Cherry Beats

by Vicki James

  Get your hot little booty over here, sit on my lap, and let me hold you while I kiss your neck.

  That’s what I hoped he was about to demand of me. Either that or Marry me, baby. I’ve always been in love with your green eyes and your bottle-red flaming hair.

  “Serve up another round of drinks, will you?”

  What a way to pour ice-cold water over a flaming hot imagination.

  “No can do, Paw. Bar closed ten minutes ago… and you know that, too.”

  I stood tall again and glanced over the counter through hooded eyes, keeping my hands busy as I waited for him to react. He’d always hated his nickname, taken from his initials, and very few were allowed to call him that and get away with it. But I was the kind of woman whose mouth only knew how to get her in trouble, and he looked like a guy that could shoulder the grief. Damn, those shoulders.

  They sagged on cue as if they knew I was thinking about them, imagining running my tongue along the tight, salty skin that no doubt hugged his ridiculous muscles. Presley’s head sank, and for one second, I thought he was going to lose his shit with me in front of Gertrude.

  She actually suited that name.

  Especially when she curled her nose up in the air like she’d just sniffed a bad fart.

  Instead of chastising me, Presley’s shoulders began to shake ever so gently. He was laughing. Thank Lucifer. I immediately exhaled with relief and went back to fantasising about him again.

  Me straddling his thighs, completely naked except for his leather jacket, which he’d asked me to wear.

  Me bending over so he could play the drums on my butt before sticking his…

  “Paw?” Gertrude screeched, her voice like nails on a chalkboard. I hoped for Presley’s sake that he would shove his dick in her mouth quickly that night, just so he didn’t have to listen to her grating cries. “Why she call you Paw?”

  I wanted to stand up and shout, ‘Correction: Why did she call you Paw?’ but I left it alone. With a name like Gertrude, the girl had enough to contend with.

  Presley finally glanced over his shoulder and narrowed the one eye I could see of his. He made a lazy finger gun, pointed it at me, blew out his cheeks, and fake blew my head off. I threw my arms in the air, stumbled back and pretended to take the hit.

  “Presley?” Gertrude pushed.

  “It’s nothing,” he answered smoothly, looking back at her like she was boring him.

  I hoped she was, but I also felt a weird need to help her out. Hoes before bros and all that.

  “It’s because he has huge feet,” I shouted over to her. “Like… big bear paws.”

  The gullible, lovely Trudy leaned over the side of the table and took a look at his biker boots. Her eyes came alive. “Oh! He really does.”

  I gave her a nod and a wink when she looked up again. “And you know what they say about men with big feet, don’t you?” I threw my cloth on the counter and held my hands up in the air, creating a big space between them. “They have even bigger…” I bounced my hands.

  “Tess,” Presley groaned.

  “Socks!”

  Presley’s head slammed down on the table with an exasperated thud, and I had to use all my childish strength to bite back the cackling laughter that was desperate to break free.

  “Socks?” Gertrude scowled. “What’s so good about that?”

  “Oh, you know.” I shrugged, gathering the cloth in my hand again. “Some women like to borrow their men’s socks. The bigger, the better, right?”

  “Ugh, make it stop,” Presley mumbled from beneath the blonde wavy hair that now surrounded his face.

  I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it. This was fucking fun.

  “Ignore her,” Presley eventually said to Gerty, lifting his head weakly. “She’s the village idiot.”

  The village idiot who wants to screw the hot rocker. There’s a book in there somewhere.

  Gertrude glanced between the two of us, her face suddenly sour, like she could feel the tension I always imagined would one day be there between drummer-boy and me. I’d been confident up until then, but one accusing look from her and suddenly I wasn’t too sure I was hiding my shit anymore.

  “Sorry. Ignore me,” I offered weakly, waving my cloth in the air by way of apology. I turned away from them and began to rearrange the bottles on the back shelf. Jimmy, Jonny, and Baileys were wiped down for the seventieth time that night, while I pretended not to listen to the conversation behind me.

  Gertrude asked him if there was something going on between the two of us.

  Presley barked out laughing like it was the single most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard in his life, inclusive of my stupid big sock joke, which now sounded pathetic when I heard it play back in my head.

  She accused him again.

  He told her she was paranoid, and that I was someone he knew in passing.

  She said she could read women, and maybe he needed to look a little closer at the feminist chick who was quite clearly besotted with him.

  My cheeks flared and my body overheated to the point of me not daring to look down at my fingertips in case they were already chargrilled.

  “Tess!” Presley called me abruptly, and even though I didn’t want him to see my rosy red cheeks, I spun around on the heels of my feet and strapped on a beaming smile. When I made eye contact with him, his bright blues were narrowed on me, his body leaning to one side while his hand rested on the back on his chair. He was scowling. Really scowling.

  “‘S’up, Presley?”

  “Are you in love with me?”

  “Fuck, yeah!” I pushed my lips out and nodded eagerly.

  Sometimes it was easier to tell the truth by hiding it within a joke, so it seemed like a lie. He had no need to know how much that single question had just winded me.

  “I love you like I love getting my smear tests done.”

  Presley stared into my eyes for a beat too long. For just a fraction of a second, it felt intimate, and all the jokes and smart comebacks I’d ever had faded away until I was left with was… nothing.

  Then he quickly looked away and burst out laughing before he thumbed over his shoulder in my direction.

  “She’s fucking hilarious. Always the free entertainment in this place. This is why I drink here.” Laughter tainted his voice, but Gertrude was not amused as she stared back at me.

  Studying me. Reading me like a damn book.

  Maybe she wasn’t as thick as she looked.

  “Funny, because I suddenly hate it here. I don’t like being made a fool of, Presley. Not even by you. I’m leaving. Feel free to join me.”

  “What?”

  “I said, I’m leaving.”

  “Now? Wait.”

  “Bye, Presley.” Gerty stood abruptly, pushing her chair under the table before she side-eyed me all the way to the door.

  The only thing I could do was stare at the back of her head as she left.

  I didn’t dare look at Presley.

  Chapter Two

  Presley’s gaze lingered on the door, his body still for far too long.

  Eventually, his shoulders sagged, and he looked down at the table, shaking his head.

  I opened my mouth to speak and then quickly thought better of it. My mouth = trouble. I had a feeling he’d already thrown me in the basement of his mind so he could torture me later with a sharp spoon.

  Presley spun in his seat and slowly began to rise. The creak of his leather jacket was loud enough for me to hear and fear since I’d turned the music off after last orders. I wasn’t sure why fear registered. It shouldn’t have because Presley was a nice guy, but I’d unintentionally run his girl out of his favourite small-town bar, so I figured that gave him a good enough reason to be pissed with me.

  When he began to stalk forward in that slow, confident, yet calm way of his, rolling his shoulders in his jacket, I couldn’t look away.

  Sex god, sex god, sex god, sex god, rang out like a song from behind my rib cage, tapping to the
beat of my own heart.

  Presley wasn’t like the other boys, men, or arseholes around these parts—at least that’s what I guessed. What did I know, truly? I was ill-travelled and uncultured, low on life experiences that weren’t a part of Hollings Hill, the town I’d grown up in. But surely most people thought the same as me—that Presley—with his chin-length, rock star haircut flicked to one side, and his piercing blue eyes, plump yet manly lips, and his strong, square jaw—belonged on a runway. He belonged on the front cover of every magazine, where people could imagine a man like him had to be airbrushed to look that way. He deserved to be topless with nothing more than a loincloth hanging over his misters, a crown on his head, and a trident in his hand, sitting with the other treasured mythical gods in the clouds.

  Yet there he was.

  Getting closer.

  Closer.

  Closer.

  So close that a cloud of his aftershave somehow broke through the stale alcohol smell of the bar and swam under my nose. I parted my lips and sucked in a shaky breath to stop myself from, you know… fainting.

  “You have a way with words, Cherry,” he said smoothly, dropping his forearms to the surface of the bar and leaning forward. Presley looked up at me through his long lashes, his eyes wide and expectant, lips parted with a small grin tickling the edges.

  “It’s Tess, Presley.”

  He jerked his chin up to my hair. “Nah. Not anymore. You’re Cherry, baby.” He said it like he loved it, and all I could do was stand there blinking like the love-struck idiot I’d always been around this man. Even when he’d been nothing but a boy.

  “A nickname of my very own. Colour me flattered. Is this how you woo all the women?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Lame.”

  “Does my lame offend you?”

  “Maybe,” I lied through a half grin.

  “You’ve only got yourself to blame. I was—before you interrupted and implied that I had an unusually freaky big dick—using my charm on a willing participant. Now I have this... this need to be smooth sitting in the very top of my chest and nowhere to direct it. The bar’s now empty. You called last orders. You made everyone leave. It’s just us now. You, me, and this…need.”

  You, me… us.

  They sounded like the sweetest lyrics he could ever play the drums to, and I was in the backstage red zone, the off-limits area, tiptoeing on dangerous ground if I let him see what he was doing to me so effortlessly.

  “It’s just a shame you have a big fuck you stamped across your chest.” He smirked and let his eyes drop to my T-shirt. Suddenly, the quirky slogan I thought I’d loved when I bought it now seemed like the biggest vagina-blocker in the world.

  “What else would you like it to say, Presley? Open all hours?”

  He rocked his body forward, bouncing on his toes as he unleashed his devilish smile and looked up at me again. “Open all hours sounds good. At least then I could get another drink while we fucked.”

  Direct hit! Direct hit!

  Those words hit the bullseye. I physically leaned forward from the blow to my stomach, quickly clearing my throat to try not to squeak or beg when I spoke again.

  “Dammit, Cherry,” he laughed, pushing himself off the bar and sliding onto a stool in front of me. “I know you don’t like men, but does the thought of me seriously—”

  “Wait. What?” I interrupted, raising a hand in the air. “I don’t like men?”

  He glanced down at my T-shirt again.

  “Hey, just because I warn off arseholes who don’t understand basic, non-groping etiquette, it doesn’t mean I don’t like men.”

  Presley’s smirk grew bigger, revealing a dimple in his cheek. Of course, he had dimples. The rat bastard had everything. “You got a boyfriend?”

  “I don’t do boyfriends.”

  “Why not?”

  “Probably for the same reason you don’t do girlfriends. Too much commitment in a life I haven’t yet lived to the fullest.”

  He raised a single brow. “Excellent answer. Let me tweak the question a little. Any guys in your life who have made an impact?”

  “You mean have I had sex?” I bit back. If anyone else had even dared to ask me that question, I’d have dropped everything just to give them a ten-minute lecture titled Mind your own goddamn business, peanut dick. But this was Presley Aron West, and I, for some reason, even though we barely knew each other except for in passing, felt like I wanted to tell him my boring life story, with a spread-eagled naked sacrifice of myself on his bed as an added bonus.

  “Oh, I know you’ve had sex.”

  “How so, Mystic Mike?”

  “Just the way you move.” He shrugged. “Your confidence. Your body sways when you walk like it knows it’s the shit, can perform the shit, ride it, suck it… take it all.”

  Holy fuck, the room was spinning.

  I cleared my throat again to try and say something witty, but nothing came out.

  “C’mon, Tess, you know you’re beautiful. And if you don’t, you should.”

  “I’m more… quirky than traditionally beautifully.”

  “And quirky can be hella hot when done right.”

  If this was a dream, I wanted to wake up now before it went any further, because this was one fantasy I was never going to get over. I didn’t wake up, and the more I stared at him, the more he stared back. I wasn’t a woman who shied away when challenged—usually—and now was a good a time as any to put my personality to the test.

  Dropping my cloth on the floor, I reached underneath the counter for two glasses, keeping my eyes trained on his face the entire time. I pulled two pints of beer and slid one over to him before I leaned against the bar.

  “Nothing deserves a free drink quite like an unexpected compliment.” I raised my glass to him.

  “Don’t get yourself in trouble on my account.”

  “Maybe I think you’re worth it.”

  “Then go right ahead.” He smirked awkwardly like the compliment had surprised him as much as I’d surprised myself by setting it free.

  “Cheers to Big Paw.”

  “Cheers to Cherry.” He took a careful sip of his drink, briefly closing his eyes like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted, before his lashes fluttered open again.

  I wrapped my lips around the rim of my own glass and took a slow, cheeky drink for myself.

  “So, tell me about these men in your life.”

  “What do you want to know?” I placed my drink back on the bar and dusted off my hands.

  “Were they good to you?”

  “Define good.”

  “Did they hurt you?”

  “Emotionally?” I shook my head. “No. There was no attachment whatsoever. Physically? Who doesn’t like a bit of slap and tickle during sex?”

  His laughter sounded like its own song—one I’d hit repeat on for the rest of my life.

  “My, my.” He sighed through his gigantic smile that showcased his perfect white teeth. “You’re full of surprises.”

  “Not really. A surprise is something that jumps out at you, catches you off guard when you least expect it. You don’t know me, so nothing I tell you should be a surprise. It should be interesting, like all new information is, whether good or bad. Not surprising.”

  He nodded once, contemplating my answer. “But what if you think you know someone better than you really do? Over time, you’ve seen pieces of a person and put them together, and in your head, you think those pieces have been placed where they were always meant to be. You just have no idea how wrong you are until the person who made the goddamn puzzle stands over your shoulder and tells you where you fucked up.”

  “I’d say I think I could talk to you like this all night.” I sighed dreamily. “Why do you waste your time on women like Gertrude?”

  “Who the fuck is Gertrude?”

  “Sorry.” I thumbed over my shoulder. “The chick who just left. I didn’t know her name, so I mentally christened her Gertrude.”


  “Why the hell would you name anyone that?”

  “Because she annoyed me, being all bouncy-haired, fluttering eyelashes, boobs out for the world to see, fake hyena laugh, pretending she actually listened to a damn interesting thing you had to say, when all she really wanted to do was sleep with you so she could brag to her friends. Gertrude made her seem, I don’t know, less princess-like.” I raised my brows and groaned. “And now I’ve said all that out loud, I realise what a fucking judgemental idiot I sound like.”

  “No kidding.” He chuckled.

  “Guilty as charged. But my question still stands. Why waste your time?”

  Presley blew out a breath and looked down at his beer.

  “Rock star?” I pushed, sliding myself and my drink closer. I was only a slip of the hand away from being able to brush my fingers against his. Close enough to make contact if he wanted to. Far enough away that I wouldn’t be getting arrested for groping the town’s most attractive drummer boy anytime soon.

  “For the record, her name was Anna.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  He laughed softly and unleashed his baby blues on me. “I waste my time on women like her, as you put it, because what else is there these days? Every woman is hiding behind something. Every guy, too. It’s just what the world is fucking breeding, Cherry. Anna hides behind her over-curled hair, her layered lipstick, and her revealing dresses. So what? That doesn’t make her bad. It just makes her too insecure to be who she really needs to be. In this fickle world, can you blame her? Can you blame any of them? I like digging through those layers, seeing who is salvageable and who is a lost cause. The girl I brought in last week hid behind her academic achievements, thinking she had to be a goddamn nuclear scientist with A grades coming out of her arse in order to be respected in this world. She had no idea how kind and endearing she could be if she just let her barriers down. She didn’t need to be anything other than herself to be attractive. The girl before her, the weight lifter, hid behind her body, saying she wanted it to be perfect to be healthy, too scared to tell herself the truth: that she wanted to get the attention from Instagram that she’d missed out on her whole growing life. If I had to listen to one more lie about body confidence versus body shaming, I was about ready to blow my own brains out. But who am I to judge? Just because I see things differently, it doesn’t mean I’m better than any of them. Everyone hides behind something, Cherry. People don’t like to be themselves anymore. They don’t see themselves having fun with it.”