by Amy Marie
I hear a chuckle and then a voice that most definitely does not belong to Braden. “I would have decided sooner if I knew you were waiting for me. In my defense, I did ask you to join me tonight.”
I pop my head up and take note of the dizzy feeling I have from my five drinks. “What do you want?”
“Nothing, Hadley. I saw you over here and I wanted to say hi. Can’t I just say hi?”
Through the haze of my tipsiness I take in his stance. It’s strong, powerful and towering over me. His hair is messy in all the right places, and a huge smirk showcases the small dimples he has. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and his chest takes in slow shallow breaths. The leather jacket he is wearing is unzipped and I get a hint of the dark blue shirt he has on. A black belt wraps around his waist and between my thighs clench when just a quick flash of what is underneath the jeans that belt holds up enter my thoughts. I’m sure his body is much more toned now than back then, but then I remember how many others have seen what’s underneath those clothes since.
“Okay, you’ve said hi. Now you can go.” I wave my hand around dismissing him. I don’t need this right now. I’m mad at Braden and I’m not thinking straight.
“Who were you waiting for?” he asks, his brows quirking up.
I roll my eyes and breathe out a sad sigh. “Braden. I told you that earlier. So, you should go,” I tell him just as the server walks by. “A shot of tequila please?”
“Make it two,” Ryder requests. “My tab.”
He takes it upon himself to sit where I was so sure Braden would be sitting while we mended our reoccurring broken relationship. Braden should be here. Braden should’ve been there all week. He should have been the one helping with my car.
Taking a deep breath I try to be nice to the man who has done nothing but be nice to me despite my bitchiness. “Thank you for the other day, Ryder. For driving me to get the new battery.”
“Of course. What are friends for?” He winks before taking a pull from his beer.
Our shots are placed down in front of us and I don’t grab it immediately, unsure if getting drunk with Ryder just a foot away from me is a good idea, not that I’m not halfway there.
Ryder pushes one shot my way and pulls one towards him. “Where is he? Braden. If he hasn’t decided to show up yet?”
The question irritates me only because I don’t have an answer. “Where’s your girlfriend Wendy?”
We sit in silence for a few minutes, neither one of us drinking the tequila. Neither one of us giving into the others questions.
His hand falls down on the table startling me. “How about this. I’ll ask you a question, and you answer it. Simple. If you don’t want to answer then you have to take the shot.”
I snort. “How does this benefit me?”
“Well, I do the same. You ask. I answer or I take a shot–and I hate tequila so I’m pretty much up for just giving you the truth. I’m sure, just like myself, you have some questions.”
Eyeing him skeptically, I ponder over it for a minute. “Okay. I get to ask my question first.”
“Fair enough. Go ahead.” He nods his head pushing me to ask anything.
Shifting my body to get more comfortable, I bring my legs up onto the bench, pulling my knees to my chest. “Is Wendy your girlfriend?”
“No.” His answer comes quickly and certain.
“So, what is she to you?” I continue.
His hand comes up, his long finger waving side to side. “Ah, ah. It’s my turn. Where is Braden?”
“I don’t know. He was supposed to meet me here over an hour ago.” I don’t rest before I ask my next question. “What is Wendy to you?”
“Just a friend.”
“She didn’t seem like just a friend,” I state taking a sip from my mixed drink.
“She knows where I stand. Why are you still sitting here if he ditched you?”
“Just contemplating. Trying to figure out if he is cheating on me,” I answer honestly. “He’s been avoiding me all week. I got roped into planning his work party and ever since then he acts like he doesn’t want me around his job. I think he has a secret side fuck there.”
I lift my eyes to him.
The features of his face grow sad. “You were never a side fuck, Hadley.”
“But I was a secret,” I counter.
He shakes his head. “Hadley...”
“Where does Wendy think you stand?” I continue not wanting to talk about the past. Not yet.
“Right next to you if you would ditch the fucker who doesn’t know what a treasure he has.” He admonishes, his dark blue eyes piercing me with his stare.
“Ryder...”
Interrupting my though he asks, “Why didn’t you call me to tell me you were leaving?”
I reach in front of me, picking up the small glass and pouring the amber liquid down my throat. I don’t flinch when the taste of it burns its way down to my stomach.
“You’re not going to answer that?” he asks unbelieving.
“No. How many girls have you slept with since me?”
He grabs the glass in front of him and pours it into his mouth, slamming it down when he finishes. Turning to the passing server he grabs her forearm. “Four more shots please.”
I sit staring across the table taking in how beautiful Hadley looks, even sad. She’s dressed in a pair of blue jeans, Ugg style boots, and a long purple sweater. Her dark hair flows over her shoulders down to her perky breasts. When my eyes meet her lips, she is biting the bottom one and it causes my dick to come alive. Her mouth curves into a smile and when our eyes meet I can see she knows what she is doing.
Hadley biting her lip is my weakness.
“Stop it, Had,” I warn her just as the server brings us our four shots.
Her head tilts to the side, sizing me up. “Stop what, Ryder?” she asks innocently.
I lean in towards her, almost all the way across the table, lowering my voice so only she can hear me. “Biting your lip, Spark. You know what it does to me.”
“Oh, I know but you can’t touch me. I’m Braden’s.”
I glance around the bar noting the lack of customers before turning back to her. “He’s not here.”
“I noticed. Thanks.”
Anger raises inside me as I see how defeated she looks that he isn’t here. What a piece of shit. If she was mine I would never stand her up.
Earlier, when I walked into Hooligan’s searching for Nate, my text went off. I pulled it out of my back pocket, sliding the screen over to see a message from him that his son got sick and he wouldn’t be able to meet me.
Glancing at the bar, I had found a vacant spot at the end and took a seat. After I ordered a beer, I pulled my phone out once again to see if AJ was available. Before hitting send on the text something caught my eye from the corner booth.
Hadley.
The bartender dropped the beer in front of me and I handed him my card. “How long has she been here?” I asked him pointing towards her.
He looked at his watch and then at her. “About an hour and a half or so.”
So now, here we sit in silence, neither one of us drinking the tequila. Neither one of us giving into the others previous questions.
“So, you’re seriously not going to tell me how many girls you’ve been with? Or do you not remember.” She laughs.
“I know how many, Hadley.” My eyes go wide. That’s a messed up thing to say. “I’ll tell you my number if you tell me yours.”
She goes to pick up the shot glass before thinking better of it and sits up straighter. “Two.”
“Two what?” I ask confused because a beautiful girl like that has to have had more than two suitors, even if it does make me all kinds of jealous.
She huffs. “Guys, Ryder. I’ve had sex with only two guys.” Her eyes roll and she takes the shot of tequila anyways.
“So, Braden and me?” I ask though it’s a dumb question. I know I’m one of them and she’s been with him for a while so
he has to be the other. “No one in college?”
“Ah, ah, ah.” She mocks. “Your turn to answer. How many Blake? How many girls has the sexy Ryder Blake slept with?”
A smirk as wide as the Grand Canyon spreads across my face. “You think I’m sexy?”
Her face flushes when she realizes what she said but the liquor doesn’t keep her embarrassed for too long. “Of course you’re sexy,” she says waving her glass around. “You have the body of a Greek God and did half of the girls in our graduating class in high school.”
“What are you talking about, Hadley? I slept with two girls in high school.” I don’t tell her about my college years wasted between the legs of many co-eds. In high school, it was just her and Bridgette Tate. Though many tried, her best friend Emie included. I was too devastated by her disappearance to want anyone else.
My entire senior year of high school was spent playing football and going straight home. There were only very few occasions that I went out. I even sat out the school dances because I had envisioned Hadley on my arm as we entered them.
She hasn’t spoken a word but just looks at me, furious. “I don’t know where you got your information,” I tell her.
Abruptly she stands from the booth, catching herself before she stumbles back. “Emie. My best friend. She told me all about how just a week after I left you had the cheerleading squad all lined up. Don’t give me your bullshit, Ryder.”
As my body tenses up I have to calm myself down before I say anything stupid. I take a deep breath. “Emie?” I ask to be sure. “Emie told you this?”
She nods crossing her hands over her stomach. “Yes.”
“Sit down, Had,” I tell her, readying myself to give her the news that her best friend is a bitch. “We need to talk.”
Stepping away from the table, she uncrosses her arms and starts to walk away. “No. I have to go to the bathroom.”
I watch her all the way to the bathroom making sure she makes it there okay.
I can’t believe Emie told her I was sleeping around. That girl probably had more notches on her bedpost by the end of senior year than all the girls in our class put together...but never me. Not that she didn’t try numerous times. Just three days after Hadley left, Emie was waiting by my locker asking me to take her to the homecoming dance. I thought, at the time, that she didn’t know about Hadley and me but after what I just heard, I think she was bullshitting both of us.
I had asked Emie where Hadley was, begged her to get info out of her parents but she claimed she had no idea and they wouldn’t tell her.
“Okay.” Hadley plops carelessly back into her side of the booth. “The total number. I wanna hear it.”
I peek down at the three remaining shot glasses then back up at her. Despite the crap she is going through with that piece of shit boyfriend of hers she is smiling. Probably from all the alcohol she has in her. “Twenty-two,” I state, deciding to drop the bullshit Emie pulled on us so long ago, for the moment.
Her face drops and she looks away, seemingly disappointed. “Next question for me.”
I bow my head ready to ask a question I don’t want to know the answer to but take the plunge anyways. “Do you love him?”
She takes another shot of tequila but still answers. “I thought I did, but is love supposed to be this hard?” she asks before her attention is directed to the door where a few others have come in. She looks down at her phone and frowns. I want to reach over and kiss her sadness away.
“Well,” I start to tell her. “I’ve only ever been in love once so from my experience no–but it does make you vulnerable enough to have your heart ripped open.”
A snort escapes her. “I know how that feels, Ryder. You don’t have to tell me how that feels.”
“So, if Braden ripped your heart open then why are you with him.”
“No, not Braden. You.” Her words cut me to my core. “You ripped my heart out.”
My stomach twists in knots. I did everything but hurt her. Yes, we kept it a secret but I never did anything besides love her and make sure she knew that I did. Hadley was my world and when she left it felt like I was stranded in the middle of the ocean with no paddle in my one man boat.
“Well, you ripped mine out too,” I tell her before taking another shot. I know she is open, answering questions, but she can’t just put all the blame of what happened on me. I didn’t leave her without any idea of where I went. She left me and she left me broken. “But unlike you I haven’t been able to have a normal working relationship since.”
Her eyes lift to mine throwing daggers at me with each second that passes by. Throwing her hands up her voice gets loud enough to draw attention. “Normal? Is this normal to you? My ‘normal’ relationship is hanging on by a thread right now. And you...” she points at me, “ever since you came back it’s like that thread is rapidly unraveling!”
I quickly jump out of my side of the booth and slide into her side. Her eyes grow wide and she cowers into the back of it. Every inch I move in she pushes away until her back hits the wall and her knee comes up to block me. That one sentence, that one beautiful sentence has given me what I didn’t even know I needed to hear.
Leaning in as close as I can get without tasting those beautiful lips of her I whisper, “Maybe that should tell you something, Had. I make no apologies for unraveling you and now that I know I’m helping dwindle the flimsy string that is holding the joke you call a relationship together,” I breathe in closer. “I plan on watching it fall to the floor and then I’ll secure you with nice, strong rope. Tie us up so tight you can’t move...not that you would want to.”
Her body shakes but not from being scared. It’s quivering. I’m making her quiver, and her labored breaths are causing a stir behind the zipper of my jeans. If she wasn’t taken I would claim her mouth once again.
She doesn’t say a word but just stares between my lips and my eyes, her tongue coming out to wet her mouth. She wants me to kiss her.
Fuck it.
I lean in, pushing her erected knee into her chest. Her breath hitches as I bring my hand up to her cheek, caressing it softly, her head falling hesitantly into my palm. Bringing my lips closer she rewets hers, and I take that as my cue to grab the other side of her face and pull her towards me. Our lips just millimeters from one another, our eyes locked on each other.
I pull on a tendril of hair. “I miss the red. It suited you.”
“Ryder,” she whispers, the alcohol from her breath intoxicating me.
“Hadley,” I breathe back into her.
Her eyes blink back a tear and it breaks my heart. “I loved you.”
Taking another move getting so close I can feel her lips graze mine as I say, “I loved you more.”
“There’s something I need to...” she starts but a notification from her phone makes us jump as though we were doing something wrong. The look on her face tells me that she thinks we were.
Picking up her phone, she glides her fingers over it.
Sliding back over to my side of the booth I mutter “saved by the bell” under my breath before taking my original spot across from her.
She shoots back a text to whoever interrupted our moment and looks up. Her delicate fingers holding the phone like a lifeline as she just stares at me. After what feels like an eternity she speaks, “I have to go.”
“Wait,” I command reaching across the table just as she pulls her hands away. “You were going to tell me something.”
Her stare is deep, unmoving, like she is fighting on whether or not to finish her thought.
“I can’t. I want to go,” she says, her green eyes contradicting her words.
“Let me call you a cab. It’s my duty to make sure you get home safe.” I stand up with her. “We can share. Your house is on the way to mine.”
Pulling her jacket over her shoulders she motions toward the door. “Braden is here to pick me up.”
My heart stops for a brief moment. I plaster a fake smile on my face. �
�Think he can give me a ride too?” I joke.
She snickers while she fastens the buttons her coat. “That would be something.”
“Well,” I say fingering the last shot on the table. “Sudden death?”
Her gaze falls to the door and then back to me. “What does that mean?” Her hands find her hips.
“One more question.”
She points to the glass I’ve now picked up. “There is only one left, Ryder.”
I love when she says my name.
“I know,” I say stepping towards her. She doesn’t back away. “I ask a question. You don’t answer you take the shot. If you do then I’ll take it.”
A slow smirk presents itself. “Okay, shoot.”
With my free hand, I lift her chin up so that I can look deep into her eyes and find the truth. “If not for that asshole outside waiting for you...would you have let me kiss you tonight?”
I need to know. I need to see how serious she is about this man. Is their relationship so broken that she would have risked it for a kiss with me? But the Hadley I know, that I remember was faithful and trusting to a man she loved.
She blindly grabs the shot from my hand and tips her head back to take it before turning away, her eyes never leaving mine.
I fall back into the booth, my head down, swimming in a sea of tequila and unanswered questions. More than I had before I walked in her tonight.
“Ryder.” Her beautiful voice calls me from a few feet away. I look up and she is smiling. A true genuine smile. One I haven’t seen on her since I found her again. “Yes. I would’ve let you.”
My heart starts to beat faster. I want to jump up and grab her and slam my lips to hers but before I can even think straight she is out the door.
The door of the bar slams shut as I approach Braden’s car. When I don’t immediately open the passenger side door he rolls the window down.
“Get in the car, Hadley.” He growls. I stand there, unmoving.
After another command to get in I place both hands down lowering myself so that I can see into the car.
He looks over, the green of his eyes have grown dark with dread. I can see he is upset. “Please,” he asks. “Get in the car. I’ll take you home and we can talk.”
