Rush Me

by Allison Parr

  I laughed. I might be on to him, but he was still easier to bear after two glasses of champagne. “I’m just not that interested in sports.”

  “Not even a little?” he asked, grinning at me. His hand, resting so casually on his thigh, transferred over to mine. I raised a brow at him, and he laughed again, a little more real. “Maybe you just need to give us more of a chance.”

  “So I keep hearing.”

  “What’s not to like?” His hand moved a tiny bit higher. “Successful, rich, good-looking...”

  “Modest...”

  He laughed again, and tried to kiss me. I squirmed away and raised my voice. “I think Alexa wants to go now.”

  She tripped back in my direction. “Yeah. Definitely. Let’s go.” Nate stepped forward to steady her and she shot him an irritated look and pulled away.

  We took a cab to Turquoise. It deposited us before an innocuous door with chipped paint that looked like the back-entrance to a warehouse. I wondered if New York cabbies knew the location of all the city’s undercover locations.

  We were admitted by a bouncer, who waved us to the front of the two-hundred deep line curling along the hall. At least no one would ever have to wait outside in bad weather.

  The club itself, as promised, was a maze of turquoise themed rooms. The floor glowed with a gentle blue gleam, and pink coral sculptures rose up in glass columns. The lighting dyed any white cloth blue-green. Alexa scoffed. “How very literal.” I giggled, feeling the champagne.

  Inside, Matt swiped four drinks for us as I texted Ryan. It didn’t take long for Alexa and Nate to peel off again, and I felt a twinge of worry watching Alexa go. I wasn’t sure which of us it was aimed at.

  “You want to dance?” Matt asked, swaying in front of me. His arms dropped around me, curving down my back.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I stepped away. “I’m not really in the mode.”

  “What d’you mean? Course you are.”

  I took another step back. “I’d rather just stand here and...talk.”

  “Okay.” He matched my steps. “I like talking.”

  I smiled uncomfortably at him.

  “You’re very pretty, you know. Gorgeous eyes.”

  “Thanks.” I flicked those eyes down. Where was Ryan? If he would just get here, everything would get a hell of a lot less awkward.

  Okay, it might be more awkward for Matt. But I would be more comfortable.

  “What do you say that we get out of here?”

  “Um.” I looked at the towering pillar of muscle. “I’m actually meeting up with...my...”

  His arm stole around me again, this time holding my waist firmly. He tilted his head down.

  “Matt, no.”

  I’d pissed him off. “What? You got somewhere better to be?”

  “Rachael? Hey, is this guy bothering you?”

  Part of me melted at the sound of Dylan’s rough Bronx accent. “No.” I twisted away from Matt and smiled up at Dylan’s frowning face. “Hi.”

  “We’re fine, man,” Matt growled, leaning into me again.

  Mike stepped to Dylan’s side, his expression stormy. “Barrett? What the hell, man? Back off.”

  Matt finally straightened up and blinked at the guys. “O’Connor? Pierce?” He broke into an unkind grin. “Nice rush in the third.”

  “Shut up,” Dylan snapped. At least Keith wasn’t there. He probably would have thrown a punch. “And leave Rach alone.”

  “What’s it to you?” Matt stepped in front of me, and I frowned. “Maybe she’s the one who won’t leave me alone.”

  Both Mike and Dylan scoffed disbelief.

  “Hey man, I don’t want to be trouble, but she did come here with me.” Matt raised his hands.

  Mike shot me a wary look. “I didn’t really,” I protested.

  Dylan just scowled and crossed his arms. “Don’t be crazy. She’s Carter’s girlfriend.”

  Well. Not exactly.

  “Is she?” Matt scanned my body with far more intimacy than he’d used before. “Imagine that.” He reached for me.

  Mike frowned, uncharacteristically fierce. “Rachael, get over here.”

  Anger spiked through me. I stepped away from all of them, forming a third point to our odd little triangle. I wasn’t some bone to fight over, or an inanimate piece of territory to piss on. My nails bit into my fists.

  “Rachael?” Ryan’s voice, bewildered, cut through the silence. “What’s going on?”

  Matt smirked at him. “You’re losing girls along with games, Carter. Guess you just can’t keep them satisfied.”

  Ryan took one fast, launching step forward, and then pulled his shoulders back. The fists he formed looked a lot more intimidating than mine. In fact, they could crack heads open. “What are you saying, Barrett?”

  Matt shrugged. “Just that it wasn’t you that chick had her hands all over earlier.”

  Ryan’s fist slammed into Matt’s face.

  I stood there, shocked into stillness, as the other guys jumped in and hauled the two men off each other. Matt roared and spread his fingers around his bloody nose before trying to break away from Mike and a player I didn’t know. The clubbers in our vicinity squealed and pulled out camera phones, and Dylan gave Ryan a shove. “Get out of here,” he muttered, and Ryan grabbed my hand and tugged me through the crowd.

  No one stopped us as we climbed the stairs, passing more bouncers and entering the VIP mezzanine. Not even when he led me deeper into the building, past the crowds. When he snapped at a bouncer, the man let us into a low lit, private room.

  Couches ringed the walls, low and padded with red velvet. A closed down bar stood in one corner and small, round tables of dark mahogany filled the rest of the room. Embossed wooden panels made up the walls. It screamed money and sex, but didn’t have much to say on taste.

  “What a fucking asshole.” Ryan started to pace, crossing the room with vigorous strides. He shoved his hands through his hair and then shook it back into place. “What were you doing with Barrett?”

  I sunk onto one of the plush couches, wishing I could flip a switch and bring more light. “You just punched a guy!”

  “I thought you were coming here to meet me.”

  “I think you might’ve broken his nose...”

  “Why were you talking to him?”

  I focused on him. “Excuse me. Did you just ask me why I was talking to someone?”

  He stopped in front of me and crossed his arms, muscles tense. “Yeah, I did. Do you even know who he is?”

  “He’s a Bison tight end.”

  “Wait, you knew? Then why would you...and why’d he say...”

  “Didn’t your mother teach you to finish your sentences?” I said crossly, and then could’ve punched myself. “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay.” His voice was wry. “She tried to. How did you end up with Barrett?”

  “He’s the teammate of the ex-best friend of the author I met. The two of them already split off—his name was Nate? Do you know a Nate?”

  He stared at me, and then actually turned in a circle as he shoved his hands through his hair. “Yes. Yes, I know Nate Hart. Please don’t tell me you were hanging out with him, too. Christ, what are the possibilities you’d want to meet with a writer with Bison connections?”

  I leaned back on the couch. “That’s a good question. I’m going with cosmic alignments. Mercury’s probably doing something funky.”

  He dropped down beside me. “You’re crazy.”

  “It’s one of my most endearing qualities.”

  He tried to glare, but I could see the suppressed humor. “That’s not exactly what I was going to say.”

  “Well, and I’m crazy?” I angled my body toward him, propping my arm up on the back of the couch. “Ryan. I don’t care how much you don’t like Matt, you can’t just yank me around like I’m a chew toy!”

  His expression flickered. “I thought I was rescuing you.”

  “How does breaking someo
ne’s nose rescue me? No, you were using me to prove that you were better than Matt.”

  “And I’m not better than that idiot?”

  “That’s not the point! I’m not a pawn you can jerk around. That proprietorial attitude—”

  He exploded, eyes flaming hot blue fire, shooting to his feet. “What the hell is wrong with the attitude of not wanting my girlfriend hanging around the team that just beat us 34-32?”

  I stopped breathing.

  Okay, he wasn’t off the hook for acting chauvinistically. But. I just needed a moment to clarify. “What do you mean, your ‘girlfriend’?”

  He glared at me, crossing his arms. “Well, aren’t you?”

  My jaw dropped open. My throat went dry. “Uh...”

  “You told Caitlin Morrison we were a couple.”

  “Yeah, to get her to go away!”

  His eyes narrowed. “Okay. So I’m good enough to fuck, but you won’t date me?”

  Sometimes I could read Ryan’s mind, and sometimes he leapt to conclusions that didn’t make any sense. “What are you talking about?”

  “Because no matter what, I’m still just another dumb jock. I get it.”

  Good God, this man could be stubborn. “I don’t think you’re dumb.”

  “Then is this the ring thing?”

  “The—the what? Ryan, I swear, sometimes you’re impossible to follow.”

  “You said you didn’t like rings, that you don’t like the idea of belonging to someone. Being property. And you just railed on me for telling Barrett off. Let me guess—you don’t like ‘labels’ either.”

  He remembered my engagement ring rant?

  “But you know, the way I was raised was that you ask a girl out and you pay for her dinner and you buy her flowers. Jesus, Rachael, you drive me crazy. God forbid I ever wanted to buy you a present—you’d probably tell me how demeaning it was and toss it in the gutter. You’d probably say Tiffany’s is built on blood money and that if I really cared about you I would—I don’t know—give up football and join the Peace Corps!”

  I was entirely blown away. I couldn’t even think of what to say. Finally, fumbling, I said, “You never asked me out to dinner.”

  He glared at me. “I have you over for dinner all the time.”

  “But you never asked me out.”

  Exasperation flooded his voice. “Fine. Do you want to go out to dinner with me?”

  “Yes.”

  He stopped looking pissed off and irritated and looked confused and vulnerable. “You do?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Oh.”

  “And you can buy me, flowers, too, if you want.”

  His brows creased uncertainly.

  “God, Ryan!” I exploded. “You drive me nuts, too, sometimes!”

  He started to grin. “At least it’s mutual.” He dropped down on the couch and regarded me rather warily. “Are you going to flip out again if I kiss you?”

  I smiled at him. “Why don’t you find out?”

  And he did.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I was humming “Not Pretty Enough to Tempt Me” and de-bugging the kitchenette when Eva walked in.

  “Oh my God, stop singing that.” She dropped her purse and re-did her messy bun. “We just spent like two hours on that number.”

  “I can’t help it.” I covered a cockroach with a plastic cup and slid a stiff piece of paper stock beneath it. The cockroach started scrambling around, its little legs frantically beating against the plastic walls. “I’m happy.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re going to free that. We have a duty to the city to exterminate all of them.”

  I started shuffling toward the small window, sticking my nose in the air and answering airily. “If it survives a five story fall to the ground, maybe it deserves to live.”

  “Of course it will survive,” Eva grumbled, coming forward and wrestling the cup and paper from me in the gentlest manner possible. “I’m flushing it down the toilet. At least that way it will breed in the sewers and not bother us until we can’t make rent and end up living there.”

  When she came back into the tiny living room she surveyed the counter like a general. “Is that the last of them?”

  “Uh-huh. So...bad day at rehearsal?”

  “Why would you say that?” She started spraying down the counter with bleach, determined to remove every trace of the insects.

  “Instinct.”

  “The show opens in two weeks and today Martin fumbled half his lines. The wardrobe mistress finally got me a dress, ages after everyone else, and when I told her it was too small she had the nerve to say I must have put on weight! That woman...” She scrubbed the same spot over and over again. “And,” she added, in a low, menacing tone, “My parents have decided to come see the show.”

  I winced. It so happened that both of Eva’s parents taught literature, and held any tinkering with the classics in dismal regard. They had been openly shocked by the idea of anyone singing Austen’s prose, but apparently they were taking the higher road and coming to see the show to support their daughter.

  It had occurred to me more than once that Mr. and Mrs. Bryant had misplaced their humor long ago.

  “Are you and Ryan going to come?” Eva asked. “Because if I have to listen to you humming gushily, then you’d damn well better listen to me sing my little heart out.”

  “We’ll be there.” I checked my phone for the time. “And, in fact, he’ll be here in like five minutes.”

  Eva turned sharply. “He will? Why?”

  I grinned and gave a little shake. “We’re going on a date.”

  Eva stared at me. “Ew.”

  I stopped my happy-dance. “What?”

  “That is so sickeningly couple-y. I don’t know if I can handle it.”

  I crossed my arms. “Given that we just decided a couple days ago that we are a couple, I think it makes sense. Besides, we’ve never actually gone on a date. And you go on dates all the time!”

  She let out a snort of disdain. “No. I occasionally go out to dinner with whomever I’m hooking up with. I don’t giggle.”

  Giggle? Who giggled? I’d never giggled in my life. Ha. I stuck out my tongue. “Please. I don’t giggle, either.”

  Ten minutes later, I buzzed Ryan up to the apartment. Despite the fifty-five steps, he wasn’t even huffing when I opened the door. He dropped a quick kiss on my lips and glanced around the apartment, which seemed to constrict even more with him inside. “Hey, Eva,” he said, and then shot me a grin. “Nice place.”

  I felt a little fluttery and let out a laugh. Eva raised her brows, and I frowned at her. “I’ll give you the grand tour.” I waved my hand to the left. “Here, we have the kitchen.” I waved to the right. “The bathroom.” Five steps forward led to “Eva’s room,” and another step forward, “And here’s mine.”

  He crossed the living room in three long steps, bracing his hands against my doorframe and leaning over me to peer into my room. His arm brushed against my back. “This is a fire-hazard.”

  I frowned. “I cleaned! I hung my clothes up and everything!”

  He nodded at a red and gold Venetian mask hanging on the wall. “I like that.”

  “I got it when studying in Italy.”

  “Bet you look cute in it.”

  “I look cute in anything.” He turned his head and smiled.

  “Anyway.” I stepped away but still grinned like a madman. “We should go.”

  Eva caught my eye. “Did I just hear something?”

  Auditory delusions were just so sad in one so young. “I’ll see you later.”

  She laughed. “Have fun, kids.”

  We spiraled back down the stairs and exited onto the street. “This way.” Ryan headed to the left, and I followed half a second later. He reached back and caught my hand. His palm felt warm against mine; his fingers wrapped firmly around my own. And when I stopped walking, our joint hands pulled him to a stop.

  He looked bac
k. “What?”

  “Uh, nothing.” I bit back a smile. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Where’s your bike?” I turned my head back and forth as we continued down the street.

  “It’s in the shop.” He pulled me left, toward the dingy and badly marked subway entrance.

  “Wait—we’re not taking public transportation, are we?”

  He looked at me sharply, alarm widening his eyes. “Why? Do you not want to? Should I have brought a car?”

  My lips split in a grin. He was cute when he worried. “No, it’s fine.”

  “Yeah?” He angled himself toward me, never releasing my hand. “I’ll have you know, I’ve been in those ‘Just Like You!’ features for taking the subway.”

  He had? Not that I read tabloids. Never. Unless I was in the doctor’s office. Or grocery store. Or airport. “Ha! You’re not that big a deal!”

  “Yeah?” He lowered his head towards mine. “You sure about that?”

  “Mm-hm.” And then I couldn’t help myself. I giggled.

  * * *

  We spent the evening at Ellis Island. “You’re kidding,” I said when we emerged out of the subway at Battery Park, and stood before the ferry. “We’re playing tourist?”

  He nodded across the water. “You ever been there before?”

  “Not since I was fourteen.”

  “Good. Besides, we’re not playing tourist. I’m giving you a history lesson.”

  “Says the jock to the academic!”

  “No, says the military history major to the English major.”

  The sky stayed grey as the water, and rain spritzed down, inflating my hair to epic proportions. But I didn’t care. Neither of us cared. We played historical tourists and held hands and if I’d been asked—later on about what kind of day it had been, I would have called it more beautiful than any yet that year.

  After touring the museums, Ryan pointed out his family’s names to me on the American Immigrant Wall of Honor. I slid him a sly smile. “Do you know what this means?”

  He dealt me a look that said he was sure I wanted to tell him.

  I grinned at him. “You’re really a New Yorker.”

  He snorted. “That would make you happy, wouldn’t it?”