Headstrong

by Meg Maguire

  “The only thing you’re fouling up is a midnight Kung Fu marathon, and I’ve seen them all a dozen times anyhow.”

  “Oh, that sounds fun!” Libby cracked her first real smile all evening.

  “Yeah? Well, we close up shop at one. Let’s you and me watch telly until you need the couch for sleeping on.”

  She couldn’t detect any trace of sexual expectation in this invitation and accepted gladly.

  Now, how to blow another six hours? She didn’t want to chance running into Reece on his own and getting her head bitten off again. Libby lived to make trouble but she needed Reece. And she liked Reece. It would behoove her to hold him back a few inches from the precipice of actual hatred.

  She glanced at the rugby match that had replaced the news. “I don’t suppose there’s anything else on TV?”

  Colin rummaged beneath the counter and handed her the remote. Libby could feel him watching her as she flipped through the small selection of channels, eventually settling on a game show. He didn’t bother looking away when she lowered her eyes to his and returned the remote. He smirked.

  “What?”

  “You’re a refreshing change of pace. For an American, I mean. Even if you don’t like rugby.”

  “No, it’s okay. I like your Haka-war-dance thing before the matches. That’s bad-ass. But if there’s no New Zealand team to root for I sort of lose interest. I promise I know the rules. I’m a very informed tourist.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I just have a short attention span.”

  “That’s supposed to be a sign of brilliance.” Colin slid the remote back over and left it near her elbow. “I have a question about you, Elizabeth Prentiss.” He leaned in, bringing his face close to hers.

  His sudden proximity triggered a pang of misgiving, but Libby hid it well. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. As you’ve surely noticed, my brother is shithouse at amateur espionage. And he’s indiscreet. I’ve seen the little dossier your dad gave him.”

  “Well, you didn’t read it close enough, then. My name’s not Elizabeth.”

  “Fine. But I saw the photo of you.” He backed away, taking his unnerving aura with him. “You… What happened to you, eh? You used to look a hell of a lot different.”

  Libby smiled, suspecting she understood. “Different how? Was I wearing a sweater set or something? Silky-smooth hair all in place?”

  “Exactly. When was that taken?”

  “Probably recently. But it’s not me. That’s my sister.”

  “Oh.” Colin blinked. “Twins?”

  “Yep.” She took a sip of her wine to hide a grim smile.

  “Why would your dad do that? It can’t have made Reece’s job any easier.”

  She shrugged. “I very much doubt my father has any recent photos of me. He certainly wouldn’t have taken any, and he wouldn’t have kept any that were given to him. My hair’s always spiky or orange or a mess, like this.” She twiddled a long, weather-braided lock. “And I’m never dressed respectably in his opinion, or else I’ve got a ring through my eyebrow or I’m making a rude gesture. He prefers to fixate on the potential, I think. My sister’s on the side of the pendulum he’d prefer I swing to.”

  “I get you.” Colin looked thoughtful, as if he did actually get her.

  “So, sorry. I’m not a prep-school princess gone bad.”

  “That’s okay. I like you how you are now.”

  Peppermint and seawater. That’s what that smell was. Colin cracked a triumphant grin, finally putting his finger on the scent that’d been eluding him all evening.

  Libby was still seated across the bar, playing a useless breed of solitaire with an incomplete deck of cards he’d found for her below the register after the natives demanded the rugby be restored. He glanced at the clock. Nine fifteen. Four long hours before he might get to enjoy the pleasure of sitting on a couch beside this fascinating woman.

  Colin liked Libby’s proximity. He could study her easily from this close and take in all the little intimate details of her…like how her lopsided style of grinning was giving her a laugh line at one corner of her mouth but not the other. He liked how her face looked at this angle, or any angle for that matter. He especially liked the way it looked when it was pointed at his brother. Colin wasn’t a jealous man—he hoped that Libby would have her way in the end. She seemed like the sort of girl who was used to having her way.

  Shame, though. He’d never met a woman he was more sure could put him through the paces under the sheets. But she had armor on, or blinders. This girl was on a mission. Considering how useless Reece could be with women, Colin bet he didn’t even realize he was being targeted, poor bastard.

  Still, Colin liked her. Libby was like a Talking Heads song come to life, all bright colors and vibrancy and chaotic, swirling energy. Colin didn’t drink or get otherwise off his head recreationally. Human entropy was the only chemical rush he indulged in, and Libby was a syringe of that, shot right into his bloodstream. Being near her felt nice to him, even if she was fingernails on his brother’s blackboard.

  From where he leaned against the back counter, Colin flung a coaster at Libby that bounced benignly off her forehead. She raised her chin to fix him with a stare that threatened venom but didn’t have any to inject. Her wide lips twisted into a haughty smirk. Colin was willing to bet this was exactly how her face would look as she coaxed the zipper down the front of his jeans.

  “Don’t make me hurt you, Nolan.”

  He flashed her an unapologetic grin. God, if only.

  Libby smiled at the smell of greasy spring rolls. At a quarter past ten, just as she and Colin were unfolding the boxes the Chinese restaurant had delivered, two laughing young women came through the door, coats tented over their heads against the rain. They had on matching collared shirts with the logo of a chain restaurant embroidered above their left breasts. They each looked to Colin, then flashed identical, split-second glances at Libby and approached the bar.

  “Evening, ladies,” Colin said, already preparing their drinks.

  “Hey, Col,” one said with a flawlessly casual delivery any fellow female could identify as piqued sexual interest.

  He pushed a gin and tonic and a pink, cherry-garnished cocktail in a highball glass across the wood. “Shouldn’t you be home with your families on a pissing night like this?”

  They shrugged in unison, clearly thinking this was a far more enjoyable place to take shelter during a minor hurricane. Libby had studied the commercial neighborhood where Paul Nolan’s Pub resided from the window of her bus earlier that day. The restaurant these girls worked at was a good mile down the road, along a stretch with at least one closer drinking establishment. These particular patrons didn’t come here for mere convenience. They came here for Colin—for his smile and his easy, deep voice and the way he looked in a T-shirt. And because their mothers would not approve, but would also secretly envy them.

  Libby kept flipping her cards as the girls took their drinks and retired behind her back, presumably to a table with a good view of the staff. She hoped she was blocking that view, even though she had no significant attachment to Colin. Libby didn’t get attached to men, and she didn’t get along very well with other girls.

  She frowned. There was definitely a two missing from the deck, which made it very hard to get anything done in Klondike. Libby abandoned the game and looked up at Colin.

  “You’ve got a black queen there, and an open red king,” he said, fishing vegetable-fried rice out of a carton with chopsticks and pointing.

  “Have you been watching me this whole time?”

  “Yeah. I think there’s a red two missing, actually. Sorry about that.”

  She smirked. “There are a couple things more interesting than me and my sad solitaire to watch now.”

  “They come every Monday night.”

  “I’ll bet they do,” she said, ramping up her innuendo game to at least twice its usual potency. She guessed it would take that much to get
a rise out of Colin.

  He remained unscandalized. “You want to play poker or something?”

  “Yeah, all right.” She mashed the cards into a messy pile for him to deal with, turning her attention to her food.

  The next time one of the girls came up for a fresh drink, she loitered at the far end of the bar, drawing Colin away from the perceived competition. Libby watched the exchange with the detached curiosity of a research scientist. Which, as it happened, she was.

  Colin knew how to get tips—which weren’t even compulsory in New Zealand—though he wasn’t aggressive with women. In fact he appeared to approach the whole dance rather lazily, but he was nonetheless in total control, his prowess made clear without a single openly flirtatious remark uttered or a physical boundary crossed. He knew how to talk in low, intimate, familiar tones, and how to lean on the bar and to drum his fingers across the wood in a way that could alter the rhythm of a woman’s heartbeat. He knew precisely how long to keep his hand on a glass before releasing it, the gesture unmistakable in its promise of pleasurable dominance.

  Libby wondered if he’d slept with one or both of these girls, if they’d ever been upstairs to his flat on some other rainy, lonely Monday night and been shown an undoubtedly memorable time. She wondered for the first time where Colin’s scar had come from, and whether a woman had been involved then too.

  Two uneventful hours later, however, Colin shouted, “Last call!” and the girls gathered their coats and bags and shuffled to the door.

  Libby stayed perched at the bar, giving no indication that she was going anywhere this fine evening, thank-you-very-much. It earned her a pair of heated glares. It was an evil, satisfying deception to take part in. They didn’t need to know she was only dawdling because she had a crush on the bartender’s frigid older brother but was too chicken to be left alone with him.

  Colin locked the door behind his thwarted seductresses.

  “Make yourself useful and wipe the tables down, eh?” He tossed Libby a wet rag and pulled out a ledger. He counted the cash in the till and made a visual inventory of the bottles that lined the shelves behind him.

  Sneaking a glance at him as she ran the cloth over the bar, Libby could admit that she saw the appeal. “Sorry if I ruined your chances for securing some enjoyable female company this evening, Tiger.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “And what do you think you are, then? I’ll be enjoying you silly in about ten minutes’ time.” He consulted a nonexistent wristwatch then turned back to the ledger.

  “Oh really?” Libby propped her fists on her hips and gave him a haughty look.

  His voice went dark and husky. “Really.”

  She threw the wet towel back at him. “You can think again, Romeo.”

  “I can picture it now,” Colin murmured, staring transcendently into space.

  She approached the bar and leaned on it, challenging. Colin turned and met her eyes with his own.

  “Let me paint you a picture,” he said seductively, leaning closer.

  Libby raised an eyebrow.

  “You,” Colin drawled. “And me.” His tongue flirted with the edge of his mouth, one of Libby’s own favorite instruments of torture. “Sprawled on a ratty old couch, in the amorous glow of the telly. Glasses of ice water sweating in our hands. The salty, sensual oil of unevenly microwaved popcorn stinging our fingers. Hours and hours of Asian blokes from the seventies kicking the shit out of each other, and us, watching. You…and me…wearing nothing…but…our clothes.”

  Libby snorted, amused and secretly relieved.

  Colin grabbed her uninjured hand with a dramatic, fake-longing-filled gasp, and his eyes rolled up in ecstasy. “Oh God, I can go all night, can’t you, Libby?”

  “Get off me,” she said, laughing, and wriggled her fingers out from between his.

  “Hit that switch next to the steps.” Colin pointed to the door that led up to the flat, sounding normal again. Once Libby complied, he shut off the pub’s lights. She followed him up the steps, feeling utterly content and wondering if she may have just found her platonic soul mate in a dingy pub on a tiny island all the way on the opposite side of the globe.

  An hour later they were lounging in the flat’s living room on opposite ends of the Nolans’ battered, comfortable couch.

  “This popcorn is all burned,” Libby said, passing the bowl back to Colin.

  “No, it’s not. Some of it isn’t even popped.” His eyes didn’t leave the action on the TV.

  Libby didn’t hear Reece’s approach and was startled to look up and find him standing at the side of the couch, arms crossed over his chest. He had on track pants and a Newcastle beer shirt, feet bare. His eyes were trained on the screen at the movie playing. Colin waved him a distracted hello that was cut short as his attention was sucked back into the brilliantly choreographed fight scene. Libby scooted over and patted the cushion she’d vacated. Reece didn’t look at her but he took a seat.

  Libby appraised her situation and smirked—it was an enviable sandwich for a single woman to find herself in.

  An ad came on and Reece broke his silence. “This was, what? 1976?” He took the popcorn bowl Libby offered and picked through the dregs.

  “’78,” Colin corrected.

  “Beautiful. Beer me, Col.”

  Colin rose and looked to Libby. “Anything?”

  “More popcorn?”

  “Consider it done.” He disappeared into the kitchen.

  Libby turned to Reece. “Thanks for the couch. I know it’s against your will,” she added, a touch snide.

  “Don’t fuck with my brother.” Reece’s unexpected reply was cold and loaded and quiet. He was scary-serious and Libby felt the blood drain from her cheeks.

  “I hadn’t planned on it.”

  “Don’t fuck with his head, even. And definitely do not fuck with my mum.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Good.” This conversation was over.

  In the kitchen, the microwave began to whir, followed by the sound of the fridge door closing. Colin came through, handed Reece a can of beer and sat down with a tumbler of water, oblivious to the room’s atmospheric change.

  “I bloody love Drunken Master,” he murmured as the movie recommenced.

  “I bloody love Linda Lin,” Reece added, watching the screen, casual again. “She can beat the shit out of me any day.”

  “She must be like seventy now,” Libby said, struck by an irrational twinge of jealousy. Now there was an emotion she wasn’t used to. It felt ugly, like a wad of acid burning a pit in her stomach.

  “The restaurant brawl’s coming up.” Reece’s relaxed posture suggested all that needed to be said earlier had been, and Libby released the breath she’d been holding.

  The smell of popcorn—then burning popcorn—wafted in, followed by a tardy ding.

  Chapter Four

  Libby woke the next morning to a large, warm hand jostling her shoulder. She opened her eyes to find Colin staring down at her, brushing his teeth with his other hand. He raised the fingers around the brush in greeting.

  Libby propped herself up on one arm and yawned. “Morning.”

  The sky beyond the windows was dark and gloomy. Though the wind seemed to have died down, the storm was still raging.

  Colin wandered toward the bathroom and called back in a gargly voice, “Coffee in the kitchen.”

  “Thanks.” Libby shuffled in her pajama pants and undershirt to the next room and found a mug. She peeked inside the fridge and was impressed by its tidiness, given that it was the territory of two bachelors.

  Colin passed by on the way to his room, and Libby was suddenly glad she’d slept with her bra on.

  “Bath’s free. Help yourself to whatever.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We don’t have any decent soap or conditioner. Hope that’s all right.”

  “Do I look like I use it anyhow?” Libby’s hair was its own beast. It got marinated in so much salt from the ocea
n she’d long ago given up trying to keep it looking shampoo-ad silky.

  Colin smiled and disappeared.

  She padded across the apartment to the bathroom, passing Reece’s open door. She could see the corner of his made bed and wondered if he’d already left for the morning. She needed him to give her the cue when she officially overstayed her welcome. Though she wouldn’t mind putting off her departure for at least a little while—the weather looked truly nasty. She hoped her boat was in one piece.

  Rhythmic, guttural noises drifted from Reece’s room. Libby fought a brief battle between curiosity and worry—worry over whether she might be about to catch Reece in the middle of being intimate with himself. But as she framed herself in the threshold it turned out she was the one destined to indulge her pervier side.

  Reece ceased his sit-ups when he spotted her, wrapping his arms over his bent legs. His pajama-pant-clad knees obscured his bare torso, making Libby scowl internally. She wasn’t used to being affected this much by a man and was finding it extremely enjoyable. Reece’s tone when he’d said good night after the movie had been casual, if cautious, and Libby decided to push this civility as far as it would stretch.

  She set her coffee down and grasped the pull-up bar mounted on the doorframe, letting her legs go limp and dangling. “Morning, loverboy.”

  “Morning.” Reece gazed up at her then down at her mug, no particular emotion on his face. “Did you find milk?”

  Libby’s heart gave a jolt, relief he was at least pretending to not be irritated. “Yeah. You boys keep a pretty tidy fridge.” She scanned his room. Tidy also, in a bland sort of way. Plain white walls, several unpacked cardboard boxes still stacked beside the closet and no attempts at decoration anywhere to be seen. Her eyes snapped back to the bare shoulders flanking the handsome face she could have stared at all morning.

  “Do you work today?” She wasn’t sure what answer she was hoping for.

  “Yeah. I have to head out in a few minutes.”