by S. K Munt
Yep, you’ve scared him limp! Congratulations!
‘Maybe,’ she acquiesced, thinking more about how she couldn’t wait to brag to Ryan that he’d been wrong about Bruce.
Brag to Ryan… or just see Ryan in general and work him drunkenly like a straw?
‘There’s no maybe. We need to get you somewhere that you can continue to misbehave, without drawing quite so much attention to yourself- and I know the exact place.’ Still holding his wing, Bruce stood up and motioned for her to slide off her own chair. ‘Come on, drunken Aussie. It’s time for the third stop on our Niagara night tour.’
‘Is it somewhere loud and dark?’ Leigh asked, throwing a twenty down on top of the pile of money that Bruce was laying on top of the bill and smiling even more broadly when he didn’t wave it away. If her mum and dad could see her now- tipping right, and well, and not being stopped by some overprotective butt-head…
‘It is.’
Leigh grinned and followed Bruce out the door, wishing that Ryan was the one seeing her now- that Ryan was the one she was having drunken fun with.
Wishing that Ryan were the one.
Seven
The bar was indeed, dark and loud. But instead of concealing what Bruce probably intended to conceal, at least for a little while, the darkness and sound only drew Leigh’s eyes over the heads of the rambunctious patrons and to the stage, where a solitary blue spotlight bore down on Ryan’s brilliance.
Leigh inhaled through her teeth and pulled hard on Bruce’s hand. ‘You didn’t!’
‘I did.’ Bruce gripped her hand tightly and swung her forward before Leigh could begin to back out of the room. A few people gave her looks as she was shoved through elbows and hips and over feet, but Leigh was too scared to muster up an apology. ‘You need to be here, Leigh.’
Leigh shook her head roughly, losing sight of most of the room to her hair. ‘I can’t. It’s too hard-’
‘Which is precisely why you need to be here. If it was easy, you wouldn’t be in love with him.’
They reached the centre of the room, and Leigh couldn’t tear her eyes from the stage. Ryan was not only elevated by the platform beneath him, but perched on a stool and therefore, visible from every other point of the room. His eyes were trained down on his hands and his shoulders hunched slightly over his guitar, and though that ought to have made his hair flop sexily over the front of his face it didn’t- because at some point between then and when she’d seen him last, Ryan had had a hair cut and the result was knee-knockingly good. Instead of hiding his face, the sides and front of his hair had been trimmed and swept back, revealing so much masculine perfection that Leigh was fairly certain that she started ovulating on the spot. The dim light kissed every angle of his beautiful face and when Leigh saw the small silver eyebrow ring twinkle on his brow, she almost swooned.
He was Ryan, for real. Had he gotten a piercing to get in a dig, or had he done it knowing that that final, perfect touch would make Leigh’s virginity a quaint concept- and a thing of the past?
He looked incredible- better than incredible. He was wearing a white tailored button up shirt with the cuffs rolled up and the top two buttons open over his sexy throat, with ripped, slate grey jeans and a dark grey tuxedo vest. He had a silver chain around his throat, a black leather cuff around one wrist and as the final perfect touch- a length of actual chain around his waist instead of a belt. It might have looked ridiculous on anybody else but one glance at the front of the stage conveyed Leigh’s greatest fears- there were at least twenty girls smushed to the front who would chew through the damn thing if that was what it took to get to his fly.
And he’d wanted her. He’d wanted her and she’d hurt him because she couldn’t bring herself to admit that she wanted him a little more than she knew he’d be comfortable with. She wanted to fling herself at the stage and tell him he could screw her until her guilt was erased but her inner Scarlet O’Hara kicked her in the diaphragm and told her that she was worth more than that. Leigh didn’t agree, but she wasn’t about to fuck with Scarlet O’Hara either…
‘Yep,’ Bruce squeezed her hand. ‘You’re in love with him, all right.’
‘So what?’ Leigh glanced down at her feet and shook her head. ‘We never had a chance, Bruce and even if we did- I blew it today.’
‘Oh you don’t know that…’ Bruce scoffed. ‘When men lose face, they lose tempers, that’s all.’
‘There’s a difference between losing a temper and telling a girl you don’t want them on any level but the bedroom one!’ Leigh turned and tried to walk by Bruce and back out the door before she fainted, but Bruce caught her elbows and held her in place. ‘And he doesn’t even want that now! He told me to go!’
Bruce chuckled. ‘But he was begging you to stay.’
Leigh’s heart cramped for want of that being true. Ryan was playing Pearl Jam’s ‘Last Kiss’ and that made her head spin because it was one of the songs from the book- and could no longer be a coincidence, not now that he’d read the damn thing. She wanted him to be playing it for her! She wanted every song he ever played to be for her! But the lyrics were singing about a man who’d lost his ‘baby’ and that reminded Leigh of Ryan’s dreams and suddenly, the world was blurring over. ‘You’re wrong,’ she whispered, trying to pull his hands off her shoulders. ‘He belongs to someone else. Someone-’
‘You’re worth a million fantasy women, Leigh,’ Bruce whispered, lifting her face to his, his brown eyes burning intently. ‘You are beautiful and sweet and funny and fun… there’s this aura around you that’s like standing near a fire when it’s freezing. I can see that you’re unaware of that-’ he pushed her hair out of her face. ‘But I can also see that you’re the only one.’ He smiled fondly at her. ‘You need to stop comparing yourself to women who could never exist and accept that you fucking matter.’
Leigh’s abdomen sucked back against her tailbone and a tear leaked down her cheek. ‘That’s very sweet Bruce…’ her voice cracked. ‘But it’s you saying that, not him.’
Bruce wrapped his arms around her and began to rock her gently to the beat. His brown eyes were warm and unfocused. ‘And if he said it, would you believe him?’ Leigh thought it over, then closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘Why?’
Because he loved someone else enough to die for them, and I love my parents too much to give myself away to anyone who wouldn’t die for me. Since I’ve arrived over here, I’ve changed and I left a lot of my insecurities behind. I feel stronger and prettier and sexier and braver… But to be with Ryan, I need to love myself less and I owe it to my parents to hang out for the real thing. If I’m so deserving of it, I’ll find it, won’t I? Or, it’ll find me.
‘He can’t even get through that Lonesome October song without beginning to fall apart over memories that he doesn’t even remember.’ Leigh opened her eyes and shrugged gently and tearfully. ‘And I love that song.’ She glanced over her shoulder and Ryan’s striking profile made her pulse hurdle. She looked back at Bruce. ‘I want a guy who loses his mind over me. Is that so much to ask?’
‘You mean… like that?’
‘Like what?’ Leigh glanced over her shoulder and Bruce spun her, assisting the pivot, and that was when she saw that Ryan had spotted them and looked ill. He dropped a cord, then furrowed his brow and strummed downward, singing the next bit a little more loudly and angrier than Leigh thought Eddie Vedder had intended.
‘Oh oh… oh whoa oh oh…’ Ryan’s voice melted the sound but his eyes were hard and frozen. ‘Oh whoa…’ he ended the song with one, long sustained strum and then glowered at Leigh unhappily before leaning over the microphone and muttering: ‘Thank you…’ to the people applauding while his eyes said: ‘Fuck you,’ to her, and then to Bruce.
‘That’s not losing his mind- that’s losing his temper again.’ Leigh whispered to Bruce, but clapped her hands together, smiling a trembling smile to let him know that she was there to support him and not to raise hell. But Ryan shook his head, scowle
d and strummed the guitar harder to begin the next song:
‘Is it getting better…?’ he began ‘One’ softly, and Leigh’s heart began to splutter like a car running out of fuel. Was he going to run through the entire book’s playlist until she was a twitching lump on the floor?
He’s so angry with me! Oh my god, what if we can’t even be friends after this? I like him so much!
Bruce chuckled and took her in his arms again. ‘You’re completely obtuse, you know that?’
Leigh nodded. ‘What’s your point?’
Bruce rolled his eyes and rocked her again. ‘I don’t even know the guy, and I can tell that he’s crazy jealous right now.’
Leigh shrugged noncommittally. ‘He thought he was going to get me into bed, that’s all. Now I’m out with you and he’s starting to wonder if I’m shallow enough to stick it to him by taking you home instead.’
‘No. No that’s not it. He likes you Leigh, a lot.’
‘Why do you even care so much?’ Leigh demanded, wishing that Bruce would stop talking her into getting her hopes up, and wishing she’d had less to drink so she could figure out where the exit to the bar was.
Bruce appeared to think this over, before shrugging and smiling down at her. ‘I’m a believer,’ he said simply. ‘Like the song you know? Not about anyone girl in particular yet, but I’d like to believe that perfect love is a real thing. That romances can be as dramatic between the pages, and as surreal and everlasting.’ His eyes drifted towards the stage again. ‘Your story is just too fucking cute. If it works for you then maybe one day, something equally cool will work for me and Emma Watson.’
Leigh smiled. ‘But he has another story Bruce, and it’s a good one.’
‘Bah!’ Bruce grinned at her and turned her under his arm, catching her off guard and making her giggle. ‘It’s been done.’
Leigh snickered at that, grateful when Bruce kept her slow twirl steady and her toes on the ground.
‘I’m going to go get us a drink,’ Bruce said, stepping back gently as Ryan hit the chorus of the U2 song. ‘Want to come along?’
Leigh glanced over her shoulder towards the stage. Ryan was looking at her, but his face was unreadable. ‘Well…’
‘It’s okay,’ Bruce laughed the admission. ‘You can stay here and drool. Do me a favor and look really provocative, okay? Maybe I can get him to trade my time with you for a turn up there.’
Leigh rolled her eyes and waved him off, and as Bruce inched his way toward the bar, the small area they’d cleared while dancing began to fill in. There were a bunch of couples around her, and a lot of single women towards the front. Leigh knew she’d stand out less if she went to the front with them, but she didn’t want to be mistaken for a groupie so she stubbornly held her ground, and herself tightly.
I’m different to them. I matter. I’m different. I matter…
Ryan must have seen Bruce leave in his peripheral vision because his cold blue gaze lifted almost immediately and landed on Leigh. There was this loaded moment during which he stared at her and she stared back, feeling like she was facing off with a rabid animal that could be provoked into an attack, but he broke the stalemate first. His lashes lowered and a smirk curved his lips, and Leigh would have given anything to know what he was thinking.
But then he looked up right away again, and Leigh knew what he was thinking. There was no questioning it. He nailed her to the rear wall with that look and Leigh practically felt him enter her. Her lips parted and he sank his teeth into his own, quirking his eyebrows up playfully as if to ask: ‘Was it good for you?’
Oh my god. He wants me anyway now that he knows. Why? To prove a point? To put me in my place? Does he even care about my rules anymore? Probably not! Aw crap, wonder if I can get a hotel room somewhere else at this hour of night?
Ryan’s gaze drifted down to her hips then back up to her face and Leigh shivered, feeling as bound to him in that moment as she had when he’d tethered her to his bed, for his voice was sliding around her and pulling her nearer. She took a hesitant step forward just as Ryan began to play the instrumental break, and his eyes flared neon. He was a peacock with his feathers up, and a scorpion lifting its stinger. A shark baring jagged, razor-sharp teeth and a hunter getting her in his sights and Leigh stepped forward again.
I should have run from this place ten minutes ago! Oh my god, what am I going to do? I’m too drunk for this! I need fresh air and… and… He went home with two other women, you stupid bitch! Get it together!
‘Okay, they don’t have dark rum so I got you a beer,’ a cold bottle was pressed into Leigh’s palms and a second, chilled hand rubbed her shoulder. ‘I hope that’s-’
‘I need to leave…’ Leigh turned to Bruce, but didn’t meet his gaze. She searched for telling green exit signs instead in the dark and crowded bar.
‘What? Why?’
‘The same reason as why I needed to not walk in.’ Leigh took a slurp from her beer to soothe her parched throat and then pressed it into Bruce’s red shirt. ‘Thanks for the night Bruce it was fun but-’
‘… Carry each other… carry each other…’
Leigh’s heart tripped. ‘Now. I’m leaving now.’ She pushed past Bruce. ‘Bye.’
‘Leigh…’
‘No.’ Leigh shook her head and ducked under someone’s elbow. She’d spotted streetlights through a gap to her right and she focused on them, still swallowing the beer and telling herself that what she was doing was right, even if it was rude on several counts. She was a good girl! A mama’s girl, no doubt and her father’s angel. She rarely drank beer and she almost never went into crowded clubs, and never wasted! She wasn’t going to be fucked in an alley behind a bar like some cheap groupie, and she knew that that was exactly what was going to happen if she didn’t get the hell out of there.
Maybe it would have been okay if they’d gone there the night before- because Ryan had genuinely cared for her then. But something had altered between them, and there was nothing patient or understanding about the way Ryan had just looked at her. She didn’t blame him one bit and she was fairly certain that she’d probably just leveled him with a lusty, trampy come-hither stare of her own, and that was what was so damn scary. She liked him more than she liked herself- she would do anything, say anything and be anything to make him happy, and those girls never got happily ever after’s. Oh, they usually got the guy- but never the heart.
‘Closing Time’ started playing just as Leigh broke through the jammed front door and into the frosty night air and she shivered and pulled her jacket off the top of her handbag, sliding her arms into the fitted sleeves. She lost her balance a little doing so she staggered down the path for a few metres so that she could lean back against the façade of the building while she fumbled with her buttons.
I know who I want to take ME home! And that’s precisely why I need to get the hell out of here!
He walked outside a second later and Leigh froze, staring at the last button between her shaking fingers and wondering how on earth he could be outside while music was still playing within. Then she remembered Bruce’s teasing, about trading places with Ryan and she groaned inwardly, wondering when they’d both left her team and forged one of their own.
She didn’t need to look up to know it was Ryan. The buckles on his boots made a light jingling sound as she heard the metallic clink of his zippo lighter opening. But she slid her eyes across the pavement anyway and checked out the color of his frayed jeans for confirmation, before truly allowing her brain to shut down.
Is he going to tell me what he thinks of me before he shows me how little he thinks of me?
Ryan’s boots shuffled along the sidewalk until they were directly in front of her gaze and when Leigh understood that she had nowhere to go that he wouldn’t follow, she leaned back against the wall and forced herself to look at him, then immediately wished she hadn’t.
Ryan took a draw from his cigarette then lifted his chin to exhale it in one thin stream, not taking
his brilliant blue eyes off her the entire time. There was nowhere to look that was safe, and her heart began to thump between her legs. He had his leather jacked balled up under one arm as he shoved his lighter back into his pocket, and his discerning gaze challenged her to walk away from him, and see how far she got.
‘D-don’t you have a set to play?’ she asked weakly, her teeth beginning to chatter as night air did what night air did to intoxicated girls in the presence of cool-as-ice men.
Ryan took another drag of his cigarette and shrugged, flicking it gently to the side.
‘Won’t you get in trouble?’ she pressed, and then wished she hadn’t because his arrogant half-smile made her feel thick and stupid.
‘Must be nice to have that kind of job security…’ Leigh groused, sounding pissy to even her own ears, and Ryan exhaled another cloud and shrugged off-handedly.
Oh my god! Why isn’t he talking? Say something! I’m way too drunk for this charades crap!
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ she demanded, hugging herself more tightly, and when Ryan shook his head slowly, Leigh made an exasperated sound. ‘Why not? I know you’re pissed at m-me!’ She frowned at him. ‘Whatever you’ve got to say… you should just say it, and get it out of your s-system, okay? I can handle it.’
Ryan raised an eyebrow and then pulled his jacket out from under his arm and gave it a flick, motioning to her with one, long finger to come off the wall. Understanding, Leigh straightened and allowed him to drape his jacket over her shoulders, melting almost immediately as the weight of it settled on her and warmed her as his scent ensconced her.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly, searching his eyes for a word she could read but coming up with nothing. Ryan tugged on the collar, pulling it closed around her, and he was so close that Leigh couldn’t look anywhere but into his face. ‘But seriously Ryan, you need to get whatever’s eating you off your chest and get back to work, all right? I’ve already imposed enough.’ Ryan shook his head gently. ‘What?’ Leigh asked, her voice whisper-quiet now that he was so close. ‘You’re not going to give me hell? Or you’re not going to go inside?’
