Countdown: Ethan

by Boniface, Allie

  But now? Now they all looked the same: demure to the point of uninteresting and not worth the effort. What was the point, anyway? When the lights came on, everyone blinked and changed their minds. Even if you did find someone to rock your world, there wasn’t any guarantee she’d stay. Ethan said nothing, and Howie moved on, leaving him to fend off the next lonely woman by himself. He inched closer to the bar and snagged another glass of water while he considered his options for the rest of the night.

  The music changed. The pianist hunched his shoulders, looked around with a grin, and dove into the keys, playing with such vigor that Ethan wouldn’t have been surprised to see God himself come down from Heaven just to listen in. Ethan grinned and began to snap his fingers. He could stick around a little longer. Music like this could convince anyone. A tall guy with a shaved head glanced over, tapping on the table in rhythm. Looked like the entire place felt the groove.

  “Want a beer?” Howie said into Ethan’s ear, reappearing.

  “Sure.” What the heck. He leaned against a wooden column and watched a few middle-aged women head onto the dance floor. Around the edge, younger girls swayed their hips, and one guy swung his date from arm to arm in a modified Charleston. Ronnie crooned into the mike, sweat flying in every direction, belly jiggling from the effort.

  “Here.” Howie shoved an overflowing pint into Ethan’s hand. “I’m heading outside.”

  “Thanks.” Ethan was content to remain within sight and sound range of the music. He’s obnoxious as hell, Ethan thought as Howie disappeared, but a decent guy when the chips are down. He thought again of the woman in pink and chuckled. At least he’d have a story to share with Mike tomorrow. Ethan wondered how his buddy was holding up, sore ankle and all. Not like he had to worry about spending the night alone. A text or two, and Mike would have nursemaids lined up for the next week. Maybe Ethan would have to try that approach: injury. Maybe women liked helplessness. He’d ask Mike, maybe pick up some pointers and—

  Then he saw her, and all thoughts vanished. Her. The woman from the park. Ethan set his beer on the bar and peered through the darkness. Arm in arm with a petite blonde, she walked through the door and into Ethan’s life for the second time that day. Can’t be. No way. But it was. The same curve of shoulder and neck, the same slight build, the same corkscrew hair. The same wide smile. His heart flipped over. Again.

  Laughing with her friend, ducking her chin as she passed a group of guys, she might have been just another woman out for a night of fun on Beale Street. In her mini skirt and glittery top, she might have blended in with everyone else. Except she wasn’t, and she didn’t, and something inside Ethan knew it the minute she walked onto the dance floor and began to move.

  She tucked her hair behind her ears. She spun in a slow circle, and something stabbed him just below the heart. For every beat, her hips shifted in a way that made him want to rest his hands there. For every turn, he wanted to be there beside her, pressed against her, breathing her in, winding her hand inside his. It almost knocked him over, the rush that moved through him, the warmth that began inside his groin and spread up to his neck.

  “Get a hold of yourself,” Ethan muttered. “You’ve seen women dance before. What’s wrong with you?” Maybe the beer had finally gotten to him. Or the heat, or the crowd. He tried to look away and couldn’t. The song slowed and turned sultry, and still she moved, running a hand down her belly as the pianist sang to her and her friend. Ethan stuffed his hands into his pockets and grew harder until all he wanted was her, naked and dancing and twisting in his sheets and smiling at him until he came.

  It wasn’t the music. It wasn’t the beer or the haze that had settled over the space. It wasn’t the push of the crowd behind him. It was her. Her smile. Her hair. The way she glanced over her shoulder like she knew someone was watching. It was the way she moved in the shadows. It was all of that and none of that. It was something he couldn’t understand.

  For the first time in over a year, Ethan felt something like life take up roots inside him and begin to swell.

  10:00 p.m.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” Dakota said to Sarah as the music faded. “Meet you back here in five?”

  “Okay.”

  She waited in line for one of two dimly-lit stalls, then washed her hands and splashed some water on her face. Ten minutes later, she worked her way back through the crowd, trying to find Sarah in the darkness. People lined the club from wall to wall, smiling, laughing, smoking, chatting. Dakota bumped into backs and apologized as she stepped on toes, but no one seemed to mind. Not like the clubs back home, where everyone guarded their particular space and glared if you came too close. People are nicer here, friendlier. Not so guarded, or closed off or—

  “Whoa!”

  “Oof!”

  She ran into someone so hard she almost fell. Her shoulder met his chest and knocked them both backwards. Dakota reached for the wall. The woman beside her spilled her drink, and Dakota felt warm wetness run down her ankle. Great. If I didn’t smell like a distillery before, I will now. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

  “I am so, so sorry—” she began. And stopped when she saw who she’d clobbered. Him. The guy from the park. The guy with the strong fingers and sad eyes and kind voice. The guy who now stood staring at her with a strange expression that she imagined mirrored her own.

  “Are you okay?” He didn’t quite smile, but he didn’t look angry either. Someone’s drink had spattered across his shirtfront too.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “God, I’m sorry. It was my fault. I have this bad habit of not paying attention to where I’m going.”

  Then he did smile, a real one this time, and the floor tilted under her feet. “Crowded place.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Crowded place.”

  She smiled. “Oh, so you’re a funny guy.”

  “Not really. Just a literal guy.” He shrugged. “I’m a writer. We tend to do that, take things literally.” The barest hint of a Southern accent touched his words, as if he hadn’t lived in Memphis long. Or didn’t talk much.

  “Didn’t I—didn’t we—”

  “—at the park today,” he finished. “Yeah, think so.” He held out a hand. “I’m Ethan.”

  “Dakota.” The minute she touched him, a spark shot its way up her wrist and landed somewhere around her shoulder. Oh. Wow.

  He held her hand an instant longer than he had to, and desire moved its way across her shoulder blades and down her spine. She tried to brush it off. He’s just a guy. A random stranger in a random city you’re leaving day after tomorrow. This is not going anywhere. It can’t. But the words dissolved in her head. She wanted to stay and talk to him. Period. End of story. “So how’d your game turn out?”

  “Ah, fine. We play most weekends. I would’ve been here with my buddy Mike, only he sprained an ankle. Couple other friends are inside.”

  “Sprained ankle? Sounds like you guys take your game pretty seriously.” Someone behind Dakota pushed her a little closer to Ethan. She didn’t mind.

  “Probably too seriously, most times.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “This might sound a little weird, but can I buy you a drink?”

  The nervous way he tripped over the offer charmed her into saying yes. “I’d like that.” She let the crowd edge them together again, and as she stepped into his space, she breathed in warmth and a scent that was a little bit shampoo, a little bit new clothes. Something dangerous skipped its way through her belly. God, she liked his smile. She liked the way his hair curled around his ears. She liked the skin of his palm against hers, smooth and strong. And she liked his name. I’ve never known an Ethan before.

  Meeting the same guy twice in one day...that was a sign, right? A good one. She waited a second for the voice inside her head to pipe up and tell her differently. It didn’t. “Just give me a minute and I’ll meet you by the bar,” she said, and went in search of Sarah.

  “The guy from the park?
” Sarah squealed. “Here?”

  “Shh. He’s right inside.” Dakota looked over her shoulder. She didn’t need Ethan thinking she was a nut job who ran to her girlfriend the minute a guy said hello to her. “And it’s just a drink.”

  “Who cares? That’s perfect,” Sarah said. She wiggled her fingers at Gunnar, who stood like a sentry near the bar. He set down his glass and moved toward them. “Have fun,” Sarah went on. “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She was gone before Dakota could say another word.

  “Here you go.” Ethan set down a margarita on the table in front of her a few moments later. He cradled a pint glass in his other hand.

  “Thanks.” Dakota caught a glimpse of Sarah giving her a thumbs-up. Ethan looked over. “Ah. Your friend. Also from the park.” He took a long draught of his beer, a dark red, she noticed. Not like the light beer Sean always—

  Stop thinking about Sean. Right this minute.

  “Sarah,” Dakota said instead. “She moved to Memphis about eight years ago. I kept promising to come visit her. Finally I figured I’d better make good.” Dakota left out the part about Sean. And the video clip. And the surprise visit in Sarah’s apartment.

  “She with the tall guy?”

  “Gunnar, yeah. They’re good friends, I guess.” She suspected Gunnar wouldn’t mind being more. “They live in the same apartment complex.”

  Ethan didn’t say anything for a minute. “So what do you think of Memphis so far? You like it?”

  Dakota wasn’t sure she’d really seen enough of the city to say one way or the other, but she liked where she sat right now and who she sat across from. “Sure. So far.” She paused. “You live here, right? But you don’t have much of an accent.”

  Ethan shifted in his chair. “I grew up in California. Got a job here after college and decided to stay.”

  Dakota glanced toward the street, where distant fireworks dotted the velvet sky. “This is only the third time I’ve left New Hampshire.”

  Ethan smiled, and her brain fuzzed again. “I knew you were a Yankee.”

  “You say that like it’s something bad.”

  “Not at all. Just different.”

  Dakota raised her chin a little. “Different is good.”

  “Yes, it is.” He leaned across the table. “Speaking of which, are your eyes two different colors?”

  Her cheeks went hot. “Yeah. Brown and blue. Weird, right?”

  He raised one hand as if in inspection and let his thumb brush her cheekbone. “Very cool, actually. How common is that?”

  Her skin burned from where he‘d touched it, enough that she could feel his thumbprint etched in her pores. She went weak and wet and hot in less than a second. What was going on here? Guys bought her drinks all the time. They gave her their phone number, slipping it in with her tip as they walked out the door. They offered to drive her home after her shift ended at the restaurant. They even noticed her eyes and took it as a chance to get closer.

  So what was so different about Ethan?

  Dakota didn’t know. She couldn’t begin to guess. She just knew. And the knowing spiraled down her spine, warming her from the inside out. She dropped her chin, more to hide the want on her face than to play coy. “It’s pretty rare,” she said. “My mom used to tell me it meant I was special.”

  “You didn’t believe her?”

  “I don’t know. When you’re in elementary school and the kids make fun of you, it doesn’t matter how special your parents think you are. You’re still a freak with two different colored eyes.”

  A cocktail waitress came wiggling by. Balancing a tray full of brightly colored shot glasses, she bent toward them, her nipples outlined in her white t-shirt. “Jello shots?”

  Ethan shook his head. “No thanks.”

  “Sure?” She bent down a little further and waved the tray in front of them. Dakota watched, amused. She knew all about flirting with the clientele, and she could have told the waitress that Ethan wasn’t buying.

  “I’m sure,” he said.

  The girl gave up and moved on. Her perky behind, clad in tight red shorts, swished into the darkness.

  Ethan rubbed his chin. “Forgot what these places are like.”

  Dakota let her fingertips brush the back of his hand and that smile crept across his face again, the one that softened his edges. The one that made her imagine wild things. “Oh, they’re not that bad. You never know who you’ll meet.”

  ETHAN GLANCED AT HIS watch. Almost ten. He had no idea what had happened to Howie and Paul. Nor did he care. And the not-caring, the not keeping track of time, surprised him. He couldn’t remember the last time two hours had passed without knowing exactly where he’d spent them.

  “What time does this city go to bed, anyway?” Dakota’s voice, a little on the husky side, rolled over him. Low. Slightly raw. And sexy as hell.

  Ethan blinked. Truth was, he couldn’t remember. There’d been a time—during college, and then again when he first started dating Lydia—that he could stay up all night. Watch the sun rise over the skyscrapers and slide into sleep despite the light that blasted through the blinds. He supposed most of the college-aged guys here tonight could do the same. Not him. He’d pay tomorrow for staying up this late, with a headache and fatigue that even the strongest coffee couldn’t erase. Funny, though: he didn’t really mind.

  “People’ll hang around until early morning, maybe,” he finally said. “Depends on the heat and what bands are playing. Some will stay out ‘til dawn, if the music’s good.”

  Dakota studied him, cheek resting on one palm. “Seems to me like the music’s always good around here.”

  God, he couldn’t stop staring at her mouth, at her bottom lip that poked out just enough to make the whole shape of her face interesting. He let his glance skate across the fullness of it and tried not to imagine what he’d do if he sat two feet closer to her.

  He wanted to taste her.

  “So you said you’re a writer.”

  Ethan nodded, glad for the dark. Stop letting your dick get the best of you. You’re acting like you’ve never talked a good-looking woman before. And he had, plenty of times. Well, a few times, anyway. He shifted in his chair. But never someone who’d stirred him up this way, after only a few minutes of sitting together in a summer heat that felt as though it were settling onto his shoulders to watch him squirm. Really, he could remember feeling this way only once before, and that was when—

  Guilt slashed through him, white hot in its unkindness. Lydia. The desire snaking its way down toward his groin froze somewhere around his gut and hung there. The night I met Lydia. Ethan drummed one thumb against the uneven tabletop. Shit. Take a perfect night and a near-perfect woman and twist it into an awkward moment. Seemed to be the cornerstone of his life.

  Dakota rescued him. “What do you write? Novels?”

  “Hell, no.” Ethan found his voice. “I’d never be able to pay the bills. I write for the sports page. Editorials, mostly. And coverage of local events.” He cleared his throat, and just as suddenly, the guilt faded. Dakota’s lips, the snub end of her nose, the scattered freckles across her cheeks, filled in the gaps inside his twisted heart. She wasn’t Lydia. She looked different, laughed different, was a different person altogether. He found his feet again.

  “I wouldn’t mind tackling a juicy tell-all someday,” he continued. “You wouldn’t believe the things some of those pro athletes get themselves into. Better than any fiction out there. Underage girlfriends, serious gambling habits, you name it, there’s a millionaire ball player who’s doing it right now.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Ethan told himself to stop staring at the way the edges of Dakota’s mouth turned up, the fair skin that disappeared under dark brown curls whenever she moved her head or laughed. He wondered what her hair would feel like slipping between his fingers, as he ran one hand down the curve of her neck and then onto her collarbone, then dipping below the neckline of her shirt, then thumbing he
r nipple until she cried out and—

  “Must be pretty interesting,” Dakota said. “Something different every day.”

  This time he looked past her collarbone. Maybe if he counted the cigarette burns in the wooden fence behind her, his mind would stop racing into places it didn‘t belong.

  “Sports fascinate me,” Ethan said after taking a deep breath. “Always have. My mom couldn’t tear me away from the television when I was little. I’d be watching a football game or a croquet championship or a polo match...didn’t matter. The competition would suck me in.”

  “So you’re a competitive guy?”

  He let his arm rest on the table near hers. An inch away. Maybe less. “Not really. I’m pretty mild-tempered on the basketball court.”

  “Did you play in school?’

  “Basketball? High school, yes. Not in college, though. I wasn’t good enough. Or tall enough.”

  Dakota stretched out her legs, and Ethan found himself glancing down, letting his gaze rove over pale white limbs that seemed to go on forever. His heart rose up from its grave and went into a tailspin.

  “I was a cheerleader for the basketball team, back in high school,” she said.

  Oh, terrific. Now all he could picture was that perky little frame tucked into a super-short skirt and turning cartwheels for the starting lineup. Man, if she’d cheered for his team, he would have fallen for her hook, line and sinker. Taken her to the homecoming dance and then made love to her in his shitty little car under the stars behind the stadium.

  “Really?” he said instead.

  “I loved it.” She tucked her hands between her knees. “Maybe for the same reasons as you. The guys racing down the court, the way they attacked the ball—or each other—there’s something primal in it.”