by Stacey Lynn
* * *
—
What did Obi-Wan say at the rodeo?
“Use the horse, Luke!”
I open my messaging app for the twelfth time since it came to me. I was still in the car on the way home, too upset and confused and despondent to respond, but the driver gave me a strange look when I barked out a laugh to the corny, stupid joke.
This guy. Somehow, he gets me and what I like. Curious as I am, I’m bummed enough about not having that spark with a really awesome guy like Logan, I still haven’t responded.
There’s really one guy I want, and he’s shoved me straight into friend-zone land. I’m still annoyed with Jonas for acting so strangely and protective in a way he has no right to behave, that I’m worried if I reply to this message at all, I’m just setting myself up for another dismal failure of a night.
But really, that’s the risk of dating and letting your heart open to someone. It’s why I guard it so fiercely.
No one needs more heartbreak from people who are supposed to love you than I’ve already had.
Which means, I need to figure out if this guy and I have anything, or cut him loose.
Caitlin: Tell me something real about you.
It’s a demand, and I don’t apologize for it. This guy’s been messaging me for over two weeks, and it took until the other night for him to tell me he owns a bar, for crying out loud. I don’t know his name, his interests. And yet somehow he’s pulled tidbits of information about me with barely having to ask.
Surprisingly, a reply message from him comes almost immediately. Usually, this guy only texts me late at night, and I assume it’s when he’s at work, which is weird in itself.
Michael: What do you want to know?
Everything. The thought is so startling, I fumble my phone, grabbing it right before it falls to the floor.
Caitlin: Your name? Age? What do you do when you’re not running your bar?
Have I pushed too far? It shouldn’t matter. The whole reason to use this app is to meet someone, and why I’m suddenly taking it so seriously is beyond me. Regardless, my foot taps wildly against the couch cushion where I’m curled up, Netflix on and ignored, my phone clutched in my hand while I wait for his response.
If he doesn’t respond, I’m moving on.
There are other men out there. Why it’s so important for me to find someone, I don’t want to answer. I haven’t ever wanted a relationship before. This stupid process is changing me. Giving me hope I won’t always be alone, only to smack me back to reality.
Perhaps it was wanting something more than I felt with Logan. Perhaps it’s Jonas, with his angry eyes and protective stance and even his rudeness.
Or damn it. It’s most likely because I love how he knew I had a hard day and did something about it. I’ve thought about Jonas every night since he came over after he knew I had a bad day. How nice would it actually feel to have someone in my life like that all the time?
I’ve never in my life had a man at my back, protecting me with not only his strength but his love, encouraging me to spread my wings and fly. I have a father who disowned me after I was assaulted and a mother who has always acted like the only thing she needed in life to make her a mother was to push me out of her body and then brush me to the side in favor of nannies raising her daughter. All so she could live a life of luxury and excellence in her field.
And maybe this is why being around Corbin and Teagan makes me sick to my stomach.
It’s not a lack of desire to want to be loved in that way, it’s a sickening, curdling jealousy that I want it so badly, and yet for the first time, I realize why I’ve never sought it.
I’ve been unlovable and unprotectable since the day I was born.
Why, then, would any man want me now?
The revelation is so startling, a harsh pain slams into my gut and I cry out. I don’t realize tears are streaming down my cheeks until wet drops fall onto my hands and my phone screen.
“Damn it,” I cry, dropping my phone to the couch. I swipe my cheeks and yet I’m unable to calm the sobs rolling through me, unleashing fears and desires and everything I’ve desperately wanted since I was such a little girl and have never had flung my way other than my friendships.
But there has to be more to life than this, right?
My phone chimes, startling me. I wipe the tears off my cheeks and use the hem of my sleep shirt to clear my screen. All this over a simple message? I must be losing my mind. Dating is making me crazy. And crazy has always been my middle name, according to Trey and Corbin.
Michael: Thirty. And I’d like to tell you the rest in person.
I send a text, with only one word.
Caitlin: When?
Michael: Sunday is my first night off. I wish it could’ve been sooner. Meet me somewhere?
My foot taps the couch again. Thursday night at Dirty Martini’s had bordered on disaster. But Jonas normally takes Sunday off, entrusting either Tucker or Lacy to handle everything.
Caitlin: Ever heard of Dirty Martini’s? Seven?
It’s early enough where a drink or two isn’t inappropriate for a Sunday, late enough that it shouldn’t be too busy from dinner. Not on a weekend anyway.
Michael: I’ll be there. Looking forward to seeing your beautiful smile in person.
His reply is prompt. So is my grin. And that strange tingling sensation in the tips of my fingers.
This guy…
I can’t wait to finally meet him and see why he’s been so secretive.
* * *
—
“So you know nothing about him?”
I lift a cucumber slice off my eye and glare at Teagan. We’re at the spa, compliments of her after she showed up at my door way too early on a Sunday morning and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Not that I ever turn down a trip to the spa. They’re even more enjoyable when I don’t have to pay for it.
“I know his lame jokes make me laugh.”
“Hmm. Laughing’s good. You know what’s better?” She continues before I can stop her. “Seeing his face.”
I drop the cucumber slice back over my eye and turn my head straight ahead. We’ve been massaged, scraped, and sloughed. Our pedicures are done, and my fingernails have never been such a vibrant shade of teal before. Strange choice, but I’m liking it.
“Meeting him in person will give me that opportunity.”
“And it’ll go okay after what happened Thursday?”
I tell her everything so of course my brain malfunctioned and I had to go on a random tangent in the car earlier about Jonas’s behavior Thursday night.
Having it brought up again starts to ruin my peaceful relaxation.
“Ugh. You’re annoying me,” I say, groaning. “Jonas rarely works on Sunday anyway. It’ll be fine.”
Hopefully.
Meeting Michael at Dirty’s might not be my wisest decision, but there’s no way I’m meeting a stranger who won’t show his face on a profile picture in any other setting.
Regardless of who’s working at the bar tonight, I’ll be safe and covered.
“Corbin and I can always come, too,” Teagan says, not even mildly helpfully.
“What?” I turn my head toward her so quickly, the cucumbers drop to the floor. “Why would you do that?”
She’s as chilled and still as I wish I could be. “Not with you. But you know, we could go there for dinner or something. And at least be there. You know, to make sure you’re safe.”
Teagan is rarely protective of me. But she is sweet. Still, there’s something about her nonchalant tone that I don’t particularly like.
“What’s this about?”
“Hmm?”
Yeah. Like she has no idea what I’m really talking about. “Spill it, Teagan. What’s going on?”
Her cheeks fill, and she blows out a breath. Removing her own cucumber slices, she turns to me and grimaces. “Corbin doesn’t like this.”
“Doesn’t like what?”
She sli
ps her hand in the air, waving it in a circle. “You. Strangers. Dating apps.” She shrugs and drops her hand lamely to her stomach. “You can’t blame him.”
I all but roll my eyes. Corbin’s always been the more protective one between him and Trey. Trey’s too laid back. Corbin, too intense. It’s why they’re best friends. They bring out the best in each other, and between them, I always have someone to talk to.
“Did you tell your husband he’s being ridiculous?”
“Well, yeah.” She grunts and rolls her eyes. “He worries.”
“He has no reason to.” I close my eyes, intent on finding my zen, trying to relax, when another thought pops into my head. I sit up and twist toward Teagan. “Tell me he’s not already planning on doing this. Tell me he didn’t come with you.”
Her lips pull to one side. Her fight to lie is clear in her warring features.
“Teagan—”
“He’s at Trey’s. But I swore to him we’d only go if you were okay with it, and he knows I’m bringing it up. He just wants to be close.”
My heart is thundering. “And Trey?” My voice has gone raw.
“Last I heard, before I left his place this morning, he said he thinks he might feel like a drink later.”
Her voice went apologetic, but I was already reaching for my phone.
These guys.
I grab my phone and open up our never-ending group text. Show up at Dirty’s tonight, and I quit you both. Forever.
Three dots immediately appear. As if one of them, or both, have been sitting around, waiting for my worthless threats. I can’t quit them. Even if they are idiots.
We’re thirsty. It comes from Trey.
Quickly following is another from Corbin. I miss Dirty’s. :-(
Then go there NOW.
I expel a harsh breath, trying to calm down. These guys were so protective the first year we were friends, it’d be easy to blame them for why I don’t date. They didn’t behave like protective older brothers, but like alpha wolves on steroids. It appears they’ve been taking drugs again. In an attempt to mollify them, I type out another text.
I’ll keep my pepper spray on me. But leave me alone.
Three dots appear. I wait for a rebuttal, but eventually the dots disappear and the reply doesn’t come.
Lifting my head, I catch Teagan nibbling the bottom corner of her lip. “I think it’ll be okay,” she says.
I tuck my phone back into my purse. So much for a relaxing trip to the spa. “Of course it will be, because you’re going to go back to Trey’s and insist you and Corbin head back home this afternoon. The trip to the spa has made you energetic.”
She snorts and follows it with a laugh. “I was energetic this morning, sweetie. And pretty much every time I’m in the room with my husband.”
Gross. I make a vomiting sound and lift my hand. “Never mind. I should know better than to innuendo around you.”
She laughs again, and it’s twinkly and sweet, like everything else about Teagan. “Come on. Let’s get you back to your place so you can get ready.” She slides off the reclining chair we’ve been lounging on and reaches for her purse. “I want to help you pick out an outfit.”
I don’t understand why they’re all making such a big deal about this date in particular, but much like a trip to the spa, I’m never going to turn down spending more time with my friend.
“Short black dress?” I ask, teasing her.
It’s raining and cold, and it’s a first meeting.
“Ripped skinny jeans and ankle boots. Plus the scarf with the silver threads in it.”
It’s like she reads my mind. “With the blue top with dolman sleeves?”
“Geez, Caty-bug. It’s like we share a brain.”
Chapter 15
Jonas
It’s almost seven and my chest has never so felt so constricted. Every breath burns as I wipe down the bar countertop for the thousandth time in minutes. My elbow aches from the movement, but I can’t settle myself.
I’ve been lying to Caitlin, and while I’ve told myself it’s for the best long-term, this still has the potential to blow up in my face. Epically. I’ve spent all day mulling tonight over in my head. I can come clean and tell her everything. It’d be the more honorable thing to do. But fear spikes when I consider it. Caitlin’s made it clear she doesn’t want a relationship. For all I know, she can still be using this app to find a new fuck buddy, if she hasn’t already. Telling her the truth now, that I’m the guy who’s been sending her vague texts, could make her run, and I’d lose my chance at her forever. She might laugh in my face, think it’s ridiculous I could believe she’s changed her mind at all about actually dating me.
Hell, there’s the chance she’s over me completely, and that’s assuming she ever felt anything for me past wanting to climb into my bed in the first place.
“Fuck,” I groan and toss the towel I’ve been using to scrub off the top layer of the bar’s sealant to the side. I shove my hands through my hair, and cringe at the shortness of it. I hated cutting my hair as soon as I did, but it couldn’t be helped. One night of Ashley tugging on it while my face had been buried between her thighs had made me think of another woman. I’d almost groaned out Caitlin’s name when Ashley scraped my scalp with her fingers. I should have known then things with Ashley and me were destined to end, and I felt another range of ache at how I’d led her on for so long, trying and trying and trying to make myself feel more for her than I did.
All because my head is still twisted up over a woman who might not want anything to do with me.
“Jesus. This is fucked up.” I spit the words out and reach for a glass. I fill it with a good old-fashioned American lager and take a large drink. The bar is relatively slow on a Sunday night, and there are only a few taken tables. At the more private table, there’s a group of four women, mid-twenties, who have been eyeing Tucker since they walked in with that gleam in their eyes that says he gets to have his pick of any of them if he wants it. One married couple sits at another table, quietly talking, grinning at each other like they’re recently married. And at another table, there’s a male couple, enjoying a martini and some cheese boards. Dating, I’d guess, based on their body language and the smiles when their hands brush together. There’s the sound of murmurs, a few boisterous laughs from the table of women occasionally, but it’s pretty quiet. Soft jazz music plays through the speakers, and it’s usually a pretty chill vibe.
There is not a single thing vibing or chilling inside my body, though.
Tucker heads into the restaurant from the back hallway where he’d been taking his break, smirking.
“Won’t it be funny if you’re the one that ends up getting stood up?” he asks as he reaches the bar, hands slapping the top of it.
The clock behind the bar says she’s already five minutes late.
I take another swig of my beer. “She’ll be here.”
“Because you’re irresistible behind a screen?” He’s giving me shit, but he’s continually made it clear this plan is bass-ackwards. His words. And I learned new vocabulary while listening to him bitch.
For a young guy, he’s pretty smart, but there’s so much to my past with Caitlin he also doesn’t get. Like how much it fucking hurt the day I told her I wanted more and she couldn’t look me in the eyes as she tried to nicely let me down. I still haven’t recovered, and so yeah, this plan might be ridiculously stupid and it might end up blowing up in my face, throwing me way back beyond square one with Caitlin, but the risk of opening my heart and handing it to her on a silver platter, only to have her crush it in her sweet little palm, is still terrifying.
I swipe my hand over my face, scratching at the scruff lining my jaw. “It’s the best way. Besides, I don’t even know if she likes any of the guys she met.”
Like the guy she left with earlier this week. Logan.
Has she had any contact with him since? She said it felt like he was just her friend, but I was at one point that, too, and I kn
ow exactly how that ended up. With me holding her close in my arms after wearing us both out, wrapped beneath the covers of my bed, the sweet scent of her shampoo on my pillows for weeks afterward.
Shit.
A burst of cool air blasts me from the side, and I can’t help but take in everything about Caitlin’s entrance. She whips in, red hair flying like a matador’s cape, and pulls the door closed behind her.
“Goodness,” she exclaims, shivering in her tan wool coat. She pulls it close to her, shoulders bunched to her ears as she turns to the bar. “It’s cold out there tonight.”
She blows into her hands as she scans the restaurant quickly and those bunched shoulders fall. Her lips slide to the side as she heads to the bar and pulls up a chair.
“Hey there,” I say.
She takes off her coat, draping it over the barstool behind her, and fluffs her hair, adjusts her scarf. “Hey. What are you doing here?”
She’s surprised, and I don’t blame her. I rarely work Sundays. “Had some things to catch up, thought I’d stay.”
“Oh.” Her eyes flicker to the door and back to me. “That’s cool. How are you?”
Scared out of my damn brain, but playing this cool is the only way to have a chance. After all, no one knows me as well as Caitlin.
Disappointment flashes in her eyes as she glances around the bar again, only to realize the person she’s supposed to be meeting isn’t here.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing.” She slumps to the bar, and rests her cheek in her palm. “Can I get a club soda and lime?” My brows lift, and Caitlin huffs. “I’m meeting someone so I’ll wait until he gets here to order something else.”
“Got it.” I turn my back to her. Can she see my heart racing at the base of my throat? It’s going a mile a minute, stampeding against my flesh with the roar of thunder. God, what a dick I am.
Tucker might have been right last week. If I don’t quit this bullshit, I might not be the guy who deserves her, either. I squeeze the lime and drop it into her glass and grab my beer before joining her at the bar. This has been my plan. Bring her in on a slow night, give her a reason for it to just be me and her, talking, hanging out, laughing.