by Shandi Boyes
With my painted lips twisted, I scan the vast selection of alcohol-laden glass shelves behind the bar. Nothing tickles my fancy as much as Jacob’s watchful glance, so I blurt out the first thing that pops into my head. “A beer?”
Suspicion crosses Jacob’s face. “I thought you didn’t like beer?”
“I don’t, but I don’t go on dates either, yet here I am, entertaining you with my wit.”
Smiling like I just gave him next week’s lotto numbers, Jacob orders two beers from an elderly lady working behind the counter. They must know each other because they banter back and forth while she collects his order. For an older woman, she has a rocking body. Her white jeans showcase her long, lean legs, and her red shirt reveals gravity hasn’t taken hold of her rack just yet. She’s got style, even while glowering at me.
After handing me a beer, Jacob pivots on his heels and exits stage left. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
I watch him approach a group of good-looking men at the side of the dance floor with my mouth gaping, mortified I've been ditched—for men!
I stop giving him the stink-eye when a deep voice on my right says, “Hey, Maggie, can I grab a beer?”
When I turn my eyes, my vision is rewarded with a tall, gorgeous man wearing grungy jeans and a white V-neck shirt. The veins in his arms pop when he leans over the counter to greet the barmaid with a peck on the cheek, which also exposes his drool-worthy ass. He’s not as built as Jacob, but even a nun would ogle all he has going on.
Recalling Jacob’s ditch and run, I step closer to the mysterious stranger. Let’s see how quick Jacob returns when he thinks he has competition. “Hi.” I add a seductive grin to my greeting.
He isn't the type I usually go for. My tastes lean more toward blond-haired, blue-eyed men, so he’s a little too dark and mysterious for me, but there’s something more than bitterness encouraging my attempt to ignite a conversation. I just have no clue what it is.
The dark-haired hottie takes a swig from his beer before bracing his back on the bar. “Hey. First time here?”
I quirk my brow. “That obvious?” He laughs but remains quiet. “Do you come here often?”
His lips lift against the rim of his beer before he takes another large gulp. After scrubbing his hand along his wet lips, he murmurs, "You could say that.”
His smile reveals he has dimples—a past favorite of my little sister's.
As my heart rate climbs, I thrust out my hand in offering. “Lola.”
He wipes his condensation-covered hand down his thigh before accepting my offer. “Nice to meet you, Lola; I’m Noah.”
Chapter Five
Jacob
As Slater’s eyes roam over Lola’s body, he rocks on his heels. “She sure is fine.”
I’m too busy scrutinizing Lola's exchange with Noah to take in the tiny denim shorts and spaghetti-strapped top she's wearing. I shouldn't have ditched her like I did, but when I noticed Noah approaching, I wanted to see if she fussed over him like every other female around here does any time he’s in the vicinity. She saw him immediately, but their conversation has lacked the fluttering lashes and puckered lips I usually witness.
I didn’t think she would, but Lola passed my test with flying colors.
After they finish shaking hands, I stroll back toward them. Lola doesn’t register my approach. She’s too busy staring at Noah, but it’s not the same heated look she gave me beneath lowered lashes last week. She actually looks a little constipated.
After jerking up his chin in greeting, Noah shifts his focus back to Lola. “It was nice meeting you, Lola. Might see you around sometime?”
Lola twists on the spot. “Hopefully.”
When Noah meanders past me, he gives me a curious stare. I don’t have time to evaluate what it means when Lola asks, “How do you two know each other?”
“He’s my brother.” When her brows stitch, I chuckle. “Not literally. He’s my brother from another mother.”
“Oh... okay.”
We take a swig of our beers in sync. My body welcomes the bitter, cold concoction. Lola’s response isn’t as embracing; her nose screws up as her throat fights the urge to gag. Once she forces the malty liquid into her stomach with numerous swallows, she returns her watering eyes to me. “Does Noah have a girlfriend?”
I spit malted liquid all over the bar top, shocked. After witnessing their exchange, that’s the last thing I expected her to ask. No sparks were flying between them whatsoever—none! So why the fuck does she care if he’s single?
The beer I’m choking on finishes sliding down my throat when Lola mutters, “Not for me.” She stares me straight in the eyes. “I don’t date, but even if I did, he’s not my type.”
She doesn’t need to say that I am her type. I can see it in her eyes. She digs me.
“Noah doesn’t date either.”
Don’t get the wrong idea. He has no problems with the ladies. His list of admirers grows exponentially after each gig, but, excluding me, I’ve never seen anyone permanent in his life. Hookups aren’t permanent, but dating is. That’s why I’m praying Lola didn’t see our exchange last week as a one-off hookup. We created magic—magic that deserves to be explored time and time again.
I eye Lola with suspicion when she murmurs, “I bet his stance on dating will buckle when he meets my baby sister.”
While swigging on my beer, I shift on my feet to face Noah. For the first time in a long time, he seems content, so I doubt he’d appreciate anyone fucking with his personal life. Furthermore, he never lets anyone in, so whatever scheme Lola is cooking up, she's wasting her time. Noah is convinced he's a bad omen. For that alone, he keeps everyone at arm's length.
Once my beer runs out, I order another round of drinks for Lola and me. I request a beer for me and a fancy milky drink for Lola. She hasn’t complained about her beer, but her screwed-up nose tells me everything I need to know. She’s not a fan of frothy beverages.
Since Maggie is run off her feet, it takes her a good ten minutes to fill my order. “Sorry, Cindy quit this morning, leaving us short a barmaid. If you know anyone looking for work—”
“I’m looking for a job,” Lola pipes up from behind my shoulder, her mouth circled with hope.
Maggie sizes her up before returning her eyes to me. She remains tight-lipped, but she doesn't need to speak to seek my thoughts on whether Lola would be a good fit for Mavs. Her motherly eyes ask on her behalf.
I nod. Not only will Lola be a great addition to the Mavericks family, but I'll also be able to see her more regularly. It’s as if fate is aligning in my favor for once.
Taking my pledge at face value, Maggie swings her eyes back to Lola. “Can you start next week?”
When Lola nods, Maggie hands her a business card with her mobile number scribbled on the back before moving down the bar to serve other patrons. Once she’s out of eyesight, Lola throws her arms around my neck. “Thank you so much! If you hadn’t backed me up, I doubt she would have offered me the job!”
When her tippy-toe stance gains her more than a few admiring glances at her delectable backside, I swivel her around until her back is flush with the bar before returning her embrace. “It’ll be my pleasure.”
Over the next hour, we enjoy Rise Up’s set. We drink, chat, and Lola often gets up to dance. Since I’m not a fan of busting a move, I watch from the bar… until her seductive moves have a pack of ravenous sharks circling her.
I don't dance, but there are no laws stopping me from standing next to Lola while she shakes her ass like she's on a stage lined with dollar bills. If my stern glare doesn’t give her admirers a clear sign to fuck off, my stern finger point won’t be denied.
When I reach Lola, she twirls around me, her sweaty scent flooding my brain with memories of last weekend. “I thought you didn’t dance.”
“I don’t. Just figured it would be safer in here than out there with the ‘call me daddy’ girls.”
“She’s here?” Lola’s wide eyes g
lide to the left, then to the right. “Which one is she?”
Don't ask me to swear on the Bible, but I'm reasonably sure she sounds jealous—that or she felt how hard her scent made me when she ground her backside against my crotch.
Playing along with my ruse, I ask, “Should I point them out individually, or just nudge my head in their direction?”
“There’s more than one?!”
Oh, yeah, she’s jealous alright.
When Noah spots me in the middle of the dance floor like a massive turd that refuses to flush, he smiles so wide, he nearly misses the intro of the song he’s performing. Serves him right. If he minded his own business, he wouldn’t fuck up.
I stop giving Noah the finger when Lola says, “How about we make things interesting for them?”
I twist my lips, acting only partly interested. “What do you have in mind?”
Please, God, let it be one of the naughty thoughts in my mind. I don’t care which one. I’ll take any you’re willing to give me.
My prayers are answered when Lola balances on her tippy toes to sling her arms around my neck. We're already squashed close together because of the number of Rise Up fans in the space, but this isn't about a lack of leg room. It's more than that. Her eyes are holding the same gleam they held last week, the shimmer that says she'll be my greatest reward, but only after being my biggest pain in the ass.
When she angles her head to the side to better align our lips, I lick mine in preparation for our kiss. She inches closer and closer until her cherry lip gloss overtakes the scent of the cocktails she’s been downing, but instead of kissing me as I’m praying she will, she shouts, “What do you mean you don’t want us to be exclusive anymore?! I thought I was your snugglebutt!” She pushes away from me, her dramatics gaining her more than a handful of spectators. “I only agreed to call you Daddy because you said you loved me. Clearly, that was a mistake. You’ll have to find someone else to tuck you in at night and mend up your boo-boos. I’m done.”
I swear on my mother's grave, her last sentence gains the attention of women from all walks of life. Some gawks are in sympathy, but more than a dozen are from a range of crazies. There are the straight-up kooky ones who don’t attempt to hide their wackiness, the ones who seem normal until you get them alone, and the ones who’ll hide the fact they were raised in a mental asylum until they’ve popped out three of your kids.
“She was joking.”
When the freaks hover in close with a promise to heal my broken heart on their faces, I push off my feet to chase down Lola, who's halfway out of Mavericks by now. "What the fuck?! You threw me to the wolves. I was seconds from getting mauled."
“Serves you right.” She cocks her hips before spreading her hands across them. “Next time you’ll think twice before responding to jealousy.”
“Responding to jealousy…? Whatever!” I make a brrrr noise with my lips like she’s one of the airheads I left inside.
She peers at me over the roof of my car. “So you weren’t jealous? You just joined me on the dance floor to dance?”
“Uh-huh. What other reason would I go onto a dance floor?”
She taps her glossy lips. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you were… jealous!”
I unlock the door and slide into the driver's seat without bothering to open her door for her—tell me one jealous person who does that?
I wait and wait and wait for Lola to join me in my car. When she doesn’t, I peer out the passenger side window. She’s no longer standing beside it. She’s storming back toward Mavericks’ back entrance.
Dust kicks up around my feet when I clamber out of my car. “Where are you going?”
She pivots around to face me, flashing her mischievous grin that got me into all sorts of trouble last week. “Figured since you weren’t jealous, I may as well go dance some more. Who knows, I might get lucky.”
Like a meteor crashing to earth, I finally realize what’s happening. Lola wasn’t the only one placed under the microscope tonight. I’m under there as well, being scrutinized by a woman determined for me to know we aren’t on a date. The fact she told me that exact thing over half a dozen times tonight already makes it clear, but I’ll play along with her little game because I’d rather spend the night with her as a friend than with any of the freaks eyeing me earlier. I like Lola, even without her cookie jar in my sights.
Lola’s brows draw together when my taillights blink, announcing I’ve locked my car. “What are you doing?”
“I thought we were going to dance?”
The fake anger on her face switches to confusion. “We?”
“Well, you.” I fill the gap between us with three big strides. “I’m going to sit back and enjoy the show.”
She could misconstrue my comment as meaning the risqué performance she puts on when she dances, but she’s smarter than that. “What show?”
I smile, loving that she took my bait hook, line, and sinker. "You just announced in a room full of men that you like calling your suitors ‘Daddy,' and that you're newly single. This could only be more interesting if you stuck a big sign on your chest that said, ‘Freak Between the Sheets.'"
She stops me from entering Mavs by placing herself between me and the door. "Maybe we should head out?"
“I thought you didn’t care what people thought about you—?”
"I don't. It's just late, and Rise Up is about to finish their set, so why hang around here? There are a lot more interesting places we could go."
“Like…?” Please say Bronte’s Peak. Please say Bronte’s Peak.
“Umm…” Her eyes stray around the dingy parking lot like the answer is directly in front of her. It is, but it isn’t what she was expecting. “…There.”
I glance down to where she’s pointing. A flyer for a dance club in Hopeton is floating across the dusty ground. “You want to go to A+?”
“Yeah. Why not? It looks like fun.”
"Alright." It isn't how I wanted us to get sweaty, but I'm always up for trying something new—such us pretending I don't want to date her when I do.
Chapter Six
Jacob
“That was crazy. I swear, I've never danced so much in my life.” Lola peers at me with bright, glistening eyes and a sweat-drenched face. "Thanks for taking me out. It was a lot of fun."
"You're welcome. Hopefully we can do it again soon?"
I slide into the driver’s seat of my car before she can voice the rejection I see in her eyes. When she slips into the passenger seat, her phone dings with a text halfway through latching her belt. As I pull out of the lot at the back of A+, she snags her phone out of her purse.
When her brows furrow, I try to keep the mood light. "It's not Maggie texting you your shifts, is it? She's a bit of a night owl who forgets most of the world is sleeping at three in the morning."
Her eyes stray to mine, her mood different from the girl who shred thousands of calories shaking her tuckus like no one was watching. "No. It's from an unknown number."
"One of those we have three hundred million dollars from a deceased relative you've never heard of messages?"
“I wish. It’s nothing but strings of gibberish.” She swivels her phone to show me the screen.
“Maybe it’s code for something?”
“Or maybe someone is on crack.” With a shrug, she stores her phone away before kicking off her shoes and tilting toward me. “Talking about braindead idiots, I just realized I have to turn down Maggie’s offer.”
“Why?” Confusion dangles on my vocal cords. She was so excited when Maggie asked if she could start next week, so I’m a little lost as to why she’s backing out now.
Apprehension crosses her features before she whispers in a huff, “I don’t have a license, so I have no way of getting to Ravenshoe for my shifts.”
“You don’t have your license? Why not?”
She folds her arms in front of her chest, raising her fantastic tits higher on her chest. I’ve yet to see them unco
ncealed, and it’s fucking killing me. “I failed three times—not because I’m incompetent. I know how to drive. My instructors were just female.”
A chuckle rumbles up my chest. I’m an ass for laughing, but I can’t help it. Women as gorgeous as Lola are accustomed to getting what they want—especially when it comes to men—but often other women see them as bitches. Although someone disliking her personality could be the reason she failed, I don’t see that being the only reason.
“I’ll drive you to your shifts...” My words taper when Lola’s eyes narrow into tiny slits. “Then I’ll teach you how to drive, so you can drive yourself to work.”
“I know how to drive… I just can’t work out the stick thingy.”
I laugh. “That could be the cause of your troubles. You’re probably yanking on it too hard. Sometimes you have to be gentle.”
She peers at me with a smug grin on her face. “Are we still talking about the gearstick?”
My shoulder touches my ear. “I don’t know. Are we?”
After rolling her eyes, she shifts them back to the scenery whizzing by her window. I think it’s the end of our conversation, but her faint whisper proves I still have much to learn about this woman. “If I agree to your offer, what will you get out of our deal?”
You, I mutter to myself, but knowing that will most likely piss her off, I keep that snippet of information to myself. She’s reminded me plenty of times tonight that we’re not on a date, so acting as if we are won’t be well-received. Instead, I waggle my brows, making light of the situation.
"You can be designated driver the next time we go clubbing. You may want to increase your lift ratios, though. My ass is heavy when it's laden with alcohol."
She accepts my jest better than anticipated, simply smiling before returning her eyes front and center. Ten minutes later, we pull into the driveway of her family home. I freeze with my belt halfway across my torso when Lola hits me with a firm finger point. “Uh-uh! Friends don’t walk their friends to the door.”