off my stool.
I remembered Capria’s safety advice. “Give me your phone.”
He handed it over without question. He’d done this before. A hundred times, for all I knew.
I snapped his photo, texted it to Capria. “So if they find my body in a ditch the police artist has something to work with.”
I couldn’t read the expression on his face, but he bent to kiss me again, so fiercely I lost my breath.
We made it only as far as the alley before he had me pressed between brick and his body.
Chapter 6
Sawyer
I have the house to myself. Jonah is next door for the night. I start unpacking boxes, but I don’t get very far. I keep having sex-with-Elle flashbacks. But the funny thing is, they aren’t about the
dirtiest part of what I did to her against the brick wall in an alleyway beside a bar. No, the thing I can’t stop thinking about is how cute she was when she was drunk. I don’t usually like women who blab—I hate gossip and small talk and the kind of nervous-polite chitchat Elle was making earlier today.
But that night, the way she kept blurting things out made me want to smile, and I hadn’t wanted to smile about much in a long, long time.
The thing was, I didn’t want to want to smile, if you know what I mean.
And I really didn’t want a woman to be the thing making me want to smile.
Smiling at a cute woman made me think about Lucy, and that sucked. Because what Lucy and I had—it wasn’t going to come around again.
Lucy was the only woman I’d ever loved, and I’m pretty sure she’s the only woman I’ll ever love.
For one thing, I’m not the kind of guy who falls in love. I guess maybe you could say I’m a misanthrope. Or maybe just a loner. Whatever. At any rate, there aren’t very many people in the world I genuinely like spending time with. Brooks and Chase, in small doses. And Jonah—but I figure that’s because in that respect he’s kind of a mini-me—a loner, too.
And for a while there, there was Lucy.
Lucy was the one woman I ever knew who didn’t seem to think there was something wrong with me, who wasn’t always trying to offer me a penny for my thoughts or get me to talk more. And the funny thing was, that made me more talkative. It was like during the time I was with Lucy, there was a light on inside me. And when she died—
Well, it went out.
And I don’t know if I want it lit again. Because the snuffing out was pretty much the most awful, painful thing you can possibly imagine. Watching Lucy fade away, from who she was to, well, nothing…
Yeah. Not going there.
Anyway, the odds that there’s someone else out there who could do that to me—light me up like that again?
Not playing that lottery.
Which is why anything that makes me think about Lucy and what we had is also incredibly painful.
