World's Worst Boyfriend: A Romantic Comedy Adventure (Fake It Book 3)

by Carina Taylor

  Actually, that was a terrible idea. I’d heard of a lot of fights at The Bar. I knew the place that Fletcher was talking about, and his concern was legitimate. Zoe and I weren’t the usual type to frequent there.

  Yeah, that would be a terrible idea.

  Fletcher’s laughter was muffled between the window of my car. “Never mind. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. You would never do something like that.”

  Wait, what?

  “You’re way more predictable than that. You’d never go somewhere remotely dangerous. That’s what I love about you.”

  I ignored the part where he talked about what he loved about me. He thought I was predictable? That I wouldn’t do anything out of the ordinary or remotely dangerous? What kind of person was I?

  With a scowl, I jammed my car into reverse.

  Fletcher waved as I backed out.

  “Well, now I’m going to have to do something stupid and reckless tonight,” I muttered as I drove down my street.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Saidy

  The parking lot to The Bar—yes, the scary one that Fletcher didn’t think I would go near—was half full. Motorcycles made up the majority of the vehicles.

  Zoe bounced up and down in the seat behind the steering wheel. “I can’t believe this was your idea.”

  My original defiance against Fletcher’s bossiness didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. It looked like somewhere where I would pick up an incurable disease.

  Proving Fletcher wrong didn’t seem very important anymore. Unfortunately, Zoe drove, and she wasn’t ready to turn around.

  “I don’t think this is a great idea,” I told her as we stepped from the car. The number of motorcycles to cars was about a ten to one ratio.

  “Oh, don’t be so judgmental. I’ve been here once before. Remember when I was dating Ashton?”

  “You mean your ex-boyfriend who’s in prison?”

  She waved a hand through the air. “Point is, he brought me here one night and it was fine. I mean, it’s a trashy little bar, but sometimes it’s fun to do something different.”

  She faced me, planting her hands on her hips. “You ditched me the other night, so you owe me. I’m collecting tonight. You’re such a worrier.” With that she turned and strode up the sidewalk, opening the heavy metal door and walking inside.

  I was tempted to stay out there on the sidewalk. But I would be a horrible person to leave her here in a place like this by herself. I’d follow her in, grab her and run out screaming if necessary.

  I pulled the door open and slipped inside.

  Apparently, they still allowed smoking indoors here. This was going to be worse than I thought. I coughed into my elbow as I searched through the haze to spot Zoe up by the bar already.

  I was wearing far too little leather to be in a place like this.

  “This might be the worst idea we’ve ever had,” I said as I stepped next to Zoe at the bar. It was filled mainly with bikers. A few of the people wore jeans and cowboy hats, but most wore leather vests and looked like they may have killed someone before breakfast just to get a good start on the day. I wasn’t sure if I’d stepped into a honky-tonk or smack dab in the middle of a biker gang ritual. Possibly both. And everyone was staring.

  “Zoe, we’re leaving,” I whispered.

  “Not yet we’re not,” she said as she gave a little wave at a young biker a few seats down the bar. “He looks like fun.”

  I studied the man she was referring to. He was tall, broad, and had a tattoo covering his entire arm. His face was stoic as he stared back at…me. He didn’t seem to be responding to Zoe’s overt flirting.

  “No,” I latched a hand onto her arm. “Let’s go.”

  The man pulled his phone out, typed something on it, then stood up and walked closer, stopping behind Zoe. “Buy you a drink?”

  Zoe turned halfway to face him and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Why, thank you.”

  It was hard not to stare. He was large. Very large. He was as tall as Fletcher, but much, much thicker. Like maybe he chopped down trees with an ax for a living, or just used his bare hands instead of an ax.

  I pulled my purse off the bar and onto my lap. I was going to have to clean it with bleach when I got home. In the back of my mind, all I kept thinking was thank goodness I had my Hep B vaccination. I wondered if those ever went out of date or if a booster was needed. I’d have to set up an appointment with my primary doctor in the morning.

  A large man elbowed in between me and the barstool next to me. His arm brushed against mine.

  “Give me another one.” He slapped his elbow down on the bar and rested his bearded face in his hand. He turned to smile at me. At least, I think that’s what he was doing. I couldn’t see his mouth behind that beard, but it lifted upwards.

  The big, young biker next to Zoe leaned down and whispered in her ear. She smiled slyly, then headed toward a hallway that must have led to a back room.

  She left me alone at the bar with a giant’s grandson and some troll’s great uncle. The bartender slapped a large mug of beer down on the counter in front of the older man. The bearded man belched as he stood up straight again. His arm bumping into me as he tipped the beer back.

  “Sorry about that, sugar.” He winked, then tipped the beer upside down and tried to get the majority of it in his mouth. He failed. It must not have been his first beer of the night. The beer splattered down the front of his vest and onto his t-shirt.

  “Oh no!” I exclaimed. I popped open my purse and pulled out my emergency wipes. “Here, let me help.”

  I shoved a wipe into his large hand, then used a second one to stop the beer from spilling off the counter onto my shoes.

  The bar fell eerily silent as I tried to focus on cleaning up some of the beer off the man—and off of me where it had splattered on my arm. I glanced over my shoulder. The cowboys were busy looking anywhere but at us. The bikers were all turned toward me, watching as I wiped some excess beer off the man’s hand before it could drip on me more.

  A hand grabbed my arm and jerked me out of my seat. It was a good thing I’d already had a firm grip on my purse.

  It was the young biker who’d bought Zoe a drink. And he was dragging me toward the back room. “Darlin’, I told you when you came to meet me that you shouldn’t try and make me jealous.”

  I tried to pull out of his hold, but the rest of the room erupted into chuckles, and no one came to my assistance as he dragged me down a long, dark hall. He opened the door to a supply closet and pushed me inside. This was starting to become a habit.

  Screaming would have been pointless. No one here was going to help me.

  I frantically searched for my small canister of pepper spray in the depth of my purse.

  But instead of him attacking me, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and made a call as he crossed one leg over the other and leaned back against the door.

  “Hey. Are you almost here?”

  I couldn’t hear the other person’s words, but there was a loud, angry tone.

  “Yup. You deal with her or I will.”

  He hung up and slipped his phone into his pocket. I stepped back. It wasn’t scary to be locked in a supply closet with Fletcher. But with a stranger right now—I was terrified.

  “I need to get you out of here.” He ran a hand over his face.

  I slowly slipped my hand into my purse, searching around for something that could be used as a weapon. A hand latched onto my arm—hard.

  “Please don’t tase me. I promise I’m helping you.”

  “I’m in a closet,” I squeaked out.

  “I know Fletcher.”

  That was…not what I was expecting. “Oh.”

  “My name’s West. And this is not the place for you and your friend to be. Especially tonight. Go somewhere else. Please. Anywhere.”

  “Happily. All you have to do is step out of the way and I’ll be gone so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

&nb
sp; He let go of my arm and shook his head. “He shouldn’t have started dating you.”

  “What does that mean?” I jerked my shoulders back and glared at him.

  He looked me up and down, but oddly enough, it didn’t feel threatening or creepy, more like he was making an observation. “You’re a complication.”

  With that, he opened the door and motioned for me to follow him into the hall. I turned to go through the main room, but he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. He practically dragged me down the hall and out a side exit that led directly to the asphalt parking lot.

  The night sky was clear, showing off the bright Oregon stars.

  “Stand right here, and don’t move. I’m going to get your friend.” He stepped back inside and closed the door. There wasn’t a handle on this side of the door, so I couldn’t have opened it to follow him back inside if I wanted to. And I didn’t want to. My idea of breaking out of the box and not being predictable had been the worst thing I’d ever thought of.

  I liked my life. And ending up murdered in a seedy bar wasn’t something I’d ever wanted to accomplish.

  Less than thirty seconds later, the door opened again, and the man stepped outside holding Zoe’s hand.

  Zoe, who still seemed oblivious to any danger. Something had worried this guy, and if he really was a friend of Fletcher’s—though I didn’t know how—he was probably looking out for our best interests. Fletcher was picky about his friends.

  “So, where are we going?” Zoe asked in an overly cheerful voice.

  A familiar car lurched to a stop directly in front of us.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here.” West must have seen the same furious look on Fletcher’s face that I did as he stepped from the car.

  “What a great idea!” I agreed, all of a sudden preferring this stranger to what I knew was going to be an irate Fletcher.

  West smirked. “Good luck.”

  “Saidy Perez. Get in the damn car.” Fletcher’s voice was low and menacing, and oddly comforting.

  I didn’t think I’d obey that sexy voice. I turned my back to him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Saidy

  I’m not sure how it happened.

  One minute I was turning to follow West and Zoe, the next I found myself sitting in the back seat of Fletcher’s car watching him walk around to the driver’s side.

  He’d lifted me completely off the ground as though I weighed nothing. My threat of causing bodily harm hadn’t stopped him when he opened the door of his car and set me down in the back seat. He’d slammed the door and pointed at me threateningly.

  I sat there in shock as I watched him climb into the front seat and start the car. Throwing it into reverse, he peeled out of the parking lot. I caught a glimpse of the large biker helping Zoe into her car.

  “We can’t leave Zoe yet!” I told him as I leaned forward over the middle console.

  “Yes, we can.” Fletcher practically barked at me. “West will make sure she gets home all right.”

  “Oh no you don’t. You don’t get to yell at me. You were the one who shoved me into the car!”

  “What were you thinking?” He was still yelling. I really needed to get him a decibel meter.

  “I was thinking I wanted to do something adventurous!”

  Fletcher slammed a palm onto the steering wheel. “Go for a hike next time! It’s not safe for you back there.”

  “But you’ve been there,” I accused.

  “That’s different,” he huffed.

  “How so?” I shot back as I gripped the back of his seat to keep from slamming across the car as he lurched around a corner.

  “I didn’t want to go there!” he said in a raised voice.

  “Then why did you?” I yelled back.

  He clenched his jaw, the muscle on his cheek twitching.

  “Don’t you think it’s strange that you go there enough that that scary biker man knew who you were?” I asked. “He said you were friends!”

  “I’m going to have a stroke,” Fletcher gritted out. “You’re going to give me heart failure before this is all over. It was so much easier to keep you safe before.”

  I leaned forward between the two front seats to look at him. “What do you mean, keep me safe?”

  The tingling in the back of my neck grew. Something wasn’t right.

  “Get buckled,” Fletcher ordered.

  I leaned forward a little farther.

  He slammed on the brakes at a four-way stop, and I launched forward across the car console. He stepped on the gas and turned the car with a sharp jerk; I rolled from the middle console onto the front passenger seat. Somehow my head ended up on the floorboard, one leg was still hanging out in the back seat, and my other leg was hooked around the head rest.

  The car stopped abruptly, and I slid farther under the dash.

  “What is that smell?” I planted my hands on the ground and tried to push myself out.

  Fletcher grabbed my foot that was stuck between the head rest and the seat and pulled it free. Next, he grabbed my waist and tugged me off the floor, setting me upright in the passenger seat.

  His large hand latched around my calf and dragged the back seat leg to the front.

  He didn’t let go.

  “Do you even know what could have happened to you there?” He stepped on the gas, turning down a different road. He flew down the street, definitely not going the prescribed thirty-five miles per hour.

  While I knew exactly what could have happened back there thanks to the crime documentaries Dad liked to watch, I wasn’t ready to admit it to caveman Fletcher.

  “I don’t know—maybe gotten kidnapped by a psychotic ex-boyfriend and dragged off to a quiet dark place?” I gestured to the abandoned dead-end street he’d turned onto.

  “I’m serious, Saidy. You’ve got to stop testing me.” He parked the car at the end of the street, shutting off the lights and turning to me. The moonlight was enough to see his hardened features.

  “Testing you? Testing you?” I tucked my legs under me and leaned up on my knees. “I haven’t tested you a single time in my life. Maybe I should have! Maybe I’ll start right now!”

  “You’ve been testing me ever since you looked at me with those big hazel eyes!”

  “Well, I wish I’d never laid eyes on your big gray ones. I should have known the first day I met you that it wouldn’t work out! Too good looking. Too wrapped up in work. A hero complex.”

  His hands grasped my arms and pulled me close, so that we were pressed against each other forehead to forehead.

  “I never wanted you to regret meeting me. I never wanted you to regret a moment with me, but now there is more going on than just you and me.”

  “Oh, is it that other woman I’ve heard about?”

  “And what woman would that be?” he asked as he leaned back. He still kept a hold on my arms.

  “The one that you were driving around in your car and making out with. The one Zoe—”

  “Was I doing this?” he asked as he leaned in close enough to give me a lingering hug.

  “No! That wasn’t what you were doing.”

  “Then what was I doing? Were you there to see? Or are you still believing everything Zoe tells you? It’s unclear what I was doing with another woman.” He leaned back and looked at me with raised eyebrows. “You’re going to have to show me so I can understand what you’re talking about.”

  He’d thrown down the gauntlet. And I was mad enough to pick it up.

  “You were doing this!” I leaned forward and grasped the sides of his face, pressing my lips against his. He responded instantly. Kissing me back and pulling me across the middle of the car and halfway onto his lap. The car seat arm dug into my ribs, but I didn’t even care.

  I had a point to prove. My hands wandered freely. So did his.

  I was showing him what making out looked like.

  I was showing him what it was like to kiss like I meant it.

  I was proving…ac
tually, I didn’t remember what I was proving anymore. All I knew was I never wanted the kiss to end.

  Gasping at that realization, I pulled back. It felt like I was ripping apart as I pulled away from his touch.

  “That. You were doing that.”

  His hooded eyes raised to meet mine. “Trust me when I say you are the only woman I would do that with.”

  I stared at him, not sure what to say. I wanted to believe him. But Zoe had said she’d seen him…but then again, Zoe wasn’t known for being exceptionally great at telling the truth—and she despised Fletcher, so I wouldn’t put it past her to stretch the truth—or outright lie—when it came to him.

  “Even if you give up on us, I want you to know, I would never betray you like that. You are worth so much more than that,” he whispered.

  The sincerity in his eyes broke through my rage and hurt. Fletcher had been many things, but he wasn’t a cheater or a liar.

  Taking a trembling breath, I nodded. “I believe you, Fletcher. I’m sorry I accused you. I was repeating what someone told me—”

  He squeezed my hand, reassuring me. “I’ve been giving Sullivan’s housekeeper a ride home. She doesn’t have a license, and she’s old enough to be my mother. I didn’t want her walking home alone in the dark.”

  “I should have known. You’ve never given me reason to distrust you in that way.” Fletcher was a natural born protector.

  Fletcher winced. “I hope you can say the same thing a month from now.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Oh, you know how time is. Time and circumstances can change your mind.” He turned the car back on. “Come on, I’ll drive you home, and you can tell me why you went to The Bar tonight.”

  I leaned back in my seat and buckled the belt.

  Now that we’d managed to kiss away the fury, I didn’t feel like holding back from Fletcher. One night of unguarded revelation couldn’t hurt, right? He always seemed to have good insight into people, so he’d probably just listen and let me talk anyway.