And she felt herself smiling as well. “You’re only one stroke ahead of me. And that attempt to get my mind off the game is going to backfire.”
“Such an unrelenting competitor.” He placed the ball on the green and set up his shot. “Prepare for your doom.” He took his shot, sending the ball down the center of the fairway until it disappeared from sight, only to reappear a second later to the left, rolling to a halt a few feet from the hole. “Ooh, that’s gonna be tough to beat.”
“We’ll see,” Kelsey said, lining up her shot and examining the trajectory of the turf. She took into consideration the direction Paul’s ball went. Once she finished taking this shot and after they headed towards the eighteenth hole, Paul would surely sink the ball on his next putt, which meant she needed to get a hole in one to tie him. She angled her putter to the right and connected.
The ball veered to the right, banked off the wall then vanished before reappearing on the green to their left, rolling towards the hole.
“Oh, it’s going in,” she said with a burst of energy.
“No,” Paul said in a tight voice. “It’ll stop in front of the hole.”
Kelsey rushed after it, running down a grassy hill, only to stop outside the fairway…just as her pink ball slipped into the hole. She opened her mouth wide, but words couldn’t describe her astonishment.
“Lucky shot,” Paul said, taking his time walking down the hill. He came up beside her a moment later. “It’s time to end your fantasies that you’re better than me.” He took his time preparing beside his golf ball. Then he putted.
The ball angled toward the right portion of the hole, and rather than slipping inside, it swerved around the corner, stopping only an inch away from the hole.
Dazed, Paul just looked at her. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Then he knocked the ball in, ending their game with Kelsey as the winner.
“Pro circuit, my ass!” she said.
“You sure have an affinity for referring to one’s posterior,” he said as he retrieved their balls from the hole. “You don’t have a fixation with the human buttocks, do you?”
Upon hearing the anatomical term, she burst out laughing. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Well, that was fun.”
His smile told her that, far from feeling inferior for losing, Paul cared more about spending time with her than proving his dominance by prevailing over her. “It was.” In the past, Kelsey always looked forward to this part of a date because, by now, she expected to feel a certain amount of chemistry with the man standing opposite her. But this time, fireworks didn’t go off, and she didn’t know how to react. It made her feel uncomfortable, hesitant.
Paul glanced at his watch. “Wow, I didn’t expect that.”
“What?”
“I had such a great time that I hadn’t noticed how much time flew by.”
“Do you have plans?”
“Well, I kind of told my little brother that I’d give him a call by now.”
“Oh, do you two talk often?”
“Well, not really. We usually hang out on Sunday’s, but yesterday I…” He rolled his eyes. “I kind of told him about our date…and since he’s fourteen and might start dating soon, he wanted to hear all about it.”
How could she dislike that Paul had a close relationship with an impressionable young man who sought advice on how to treat a woman on a date? “Well, I don’t want to keep you.”
“But,” he said, stepping closer to her, “I’d like to see you again. Are you up for that?”
Sensing that he wouldn’t try to kiss her, which removed much of her anxiety, Kelsey felt a smile grace her lips. “Yes.”
“Fantastic.” Paul’s smile grew bright and cheery. “That’s great. How about next Friday night?”
“I’ll be at The Witching Hour past ten. That’s when we close, so I wouldn’t be available until eleven at the earliest, so—”
“You told me about that high energy level, and I get the impression you like to dance.”
“I love to dance,” she said with almost too much excitement. She hadn’t gone out dancing in…probably six months – with her girlfriends, since most men didn’t like to dance. Looking back, she couldn’t remember the last time she danced with a man. “That sounds great!”
“Then how about I meet you at Within Temptation around eleven-thirty on Friday? It’s over on—”
“I know exactly where it’s at.”
“Perfect.” His smile remained transfixed. “I’ll look forward to seeing you in a few days.” Then he turned on his heels, extracted his phone from his pocket, and headed towards the parking lot as he began dialing.
At the idea of seeing Paul again, on the dance floor no less, Kelsey finally felt her heart skip a beat. She chastised her younger self for not giving a chance to those men she didn’t immediately click with. But as the saying went – better late than never!
* * *
Damon answered the door wearing nothing but a pair of Miller Light lounge pants; he hadn’t expected company tonight).
A black-haired Asian woman with a prominent chin and too much make-up greeted him with a luminous smile. “Hey, lover boy!” She tossed her crocodile-skinned purse onto the floor, took two steps, and leapt into his arms, her enormous breasts straining against a T-shirt that showed an image of a man holding his son’s hand with the words, Sex – do it for the kids!
“Whoa.” Instinctually, Damon wrapped his hands around her back, wobbly on legs that hadn’t expected to take on one hundred pounds without warning. Before he had a chance to speak, Karen (or was it Koren…or perhaps Kylie?) placed her mouth on his, taking his lower lip between her teeth as a slow, insistent moan left her throat.
“I’ve waited all week for tonight,” she said, strapping both arms around his neck. “I want you so bad,” she whispered, “I can practically feel you inside me right now.”
Catching his breath, Damon glanced around his condo for some place he could drop…this woman whose name he couldn’t quite place, because he sure as hell didn’t plan on taking her to bed right now. He’d met her last Saturday night at a bar, and within two hours, she’d taken him home, only to pass out on the couch minutes later. Since he’d also consumed enough alcohol to re-route his better judgment, the idea of declining her invitation never entered his mind. That he didn’t want to spend another night alone also had something to do with it. He’d called a cab soon afterwards and made it home, only to fall asleep alone…again.
Nevertheless, he didn’t recall handing out his address. That worried him. As a public figure, he didn’t want the public to ring his doorbell at odd hours or wait outside to…what? He didn’t have any experience meeting fans beyond the confines of bookstores, and he couldn’t imagine how they might respond if they saw him on the street. While he didn’t know of any enemies or even hecklers, Damon couldn’t overlook the possibility that someone might want to harm him. One could never tell with the cult of celebrity nowadays. He strove to keep his public and private lives separate. When he set aside time to devote to his readers, he gave them his undivided attention. It didn’t matter if they wanted autographs, to snap a picture with him, or simply a chance to chat for a while.
That this twenty-year-old woman had somehow discovered his home address unnerved him. “Hi,” he said, trying to tear his lips away from hers as a whiff of tequila-scented breath hit his nose. “Let’s hold off, okay?”
She adjusted position on him and lowered her right arm; multiple bracelets jingled down her wrist as her palm bumped against his right hand. “Where’s Mr. Happy? I bet I can find him.”
“Hey, why don’t we hold up a minute,” he said, walking her toward his black leather sofa. He tried to lower her onto it, but she clung to him, and the extra weight tipped him off balance until he almost landed on top of her when they hit the couch.
“Mmmm,” she said, nuzzling his neck again, while hooking a thumb into his pants and sliding down the right side. “I bet I can find
Mr. Happy.”
“Come on, now,” he said, wondering why she kept referring to his private parts that way. The kinky reference was creepy. “Let’s slow down.”
“Only after Mr. Happy comes out to play.”
He hovered above her abdomen, while pinning both of her wrists to the pillows.
“Ooh, Daddy likes it naughty.” She tilted her head back and giggled.
He held firm. “This isn’t going to happen. Do you understand me?”
The mirth on her face receded as her hands relaxed at her sides. Her eyes crinkled in anger. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“Well, I—” Feeling ashamed for having followed her home last week, he loosened his grasp on her. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Then what’s my name?”
He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Katie.”
“What?” she yelled.
“Keira?” The ferocity of her anger encouraged him to loosen his hold on her. “Kerry?” It now occurred to him that he’d only selected names that began with the letter ‘k.’ How appropriate, given that he couldn’t get Kelsey out of his mind, even when another woman literally threw herself at him.
“You don’t fucking remember me.” Her hand shot out with incredible rapidity and slapped him across the cheek. She struggled to push out from under him.
He got up from the sofa and watched her, fearing that she might grab the lit two-pound Streusel Cake-scented candle on the coffee table and whip it at him.
She ran towards her purse.
That freaked him out. Did she have a knife inside? A gun?
She scooped it up, plugged a hand inside, and pulled out a white napkin. “Do you remember giving this to me?”
Releasing a pent-up breath, he approached her with hesitation, unsure how she might respond. When he got close enough, he spotted his handwriting and felt a wave of fright filling every pore in his body. He’d given away his address. What had he been thinking? Then again, after consuming so much alcohol, he hadn’t really been thinking at all, had he?
The woman tossed the napkin onto the ground, turned around, grabbed the door, and turned back to him. “Fucking douche bag.” Then she stepped through the threshold and slammed the door behind her.
A second later, Max appeared on unsteady legs and looked at him with an unreadable expression.
“Glad you didn’t have to see that, buddy.” But something in Max’s expression told him that his dog didn’t need to see the incident to understand what had happened. It left Damon feeling like a tool. After all, until a week ago, if a woman had thrown herself at him, he would have taken her to his bed without a second thought and made sure she left satisfied…more than once.
But since he met Kelsey, he had no interest in following through with meaningless flings. He just couldn’t get her out of his head. And it had nothing to do with knowing that she had no interest in him. Or did it? When it came to love, many people succumbed to what he called the “Rolling Stones Syndrome” in reference to their famous song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
He spent a good bit of time questioning what he looked for in a woman before he decided on brains, looks, confidence, a sense of humor, and direction in life. Kelsey had each of these qualities and more: playfulness, a family-oriented background, common sense, individuality, and probably many more great characteristics he hadn’t yet discovered, which only made him want to get to know her better.
But he deplored the misconception that he had sex with a woman then dumped her. Had Alex or Marisa or Kelsey, for that matter, even read one of his romance novels? Inside those books, they wouldn’t find a male protagonist trying to score with every great-looking woman that passed his field of vision. His male protagonists all shared one thing in common with Damon: each of them had gotten so severely burned by love that they found it difficult to trust their heart with another woman.
For his part, after meeting Kelsey, he no longer had any doubts about opening himself up to her. He’d spent too many nights lying next to women and feeling lonelier than he had while sleeping alone. Sharing a bed with someone didn’t carry over into trusting that person with his secrets, his heart, and his dreams.
Few people could comprehend the mental shift that had sunken into his brain, but the best way Damon could describe the difference between a week ago and now was that he’d almost given up hope that he might find another woman he loved enough to devote his life to making her happy. And strange as it sounded, the moment he finished talking with Kelsey in the diner the other day, Damon knew with 100 percent certainty that if Kelsey gave him a chance, he would fall so deeply in love with her that, if she returned his affections, he would finally have what every hero in every romance novel he’d written had: a happy ending.
Just by talking with Kelsey, he sensed that she also searched for a connection that surpassed simple phrases like “I love you” with countless unspoken moments of tenderness and devotion. And as much as Damon wanted to get Alex’s blessing to pursue his sister, he couldn’t imagine his friend giving it, which he hoped wouldn’t make it awkward when they met for drinks on Friday night. Despite whatever discomfort might come from their friendship, Damon had no intentions of giving up on the idea that, if Kelsey could only see the man behind the image, she would find her soul mate.
CHAPTER SIX
Damon stood with Alex leaning against the counter of Sanitarium, a wide, two-story bar erected in a triangle pattern with a bar on each floor, surrounded by booths on all sides, the dark interior with vintage signs from various beer companies were spread across the walls. Other than the circular lamps hanging from the ceiling, blue and pink neon lights cut through an otherwise dark ambiance, allowing customers the opportunity to talk since the top 40 music playing through a decent sound system didn’t force patrons to raise their voices.
Alex took a sip from his bottle of Miller Light. “Who would have thought that I’d be your wingman? But I’m really glad you moved into town. I mean, without your help, I wouldn’t be with Marisa.”
Over the latter part of the summer, Damon had taken Alex to countless bars, teaching him what women found attractive. And judging by how excited Marisa looked Sunday morning, expecting to see her boyfriend instead of his best friend, Damon figured he’d succeeded in a big way. Just as important, he took a lot of pride in helping a couple that truly belonged together become one.
Nevertheless, Alex still seemed to believe that Damon wanted a wingman to help him score on the weekends. Nothing could be further from the truth, and he’d expressed this sentiment, but for whatever reason, Alex hadn’t believed him. On that note, Damon couldn’t do more than half-heartedly scan the bar for attractive single women.
“It should be another great night for you,” Alex said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many hot women in the same building at the same time.”
Damon took a swig of beer, unable to pick out the women his friend referred to. “Everything going well with Marisa?”
“It’s fantastic.”
Alex’s exuberant smile expressed an emotion that Damon hadn’t felt in over a decade, an emotion he wished he could recapture. He raised his bottle and tapped it with Alex’s in congratulations.
“Can you believe she actually wanted me to hang out with you tonight?” Alex asked.
“Oh, yeah?” Damon looked at him with envy.
Alex splayed out both hands, unwilling to hear any condescending remarks. “I won’t lose my independence, but being part of a couple is different than just hooking up with women all the time.”
Damon didn’t respond. He knew exactly what it felt like. And he missed that feeling of knowing that someone loved you.
“Marisa wants us to be together practically all the time. It’s kind of suffocating, but since I’d never been in a relationship before, I guess anything would be. I’ve always wanted that closeness.” He stayed quiet for a moment. “I’m probably boring you right now, aren’t I?”
�
��What gives you the impression that I don’t want…what you and Marisa have?”
“Oh, I get it,” Alex said with a grin. “Now that I’ve got a girlfriend, you’re upset that we won’t be hanging out much anymore.” He dropped a hand on Damon’s shoulder. “You were there for me, bro. I won’t forget that. I’m not going to drop out of your life.”
“That’s not what worries me,” Damon said.
“Then what is it?” Alex’s gaze followed a blond woman wearing a short skirt to show off her curves. “Hey, how about her?”
A blond woman with curves? Damon had already found a woman with those attributes. He didn’t need to look to know that this woman couldn’t compare to the one that had burned her image in his mind. “You’ve got the wrong idea.”
Alex’s phone chirped, indicating that an incoming text message had arrived. “Marisa says that Kelsey’s on a date with some guy named Paul.”
Damon jerked upright at the news. He feigned a cough to conceal his surprise. “Do you know him?”
“No. He better not be a player though. She’s determined not to fall into that trap again.” Alex turned to look at his friend. “No offense.”
Damon had to steady his nerves to keep from losing his temper. “I’m not into that, okay? I’m out here looking for something I haven’t found yet.” But that didn’t ring true. He’d just found the one he wanted. And she preferred to spend time with another man.
Another text message arrived, stealing Alex’s attention. “It’s a second date. Kelsey hasn’t been on a second date in a long time. She must really like him.”
Grinding his teeth, clenching every muscle in his body, Damon burned to find out more about this guy named Paul. He inhaled, but this time while exhaling, it came out sharp and jagged. A tornado of curse words circled his mind, and he didn’t trust himself to ask another question.
Alex read his smartphone. “They’re out dancing.”
“Marisa doesn’t even know this guy?”
One Last Promise (A Bedford Falls Novel Book 2) Page 7
