by Emma Hart
“Sounds interesting. What do you usually write for that?”
“Anything. I’ve written romance, paranormal, fantasy… Right now, I’m ghostwriting a book about aliens invading Earth.”
“Fun.”
Her eyes glittered. “They have three penises.”
My lips twitched. “And you’re officially the most interesting first date I’ve ever had.”
She laughed, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “What do you do?”
“My dad owns a chain of gyms across Texas, and I manage the one here in town.”
She flicked her gaze to my arms, then leaned forward on the table and rested her chin on her fingers. “Oh? So you work out?”
She was deliberately being overly-flirtatious in an attempt to get me to stop this stupid charade, but it was so much fun, I couldn’t.
Now, I wanted to keep it up to see which one of us would break first.
“Now and then,” I said, smirking. “What do you do for fun? Do you have any interesting hobbies?”
“Not really. I work a lot, so I mostly spend my free time watching TV and telling my roommate to pick up his dirty socks and food wrappers.”
Great. That’s how this was going to go. Point: Shelby.
“You have a roommate?”
“Mm.” Her lips pulled into the tiniest smile. “We’ve been friends for years, but he’s a bit of a dork. Only just figured out how to use a washing machine. The dishwasher is still a little foreign to him, but he remembered to clean the sink out after he shaved today, so I figure I’m making progress in training him to be the perfect roommate.”
It was so fucking hard not to laugh. Training me my ass.
The worst part? It was all true, and that’s why it was so damn funny. She’d gone into the bathroom after I’d shaved, and two minutes later, she’d found me in the living room with a bright yellow Post-It note.
She’d drawn a smiley face on it and wrote, “I cleaned up after myself!”
Then she’d stuck it onto my t-shirt before running away.
I sincerely hoped that wasn’t going to be a new tradition.
“Nobody’s perfect,” I replied. “In fact, I have a roommate, too.”
“Oh?” She raised one eyebrow, sipping her wine.
“Yeah. Like your roommate, we’ve been friends for years. She’s a little bit neurotic at times, especially if you eat her Oreos, but she makes some mean pancakes. I don’t even care that she yells at me about all my shortcomings, because yesterday I found a Kit-Kat wrapper stashed in the bathroom drawer and I know it isn’t mine.”
Shelby pursed her lips and looked away for a second. “Maybe she likes to snack in the bath.”
“She also likes to sing while she mops and uses the mop as a microphone. She’s a little bit crazy.”
“Sometimes a little bit of crazy is a good thing.”
Slowly, I curved my lips into a smile. “A little bit of crazy is definitely a good thing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY – SHELBY
No Judging On Snacking Habits
A little bit of crazy was a good thing, but this date was a lot of crazy.
Yet, at the same time, it was kinda cute. It was fun to talk to each other and tease him the way I just had, and I wasn’t going to lie and say my stomach wasn’t fluttering like hell.
It was.
I was nervous.
I hadn’t expected to be. After all, I knew Jay. But this set-up, pretending like we were strangers, was weird. It actually felt like a real first date, no matter how stupid it was and how ridiculous I felt.
Mostly, I was nervous because I didn’t go home with someone after a first date.
Tonight, I didn’t have a choice. What would happen when we got there? Would we just disappear into our own rooms? Would there be another sexually frustrating make-out session on the couch?
Would there be a make-out session that led to more?
I didn’t usually sleep with someone on the first date, but as I said: I didn’t have to go home with them after.
For now, though, I wanted to carry on pretending we didn’t know each other. I’d never wanted to laugh as much as I had in the last fifteen minutes, and since laughter was a measuring stick of mine for dating anyway, he was doing pretty good.
Even if he was a dork for this idea.
“Tell me about your family,” Jay said, leaning forward a little more. His eyes flashed with laughter, like he knew just how stupid it was.
“Well, my parents own this bar.”
“Shit. This is awkward, isn’t it?”
Oh, my God. Stop it.
“Just a little bit.”
“Who are your parents?”
This is so ridiculous.
“My dad is the tall guy with not a lot of hair, and my mom is the one with dark, curly hair.”
“Ah. I see where you get your good looks from.”
I bit my lip to stop myself laughing. “Don’t say that to her. She might start planning our wedding.”
Jay gave me an over-exaggerated wink. It was something he’d said to her every single time he wanted something, and it always ended up with Mom whipping him with whichever cloth she had in her hand at the time.
“What about your family?” I asked, hiding my grin by drinking from my wine.
“My dad owns a small chain of gyms as I said, and my mom mostly does the books for them. She’s an accountant by trade.”
“So it’s a family thing.”
“Pretty much.” He smiled. “Then there’s my grandmother. She’s terrified of snakes but has a tiny dog who likes to bring them to her as presents, and she’s developed a habit of guilting me into going to see her and doing things for her.”
“I’m not a fan of snakes, either, to be honest. Spiders I can do, but not snakes.”
“Really? Even the big spiders?” His eyebrows shot up, even though his eyes were shining with mirth.
“Yep. They don’t bother me. But snakes?” I shuddered. “They’re slimy and remind me too much of worms.”
“Fair comparison.” He lifted his beer and closed his lips around the rim of it to take a drink.
I took that second to look around. The bar was busy, and the line of sight between us and my parents had disappeared thanks to all the people who’d filtered in since we’d been here. The volume of the music had slowly crept up over the last half an hour, and some of the tables that were usually reserved for food had been moved to clear an area for dancing.
There was already a throng of people there. Men and women, dancing in twosomes and in groups, and a few were crowded around the modern-style jukebox Mom had installed only a few weeks ago. It was fun because of how it linked up to the main stereo; it waited until the programmed song was done before it started a new one.
It also meant that the music on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays was almost exclusively chosen by the customers. Which meant that one minute you were dancing to the latest song from say, Calvin Harris, and the next thing you knew, you were rocking out to Elvis.
It was hilarious.
Jay followed my gaze. “You wanna dance?”
As a rule, no, but this was a date. “Sure. Why not?”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he followed my lead in finishing off his drink. We stood, and he took my hand, pulling me through the people and toward the dancefloor in front of the jukebox.
Grinning, he pulled me into the middle of the crowd and toward his body. His hands trailed to my hips, and he waggled his eyebrows as the song became more upbeat. He made me sway my hips side to side, and I laughed, gripping onto his arms and he exaggerated every movement.
It was so, so fun.
We danced for a few songs, our bodies moving together, until he put one finger to his lips and slinked off toward the jukebox. I frowned, basically standing still until he came back with a grin on his face.
“What did you choose?” I asked into his ear.
“It’s a secret!” he said back as “The Birdi
e Song” came on.
“If this was you—”
He burst out laughing, quickly pulling me into him. “No. Mine’s next.”
I tried to escape the mess that was the dance routine to this song, but Jay wasn’t having it. He tugged me back, linking his arm through mine, and spun us around. I squealed as my shoes pinched my toes, but I could barely breathe through my laughter.
Have you ever seen a six-foot-something, muscular, book-cover-model-worthy man do the freaking birdie dance?
It was possibly the best thing I’d ever seen. He got so into it, shaking his ass and waggling his eyebrows as he did the hand movements. I bent over laughing, holding my stomach. I laughed so hard I had to grab hold of him before I fell over, and he responded by winding his arm around my waist and pulling me against him.
His firm body was shaking with laughter, and he pressed his cheek against the side of my head as the song died.
Only to be replaced with the one song I should have known he’d put on.
Ed. Freakin’. Sheeran.
“Noooo,” I groaned, flattening my hands against his chest.
“My roommate loves it when I sing this in the shower,” he said into my ear, his laughter barely restrained. “I could give Ed a run for his money.”
“I have no idea how to respond to that,” I replied right as he started singing in my ear, making my body move with his.
No matter how I tried to pull away, he gripped me tighter, singing deliberately more awful than usual. It was horrendous, honestly. To have the beautiful tones of Ed Sheeran in one ear and the cat-strangling voice of Jay Cooper in the other.
I leaned my head back and met his eyes. He was only mouthing the song now, but he was such an idiot, making the funniest expressions as he did it, and I had to laugh. My stomach hurt from laughing so much in the last few minutes.
His eyes sparkled, even in the dim light. They were so bright, and he was looking at me with such happiness that I really wasn’t responsible for the fact I leaned up and kissed him.
It just happened.
Really.
I pulled back and blushed.
Slowly, he smiled. He slid one of his hands up to the back of my neck and lowered his face to mine, his lips brushing over mine several times until the song changed to something more upbeat and he grabbed my hand and spun me on the spot.
I fell against him, unprepared, and through my own laughter, I could hear the deep rumble of his in his chest.
Maybe this really was worth the risk.
• • •
Jay handed the cab driver fifteen dollars and helped me • • •out of the car. We were still breathless from dancing and laughing for the better part of two hours, and even though we didn’t live far from the bar, there was no way I could walk.
My feet were screaming at me. I didn’t wear heels, ever, so I could barely walk. I only just made it inside the building before I used the wall to prop myself up so I could take the damn things off.
I moaned as they came off and my toes finally had some freedom.
Jay laughed, hitting the button for the elevator. “Do you think that cab driver thought we were having a one-night stand?”
I shrugged, grinning. “Think of it this way—there’d be no walk of shame.”
“I don’t know, that ten feet between our bedroom doors is one helluva stroll.”
I hobbled into the elevator after him. “Yeah, and that window at the end of the hall could really give things away.”
He looped one arm around my waist. “Are your feet okay?”
“No.”
He did a double-take before a laugh snorted out of him. “I told you we should have sat out the Cha Cha Slide.”
“Are you kidding me? After seeing you do the Birdie dance, I had to see you do that. I was kinda sad nobody put the Macarena on.”
The doors opened, and he helped me out. “Yeah, especially after the line-dancing club came in in their cowgirl finery.”
“Oh, my God. Don’t. I’ll never look at seventy-something-year-old women in denim skirts and cowboy boots the same again.” I shook my head as he fished his keys out of his pocket.
Apparently, it was the fifteen-year anniversary of the club being formed, and so they’d thrown it back to their younger days with their outfits. Let’s just say their skirts were a little on the short side.
“I think your dad is scarred for life.” Jay pushed the door open.
“Well, he’s not much of a dancer. Especially when he’s being shared by ten women who could be his mother.” I dropped my heels next to the shoe stand and pushed the door shut. “If they ever come in again, he’s going to hide out the back.”
“Especially since the leader of the club gave him her number.”
“It was after their third round of tequila shots.”
Yeah. It’d been that kind of night, and we only had one drink each.
We’d been too amused to even think about getting another.
I took the bottle of water he handed me and looked up at him through my lashes. “I had fun tonight.”
His grin was lopsided. “So did I. Even if the whole beginning of it was the stupidest thing ever.”
“I said it was!” I laughed for the hundredth time tonight. “But you demanded we carry it on.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t it have been awkward otherwise?”
“Maybe.” I fiddled with the label on the bottle. “Do you really think it helped?”
“What else would we have talked about? Our mutual friends?” Jay snorted and walked over to me, bopping me on the nose so I scowled. “It is weird. We both know that. In a strange way, it took away all that weirdness despite how fucking ridiculous it was.”
He was right. It really did take it all away. “All right. I admit it wasn’t a bad idea. But you are a terrible dancer.”
“I’m an excellent dancer, I’ll have you know. I rocked the shit out of that tweet-tweet song.”
“Five-year-olds can do those moves.”
“Yeah, but their arms don’t look as good as mine.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “That’s the selling point for me.”
“That was also why you looked absolutely ridiculous doing it.”
“Ha!” He tapped my nose again. “I knew you were perving on me.”
“Well, yeah. Have you seen your ass?” I clapped my hand over my mouth.
I was not supposed to say that out loud.
“I have, and it’s a pretty great one. Why do you think I sing that Ed Sheeran song in the shower? I’m admiring the shape of me. I can see it in the mirror until the door steams up.”
I blinked at him, then turned around and rolled my eyes. And he said I was the crazy one.
His laughter followed me as he did, and I turned at my bedroom door. “Goodnight, Jay.”
“Hang on.” He undid the top button of his shirt and took my bottle of water to set on the floor. His eyes found mine, and he gave me a sexy half-smile that made my heart stutter. “If we didn’t live together, I’d have kissed you at the door, but since I don’t want to sleep in the hall…”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why not? I bet the whirring of the elevator is very soothing.”
He pressed one finger against my lips despite his chuckle and pulled me to him. His eyes searched mine for the longest moment, and I took a deep breath, resting my hands on his chest.
I smiled.
So did he.
Jay dipped his head and kissed me slowly. I savored every second. The more he kissed me, the easier it was to forget who we were to each other.
Right now, as he moved his lips over mine and made my heart beat faster and faster, he wasn’t my best friend. I could almost imagine that he was nobody more than a guy I’d met who I liked. Who I’d been on a date with. Who I didn’t want to leave at the door.
Could I?
Could I pull him into my room and have sex with him? At this point, there was really no turning back anyway.
It was a little painf
ul to admit, but Jay was everything I’d ever wanted in a guy. He could be sweet, he made me laugh more than anyone else, his smile gave me butterflies, he could turn me on with one tiny kiss…
I could see it. I could see a relationship working.
I mean, he did clean the sink after he’d shaved earlier, and that was pretty sexy.
I gripped his shirt tightly and pulled him backward toward my bedroom door.
“Shelby?” he said against my mouth.
“Yeah?”
“Have you thought this through?”
“Yes. I figure we’ve already reached the point of no return.” I leaned against my closed door, hand on the handle, and gazed up at him. “You saw me singing into a mop and still want to date me, so we may as well go the whole way before I get the giggles again.”
He smirked. “True. That was quite the hit to my ego.”
“Then shut up and come here before it happens again.” I dragged him to me as I opened the door.
He captured my hips with his hands as he kissed me. The heat that had teased me only minutes earlier rushed through me with a vengeance. It was fire when we touched, and in mere seconds, my body came completely alive.
My fingers were already fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. I was more excited than I should have been for this moment. I’d had his abs paraded around in front of me for weeks, and now they were finally mine to touch.
It was like Christmas but for my clitoris.
I finally got the last button undone as he reached up for the zipper for my dress. I slipped my hands inside his shirt, pressing them against his sides, and he hissed in a breath.
“How the hell are your hands so cold?”
“They match my heart,” I quipped.
“Says the romance writer.”
“Keep talking; I’ll start a murder mystery, and you’ll be my first victim.”
He chuckled, unzipping my dress in one swift movement. “No, I won’t.” He lowered his lips back to mine before I could retort, and I melted against his body.
Man, he really could kiss.
The gentle ache between my legs became a more urgent throb of need, and I whimpered as he took my lower lip between his teeth. It was like there was a direct jolt of pleasure straight between my legs, and he smiled against my lips, gripping my ass.