Rachel
One of the benefits of working reception at my gym was the free membership. It meant I could work out gratis, often with Ainsley and Gwen. Today my shift ended later than usual, which meant the girls had come and gone, and I had to squeeze in cardio before I met them for drinks—more like me begging for the outing and them agreeing.
My motto since Thursday night had been to keep on the move, socialize as much as possible, all systems go, go, go.
The girls and I didn’t normally do Sunday nights out, but keeping occupied was my prime directive. Bad Boy’s number had been burning a hole in my phone since he’d entered it three nights ago. That entire encounter had been a disaster. I’d stood there, useless, while his lips touched mine, his tongue teasing a seductive line, his ballsy predictions whispered in my ear. When I’d pulled up his number and saw what he’d written as his name, I unleashed my famous cackle.
Six. The guy had some nerve.
I’d scheduled every minute since then—bird watching, buying M&Ms and separating them by color, framing and hanging a new quote.
“The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” ~ Ayn Rand.
All endeavors helped force that phone number to the back of my mind. Briefly. I was on the treadmill now, vision hazy, once again fantasizing about Jimmy.
Us on the floor.
My mouth around his cock.
His scruff dragging across my thighs.
I upped my treadmill speed, but I couldn’t chase away the sexual desire Jimmy had awakened. To my right, a guy—Matt, I think—hopped on the treadmill. He nodded my way, and I forced an answering smile. He was blond and fit, his suctioned tank top accentuating the work he’d put into his body. His clean-cut image and golden boy smile should have had my pulse buzzing. Except his skin was too plain, his hair too coiffed.
He wasn’t Six. I ran harder.
As I neared my last five minutes, an older man stepped on the treadmill to my left. I’d met him recently, the grumbly sort who was forced to exercise for his health. When I’d asked him to fill out a new member questionnaire, he’d scanned the sheet, mustache twitching. His bushy eyebrows had framed his scowl.
“Emergency contact,” he’d muttered, his words thick with disdain. “A ridiculous question.” He’d scrawled his answers and shoved the page back to me, nothing on it legible.
Except for his emergency contact person: 911.
911 scowled at his treadmill, jabbing at buttons, curses garbled under his breath. My father had run marathons, trained indoors and out. He’d worked his heart like a maestro. It wasn’t enough, but his time at the gym had prolonged his life, and any extra days with him were a bonus. At this man’s age, it was even more important.
I slowed my treadmill to a fast walk, grabbing my towel to swipe at my chest and neck. Breathing easier, I hit stop and faced 911. “Can I help you, sir?”
He ground his teeth, as though chewing leather. “The machine is broken.”
I may not have been an electrical engineer (although I had sold lamps during my interior decorator phase), but the light displays were working fine, all necessary buttons aglow. Broken, the machine was not. The man reminded me of my grandfather, though, preferring to drive in circles rather than ask for directions. Tact would be needed.
I slung my towel over my shoulder. “Let me see what I can do.”
I jumped to the floor, followed the mess of wires, found his, unplugged it, then plugged it back in. Electrical engineer genius. I stood and dusted my hands together. “Let’s give it a shot now.”
Leaning over him, I hit the Start button…and the platform moved, of course. He grumbled, lifting his feet like the time I’d forced my mother’s schnoodle Stanley into doggy boots. The man was uncomfortable. Gyms, with their electronic equipment, weren’t exactly senior friendly. But heart health was important. If I’d waltzed over and pressed the one button he couldn’t find, 911 could have gotten frustrated and left.
I leaned over his dashboard. “These arrows control speed. Click up to go faster and down to go slower. These arrows”—I dragged my index finger to the incline—“tilt the base up, like walking up a hill. I’m Rachel, by the way.”
His reply: “I am not a child.”
That he was not. His sour expression had been excavated with age, the creases around his mouth sinking underground, his nose and chin pushed prominent. A face that had endured. “Just trying to explain the treadmill,” I said.
“As though I am a child.”
A child in need of a time out. “Anyway, I suggest you stick to a flat incline and speed up gradually. Next time, I can show you the programs.”
“I can do it myself.”
A time out and no dessert. “Don’t push me, old man. An attitude like that will land you in detention.”
With a harrumph, he ignored my teasing, and I patted his frail shoulder.
I hurried home and showered, in a daze the whole while. Because Six, Six, Six. I nearly dialed him three times, until I pulled up my father’s message and let his soothing tone tamp the urge. It also heightened my confusion. Hopefully drinks with Ainsley and Gwen would offer more distraction.
* * *
Drinks with Ainsley and Gwen were not a distraction. The first words out of Ainsley’s mouth when we sat down were, “Did my advice work? Did you tell Lone Wolf he was a shitty lay?”
Gwen frowned. “I thought she didn’t remember the sexcapade?”
“She doesn’t, but he’s in the wine contest with her, getting all flirty.”
Gwen leaned back in her seat. “I’d forget my dating sabbatical if it meant tapping that.”
Ainsley fanned her face dramatically. “Tell me about it. She’s nuts.”
“You guys know I’m at the table, right?”
They grinned.
Ainsley clicked her French-manicured nails against her wineglass. “So, spill it. How did he take your brush off?”
I drummed my thumb on my thigh. I stretched my neck. I wiped an invisible crumb off the table. “It’s busy here for a Sunday, don’t you think?”
“Oh.” Gwen rubbed her hands together. “This is gonna be good.” She plunked her elbows on the table, chin in hand. “Open the vault, Rachel. We need details.”
And I needed to dampen my Jimmy infatuation. This club was more casual than Vesper, with small groups gathered at wooden tables, white-washed brick walls surrounding us. But I couldn’t help imagining him here. I was in the same tight jeans and heels I’d worn the fateful night I’d met him, but my fitted black blouse didn’t have a dip in the back. There was no place for Jimmy to lay his hand if he were here, ready to buy me a drink.
If he appeared, would I say yes this time?
I rolled the edge of my cocktail napkin through my fingers. “I may have flirted with him and helped him deal with a sticky situation with his ex, and he may have come over to my place to taste wine afterward. He also may have kissed me and asked me to go out with him.”
Ainsley pursed her lips. “Sounds very hypothetical.”
Gwen wasn’t impressed, either. She shifted on her seat and tousled her bobbed hair, while staring me down. “Sounds like we need to order you more drinks to loosen your tongue.”
I pressed my hand over the top of my glass. “No more wine. Excessive wine leads to poor choices.” I’d for sure drunk dial Bad Boy.
“Okay,” Gwen said, “but this ‘might have kissed’ crap won’t fly. Is he as good as he looks? Assuming you remember this time.”
Did I ever. The promise of his lips. The bite of his scruff on my cheek. “If I’d actually kissed him back, I imagine it would have been unreal.”
Ainsley crossed her arms, her ample cleavage spilling forth. A group of three men looked our way, but she was focused on me, intent on dredging up every agonizing detail. “This game of twenty questions is getting tiresome. I’d like specifics before our next birthday.”
My phone rang, saving me from their inquisition. I pulled it from
my purse, only to be faced with my mother’s name. Still preferable to dissecting my boy drama.
I exhaled and answered. “I’m out with friends, Ma.”
“This won’t take long. You remember Jonathan Richter, Joanna’s son?”
Again with the setups. “Yes, I remember Jonathan.” I’d last seen him three years ago at a housewarming party. He’d cornered me for an hour, his foul breath nearly melting my mascara.
“Well, he just moved back to town and is opening his own dental practice. Running the whole thing. He even has a playroom for kids and TV screens for patients. Very new age. I ran into him and asked him over for dinner next week.”
“Ran into” was code for “stalked the man to his place of work.” The woman had no shame. And, God, I hated how desperate she made me look, even to a man I had no interest in dating.
Ainsley mouthed, Blind date?
I nodded and whispered, “Jonathan Halitosis Richter.”
She proceeded to fake choke herself, complete with bugging eyes and extended tongue. Gwen jumped in on the game, sticking her finger down her throat and pretending to dry heave.
I giggled. “That’s nice of you, Ma, but I’m not interested in Jonathan.” If he still looked the same, his stiff posture, parted brown hair, and tweed vest would fit right in with my mother’s crown moldings and opulent carpets. A chess piece carved to match.
I imagined Jimmy in her immaculate living room. Tattoos. Wild hair. Dare Me shirt. His toned body draped over a Queen Anne chair.
My mother would faint at the sight.
“I can’t cancel, Rachel.” Her exasperated tone grated my eardrum.
“Then I hope you have a nice dinner. Invite Mitchell. They were friends in high school.” Dating Jonathan Halitosis Richter would be so much easier than falling for Bad Boy, but I was done with her random set-ups.
When I managed to end the call, Ainsley grabbed my cell and placed it on the table. “As fun as that was to watch, let’s get back to the kiss that didn’t happen. Explain yourself.”
From one ambush to another. My phone lay on the table, Jimmy’s number tucked inside. The number I’d like to sneak away and call right now. I had it memorized. I’d hummed the digits in time to Michael Jackson’s “Bad” all freaking day.
“Here’s the deal,” I said. “I was close to caving in and hooking up again, but I’ve gotten to know Jimmy since, and truth is…I like the guy. Like, really like him. And he’s talking about more than a fling. I just don’t see how we could work.”
Gwen stayed silent, assessing me.
Ainsley wasn’t so subtle. “So you’re, like, into him, but you won’t go out again? You’ve dated umpteen guys, always upset when the sparks don’t fly. What am I missing? And if you go out with Jonathan Halitosis Richter, I will unfriend you.”
“That you don’t have to worry about.”
Gwen’s vigil ended. “She’s terrified of her mother and can’t picture Jimmy and his tattoos in her tidy life.”
Damn her observant self. “Something like that.”
At twenty-two, I’d have reveled in taking Jimmy to one of my mother’s luncheons, watching her face turn purple at the sight of him. At twenty-seven, I wasn’t so sure. That very thing had pushed my mother and me apart once, an outcome that would devastate me today. No matter her overbearing tendencies, she was my last living parent. I needed her in my life.
Gwen’s dissection of my psychological behavior didn’t end there. “Is the Gabe Factor an issue, too?”
Ainsley’s blue eyes narrowed, as though she’d caught her stylist applying the wrong highlights. “I still say we should have painted his motorcycle pink.”
I hadn’t accepted that particular offer, but the three of us never hesitated to volunteer our payback services. When Ainsley had confessed that her ex had cheated on her, Gwen and I had filled his door lock with expanding foam.
“Aside from the rough-and-tumble thing,” I said, “Jimmy isn’t like Gabe. He has baggage, though—an ex and some family drama that really messed him up. So it’s a lot, I guess. He’s hot as hell and we have fun, and he has this lost-puppy vibe that’s hard to resist, but simple relationships are hard enough. Add in all this other…stuff, and it just seems too hard.” My father’s saved message added weight to my turmoil. More complications tangling my mind.
Gwen didn’t blink. “Dating him doesn’t mean you have to marry the guy. I get that you’re after something serious, but maybe you need to let loose for a change. You’ve spent the last five years keeping your mother happy. Never stepping out of line. Gabe was a dick, but dating him was you testing yourself. When you drink, and your inhibitions unwind, a different Rachel comes out to play. I think she’s more the real you than you’d like to admit.”
“Do I have to pay for this shrink session now, or can I trade it for wine later?” I could joke all I wanted, but the blunt truth stung, as it had when Jimmy had suggested something similar.
Had my life deteriorated to such an extent? Leapt out of my control? I’d raise hell to see my mother happy and healthy, as well as keep us on good terms. Was losing myself in the process worth it? If I wasn’t careful, I’d wind up as her shadow—big brooches, bigger shoulder pads, football-helmet hair.
My plethora of jobs had been desperate attempts to tap into the elusive something that made me tick. But I’d always come up short. Even now, with the sommelier possibility, doubt crept in. I wasn’t just good at the contest tastings, I was great. Not so with the service exercises. Each loathsome task massaged my insecurities. The whole point of quitting and starting over was to find The Job. The one that would fulfill my resolution by following my dreams, so I could discover if the blackout that night had really been magical and would catapult the rest of my life from fine to sublime.
As much as I loved the tastings, executing a busy night at Crush and running between tables didn’t sound sublime. It didn’t sound like The Job.
But I was too far in, my options too limited.
My wardrobe didn’t appeal to me, either. It was necessity, function over form. Even Jimmy had called me on it. You look sexy as hell in everything you wear, he’d said. But your outfits seem calculated.
He’d also said I’d been wild the night we hooked up.
The more I replayed his words, the more curious I became, longing building in a steady rise. Jimmy could be my ticket. He could help me explore myself, push my boundaries. I just didn’t know if I could offer him more. “If I call him, what would I even say?”
Gwen picked at a callus on her palm. “Set some ground rules. Tell him you’d like to hang out, but you don’t want anything serious. No guy on the planet would say no to that. Then figure things out as you go. No pressure.”
“I don’t know…” But my body did. Anticipation tightened my lower belly, heat gathering. Still, I didn’t make a move.
Ainsley, however, did. She snatched my phone from the table.
I shoved my upturned palm in her face. “Give it here, Ainsley. I’ll call him when I’m ready.”
“I’m staging an intervention and calling now. And if you don’t want people going through your phone, you should lock the thing.” She squinted at the screen. “You did say his name was Jimmy, right? Because it’s not here.”
Things just kept getting better. “He used a different name.”
She twitched her button nose. “What name?”
Why, why, why did he have to be so persistent, programming Six and toying with my mind? I could tackle Ainsley and reclaim my phone, or feign ignorance, but she had on her “don’t mess with me” face. I wouldn’t win this battle.
“Six,” I said.
“Six?”
“Yes. Six.”
“Like the number?”
“Exactly like the number.”
Gwen plucked the phone from Ainsley, the two of them intent on cracking Jimmy’s code. “Is he like a divergent? Like Four? What’s with the number?”
Lying and diverting their atten
tion tempted me again, but they’d caught the scent of juicy gossip, the hint of my drama like tossing a live chicken to wolves. “He claims he made me orgasm six times.”
Gwen sipped the last of her wine, placed the glass down, and slid it aside. “Honestly, the fact that you don’t remember that night is a travesty. We need to remedy this situation.” She raised my phone, but hesitated. “Does that mean you came from oral?”
If there was a God. “Supposedly, and give me my phone. I’ll text him.”
“Damn,” was all she said, and handed it over
I could back down, stash my cell and make a break for it, but these two hound dogs were out for blood. And fighting the urge to see Jimmy again was a losing battle.
My text was short and sweet: Are you around?
His reply came quickly: At work. Get off in an hour. You should come by.
I chewed my cheek and flexed my toes, then I wrote: Sure.
Time to discover the woman I was meant to be. Once he sent the address, I stuffed my phone away and faced the girls. “I’m meeting him at work.”
Ainsley clapped. “Excellent. When should we leave?”
Come again? “I must have heard you wrong, because it sounded like you said we.”
Her bright eyes shone with glee. “If we leave this in your court, you might chicken out and do your overthinking thing. I also think we should suss him out. Make sure he’s not messing with you before another round of Naked Twister goes down.”
On that note, I stumbled after them, unsure how I’d lost control of the night.
Eleven
Jimmy
The bar was winding down, Sundays never busy. I kept glancing at the entrance, waiting for Rachel to show, unsure what the hell to expect. Her messages were short. Nothing flirtatious. No mention of the name I’d programmed into her phone.
I shined a glass, then stared at the door. I stocked the beer fridge and snuck another glance.
Rudy’s Tavern was more dive than bar, the wooden floors roughened by herds of work boots. The women drank as hard as the men, the pool tables home to soured bets and raised voices. Rock anthems played on repeat. Conservative Rachel would be quite the sight in here, sitting all proper on a wonky stool. A sight I’d happily drink in.
Legs (One Wild Wish, #1) Page 10