Tonight, for the first time in years, I actually looked pretty.
Turning the music down, I snuck into the back room and had a quick smoke, marveling at how different my nails looked painted. Two minutes before seven, the doorbell rang, so I snubbed out the cigarette in the coffee can and darted through the house, hoping I still looked okay.
When I opened the door, I drank Justin in, wondering to myself when my feelings for him had deepened so drastically. Seeing me, he tilted his head to one side. “Damn, Rascal. What the hell did you do?” I relished the pleased expression on his face as his eyes swept down to my shoes and then back up to my face, the grin embedded in his lips and cheeks.
“Thanks a lot. You look good, too.”
Delicious, even. His bangs hung just over his eyebrows at a length that I disliked on most men, but Justin pulled it off. Tonight, he had a little stubble that just made him look almost mysterious and rugged. He wore a blue button-up long-sleeved shirt, black jeans, and black cowboy boots. The man looked good enough to eat—but I wasn’t going to say it.
“Damn, woman, if you want to actually go out, you shouldn’t look this good. I actually don’t want to take you anywhere.”
Smiling, I grabbed the little purse I’d thrown my necessities in and then shut off the music. “I’m ready if you are.”
As I started to walk through the doorway, Justin grabbed me around the waist and kissed me with so much passion, parts of my body started to respond. Not yet.
“Guess we won’t be eating baby back ribs.”
As I locked the door, I asked, “Why? Is that what you had in mind?”
He laughed. “Nah. I’m giving you shit.”
“So where are we going then?”
“You’ll just have to wait and find out, Rascal.” The smile on my face came easily as I wound my hand in his while we walked toward his truck—and I forced myself to not laugh when he opened the door for me. I didn’t know the last time a man had done that, and it was a gesture I neither wanted nor needed. Besides, it wasn’t Justin’s thing—so what was going on here? I sat quietly while Justin walked around and got in the driver’s seat. “I want you to just relax tonight. Okay?”
“All right.” Now I felt a little nervous. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Have I ever minded?”
“No.” But that didn’t mean I was going to start being an inconsiderate jerk. After rolling the window down a little, I took the cigarettes out of that tiny purse and lit one. The cool evening air breezed through the window, brushing my cheek as Justin put the truck in gear and started driving down the street. I loved this time of year. The stifling heat of the summer had eased back to a tolerable warmth, and the evenings were cool—but it hadn’t turned cold enough yet to need a jacket in the evening, so I didn’t have to lug one around. It was a free time of year when I could enjoy being outside without the heat or mosquitoes but also without being wrapped in a heavy coat and still feeling cold. The weather was perfect.
Who was I kidding? I wasn’t able to get outside often enough to even worry about it. Still…I loved the way the air felt at this precise moment.
“Gimme one, wouldja?” Justin rarely smoked. Unlike me, he wasn’t addicted, but he liked having one on occasion. I took one out of my pack, sliding it between his lips. God, the way he smiled at me with that stick between his lips curled my toes. Then I turned the wheel, making a flame jump out of the lighter, and he began sucking on the cigarette as he lifted his left hand up and held it. “I might have to take you out more often, you keep spoilin’ me like that.”
Spoiling him? He had a pretty loose definition of the word. I was the one feeling spoiled this evening.
Grinning, I leaned back, letting my head rest. Years ago, when trucks used to have one long seat, I could have scooted up super close to Justin, nestling my hand between his legs—not actually doing anything, but suggesting the possibility. In his newer truck, though, we both sat in bucket-type seats with a multi-purpose storage unit fitted in between us. Practical but not much fun.
As Justin drove through town, neither of us said much. After a while, as he smashed the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray, he asked, “You like seafood, don’t ya?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” Then he pulled the truck to the right, turning into the parking lot of a place called Jack’s, one of the newer restaurants in town, a place known for its fresh seafood and high prices. Until now, I hadn’t had the opportunity to eat there.
I really wanted to ask Justin if he could afford it, but I knew that would probably ruin his fun. Obviously, he’d pondered it, deciding he could. As he parked the truck, I put out my cigarette and opened the door, stepping out as he approached her on the other side. He cocked his head, grinning, and I knew why. It was because I hadn’t let him get the door for me again. When he took my hand, I relished the sensation as we walked toward the entrance.
The whole evening felt surreal. Holding hands—something that felt far more intimate than maybe it should have—emphasized how stupid I’d been, allowing my feelings for this man to intensify. I hoped it didn’t show on my face as he opened the door for me, resting a hand on the small of my back as we moved into the foyer of the restaurant. It was then that I caught a whiff of him—not of heavy cologne, but a clean, fresh, deodorant soap scent mingled with the underlying smell of his skin.
My toes curled again.
Jesus. I’d never met a man who smelled quite like Justin, and his scent drove me absolutely wild.
A young woman at a podium asked how many were in our party.
“We have a reservation.”
“Name?” the woman asked.
“Anderson.”
“All right. Just a moment.” While we waited, Justin turned to me, flashing a smile that made me weak in the knees as the woman gathered up two menus. “This way, please.” We followed her to a small table at the back of the restaurant and, as I sat down, Justin pushed my chair in. “Your waiter will be with you shortly.”
Despite the butterflies in my belly, I focused on breathing calmly and perusing the menu. Justin looked up from his and said, “Get whatever you want.”
While he wasn’t as poor as I was, I knew cash wasn’t an easy commodity—and I appreciated the gesture, but I wanted to let him off the hook. “You sure? There are—”
“Yes.” Through a grin, he also scowled. “Don’t be a pain in the ass.”
“Fine. What are you getting?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The problem was everything looked good. After looking through the menu twice, I settled on the crab and shrimp combo. When the waiter came to our table and Justin ordered a steak and seafood combination platter, I didn’t feel so bad about mine. Then, when the waiter asked what we wanted to drink, I ordered iced tea.
Reaching across the table, Justin flipped my menu over and tapped his finger on it. “No, I don’t think so.” The page was full of various alcoholic beverages. “I’ll have a beer,” he told the waiter, scrutinizing the page. “How about a Newcastle?”
“Yes, sir. And you?”
I had no fucking idea. I continued looking over the list of drinks before deciding. “Okay. I’ll have a beer, too. But can I also have a glass of water?” With hardly another word, the waiter nodded and smiled, scooping up our menus and hustling off.
Justin winked. “That’s more like it.”
As if we were on a real first date, the two of us made small talk, even noting the décor in the restaurant. Soon, though, the waiter brought drinks and salads and we settled into the food. Justin asked, “So how’s Sarah doing?”
“Same old thing. But, you know, she actually got a little angry today.”
“What happened?”
“Well, when we were driving to my parents’ house, Devon was asking me why Mike and I weren’t married anymore. I gave him the usual answer, that we didn’t love each other anymore, just couldn’t be together, blah, blah, blah. And, all of a sudden, Sarah just
said, out of the blue, that he was a mean person.”
“No shit.”
“Yeah. It was weird.”
“So do you think her problem is with him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe now she’s starting to realize what living with him was like. I was going to have her stay with him last night—did I tell you this already?”
“No.”
“Well, Noreen couldn’t watch the kids last night, and neither could my parents. So I called Mike, and after being a total asshole about it, he agreed to watch Sarah when he had Devon. But when I told her what I’d planned, she totally freaked out and refused to go. So I wound up taking her with me to work last night.”
Justin brought the bottle of beer to his lips. “How’d that go?”
“It was okay. She was good. But Kathy told me to ‘not make it a habit’.”
“Does she know what all’s going on?”
“Some.” I speared a cucumber slice with my fork. “But let’s not talk about that.”
“Fair enough.” After setting his beer down, Justin pushed aside his almost-empty salad plate. “There was another reason why I wanted to take you out tonight.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. To celebrate.”
“What are we celebrating?”
“I found out for sure that I’ll be graduating in December. And the shop where I’ve been working, my boss told me that when I’m out of school, he’ll hire me full time and double my pay.”
“Wow. That’s great.”
“No kidding. Far cry from what I was doing two years ago.”
“What were you doing two years ago, Justin? What were you doing before we met?”
As if considering my question, he smiled, sipping once more from his beer before answering. “I was already taking classes when you started at WCC. After I moved here, I was mostly washing dishes, cooking, that kind of shit. I didn’t want to do that anymore.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“I’ve always tinkered with cars, so after I went to the Workforce Center and they told me I should take some classes, I did. I worried at first, ‘cause I’m not a school guy, but I haven’t regretted it.” Tipping the neck of his bottle toward me, he said, “Especially when I made friends with a girl who knows her way around an essay.”
I laughed. “I just cleaned up a little of your punctuation. It’s not like I wrote your papers.”
“Yeah, but I appreciated all of your help.”
It was a fair trade, especially since Justin had helped me with that stupid fucking math class I’d had to take. “I was happy to do it. Anyway, congrats.”
“Thanks. I wanted to share the good news with my best friend.”
I grinned at him and then preoccupied myself with the leaves of salad on my plate as I pondered his words. I’d considered Justin a close friend, too—but did he really consider me his best friend? Of all his other buddies, all the people he spent time with? Had I not been falling hard for this man, I would have felt honored.
And I had to let that shit go. Just because Justin and I had clicked from the start didn’t mean he belonged to me.
“Do you really feel that way? That I’m your best friend?”
“Would I ever shine you on?”
“No. I guess not. And thanks for sharing your news with me.” Especially since it seemed like I was always the downer in our relationship. Now, knowing tonight was his night, I was going to let him lead the remainder of our date.
He spent the rest of the meal telling me his plans for the future. Eventually he wanted to open his own shop, and I was amazed at the business plans already in his head. In a few years, he planned to go back to school and take some business courses so he’d understand how to run the paperwork side, but he figured five years would be plenty of time to earn a good reputation as a trustworthy, respectable mechanic, save enough money to start his own business, and get an MBA.
How had I never seen the ambition in this man before? It made him sexier. And as I listened to him tell me his plans, his eyes aflame with excitement, I drank in every detail, because I never grew tired of him.
When we were getting ready to leave the restaurant, I caught the waiter eyeing my bare legs—and then I caught Justin’s almost possessive expression. If I hadn’t been glad I’d accepted his invitation before, I was now. Even if I went home at this point, I’d be able to say I’d had a lovely evening.
Little did I know, my night was just getting started.
Chapter Ten
My head was floaty and I couldn’t stop giggling as I nursed my third and probably last margarita of the evening. I wasn’t sure when, but at some point the alcohol had not only helped me relax, it was moving me from feeling chilled out into drunkenness. I was shouting to be heard over the music and my teeth were starting to have that weird numb feeling they got when I’d had too much to drink. A nice side effect, though, was that my shoulders and neck weren’t tense.
I was feeling goooood.
“Hey, baby doll. You promised me a dance. Let’s go.” Lady Gaga’s voice was filling up the cavernous space as Justin eased me off the stool.
We’d been at the bar for a while. Justin had been talking with the bartender—a woman with large breasts barely held back by her strained white tank top, and I was pretty sure the woman wasn’t even wearing a bra—not that it was any of my business. And they were so fucking perfect—so round, so perky—that I comforted myself by believing they were probably fake. If they helped her get more tips, could she use the augmentation surgery as a tax deduction?
Feeling annoyed when Justin started shooting the shit with her, I turned my head to start a conversation with the man on my other side. He appeared to be a college student, but the traditional type, meaning he was not only younger than me but even younger than Justin—by quite a bit. If he was barely a day over twenty-one, I wouldn’t be surprised—but I didn’t mind, either. He was cute, and talking to him beat listening to Justin’s conversation about the football season with the buxom woman serving our drinks a bit too attentively.
The young man—Josh?—started getting friendlier. The two buddies he’d arrived with had gone elsewhere and, thanks to my background in tending bar, I knew the right questions to ask and the correct responses to give a man—one of any age—to boost his ego, make him feel more manly, and I must have been doing quite well, even in my inebriated state. It wasn’t long before he got closer, casually draping his arm across the back of the stool before bringing his lips close to my ear.
That was when Justin stepped in, reminding me we’d come here to dance. I promised Josh or whatever his name was that I’d be back.
As we made our way to the dance floor, I heard a voice. “Justin Anderson, is that you?”
When he turned, so did I, as a pretty brown-haired woman approached us. “Nicki Sosebee. How the hell are ya?”
“I’m great!”
“This is my friend, Randi Miller.”
“Nice to meet you. I didn’t think this club was gonna make it in Winchester, but every time I come here, it’s packed.”
Feeling like a comedienne, I said, “Well, it’s either here or Walmart, right?”
At least she justified my dumb joke with a laugh. “If you guys stick around, I’m sure I’ll see you later.”
I told her it was nice to meet her, but, as Justin finished leading me to the middle of the floor, jealousy seethed in my gut. First the bartender and then that Nicki girl. What the hell? I had always known Justin was a player, but I didn’t need it in my face all the fucking time. Especially when the night was supposed to be all about me.
God, I’d had way too much to drink.
Pulling me close, Justin asked, “By the way, what the fuck was that back at the bar?”
“What was what?”
“That kid you were hitting on.”
“I was not. I wasn’t hitting on him. Flirting, maybe.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, why don’t you tell
me about Betty Boobs the bartender, and then we’ll call it even.”
He chuckled. “Touché.”
As we started swaying, I was able to better sense the effects of the alcohol—but at least I felt loose and free. The music switched to something slower and Justin pulled me closer. As we circled around, I caught Josh staring in our direction, but I hoped in the low light on the dance floor that Justin hadn’t noticed. I was feeling now like maybe I’d pushed it too far in trying to make him jealous. Suddenly, he held me even tighter as one of his hands moved from my back to my ass. Leaning over, he whispered in my ear. “What say we get outta here, Rascal?”
“Taking me home so early?”
“Taking you to my place. And the sooner, the better.”
I hoped he couldn’t see the surprise in my eyes. I’d never been inside his apartment. I knew where he lived and had been outside, but I’d never gone in. While part of me felt a little thrill at the prospect, I reminded myself that it wasn’t a big deal. Inviting me there meant nothing.
Once more, he kissed me, sending any residual thoughts I might have entertained about the college kid into the ether—and then we went straight from the dance floor to the parking lot outside. Now, fueled by alcohol and the sensation of Justin’s lips that had been on mine moments earlier, I felt a desperation, almost like this would be our first time. When we got to the truck and he put it in gear, I didn’t buckle my seatbelt. Instead, I folded my knees, sitting with my legs underneath me, and then I leaned over, my knees pressing into the hard storage unit between our seats, so I could kiss Justin’s neck.
“Hey, Rascal, I gotta drive here.”
“I know,” I whispered in his ear. Resting my left arm behind him, draped across the back of the seat, I placed my other hand on his knee. “You can drive, stud. I’m not stopping you.”
Love and Sorrow (Small Town Secrets Book 5) Page 9