by A. J. Pine
Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. You don’t just fall for someone in a single moment of time. A millisecond doesn’t even qualify as a moment, does it?
This was not part of the plan.
Damn it, James Van Der Beek Kingston. What the hell are we supposed to do now?
Chapter Sixteen
Jamie had planned to drive one more hour through Amarillo and on to Adrian, Texas, the true midway point between Chicago and L.A. But they needed gas. And food. With Brynn sleeping the whole way from Tulsa he hadn’t stopped, not until Cadillac Ranch. Now the truck’s gas light was on, and his stomach was growling. He was pretty sure he heard Brynn’s stomach protest as well, but she was quiet in the passenger seat, which, for an awake Brynn, was on the strange side.
“How about we eat, find a gas station, and then get back on the road for one more hour? I have a reservation at a Holiday Inn just outside Adrian.”
Brynn didn’t answer at first, so he pulled into the first restaurant parking lot he saw, the Coyote Bluff Café. He didn’t need any convincing that this small white shack of a restaurant was the right place for him. The green frame of one window was painted with the word Burgers. The other said Beer. Jamie nudged her and said, “Food,” and Brynn snapped into focus from wherever it was she had been.
“Yeah,” she said absently. “Sounds good.”
Brynn squinted at the sign, then looked at him.
“Cash only,” she said, and Jamie groaned as his eyes found what hers had already seen, a sign on the door that confirmed her words.
He put the truck in park anyway and hopped out, slamming the door behind him. He paced a couple of times, muttering to himself as he threw his arms in the air. He would have found an ATM first if he knew burgers and beer could only be obtained with actual bills in his wallet.
His stomach growled again. This had to be a joke. Or maybe some new reality show that followed unsuspecting road-trippers who were out of cash to see if they could MacGyver their way to a free meal. On one of his paces back toward the truck, he saw Brynn had gotten out, too, so he made his way over to her side where she leaned against the passenger door.
“Any cash left from when we filled up in Tulsa?”
Jamie shook his head. “Not enough for both of us to eat.” He pulled a quarter out of his pocket. “Heads I eat. Tails you do.”
She narrowed her eyes, and this at least let him ease into a smile. Whatever had gotten under her skin at Cadillac Ranch seemed forgotten. He’d wanted to ask her about it, but she seemed so lost in thought when he hopped off the roof of the car that he was afraid to disturb her. It was like one of those days in late March when he’d bring her lunch so she could eat while working, always in the zone as it got close to filing Annie’s taxes for Two Stories. When she fixated on something, it was as if Brynn were in a parallel universe, existing on another plane. Physically, she was there. But mentally, she was unreachable. Somehow she would still be able to eat whatever he brought her, even if it involved chopsticks, but other than that, she was aware of one thing only—her spreadsheets and tax programs.
That’s what the ride to town had been like, though Jamie was pretty sure she wasn’t doing taxes in her head. She was back now, and that’s what mattered. He had someone to commiserate with him in his insatiable hunger that would not be filled at the Coyote Bluff Café.
He tossed the coin. “I’ll take heads.”
Brynn pushed off the side of the car, reaching to catch the coin before he did.
“Let’s just get gas and find an ATM first, Mr. Hangry,” she said, but they were both distracted from the task at hand when a crowd of people poured out of the shack and took up residence in the dusty dirt of the parking lot. Jamie blinked and did a double take, not sure how the amount of people that just exited the building before him could have possibly fit inside unless the Coyote Bluff Café had the same properties as a circus clown car.
There were hoots and hollers as the door swung open again, and Jamie and Brynn watched as a woman with long auburn hair and even longer denim-clad legs emerged onto the small wooden step. In addition to her formfitting jeans, a white halter tank top pulled tight across her, well, the only way he could describe her breasts was huge. They were, in fact, probably the biggest tits Jamie had ever seen, and he’d seen his share. But in his experience, breasts that size weren’t usually so…buoyant…in a top that clearly made wearing a bra impossible. Even Jamie knew that.
“For fuck’s sake, James.” Brynn was next to him now, and she knocked her hip into his. The tone of her voice told him the gesture was one of reprimand rather than something playful.
“What?” he whisper-shouted, feeling like they were intruding on whatever the spectacle before them was.
“You know they’re not real, right?”
“How do they do that?” he asked, unable to look away but knowing he should. “I mean, it’s like they’re floating.”
Brynn backhanded him in the gut, and he caught her hand. On instinct he kept hold of it and then, for no explainable reason, threaded his fingers with hers and squeezed. Her hand flexed and then relaxed into his, and he felt that weird shift between them again, though what direction it went he had no idea.
“Y’all ready?” the woman yelled, and that’s when Jamie noticed what else set her apart from the crowd other than her—halter. She was wearing a veil, and in her raised hand was a small bouquet of white roses.
“Are we crashing a wedding?” Brynn asked under her breath.
“I think we are.”
And then the bride turned her back on the crowd and tossed.
Maybe if she’d been a righty, things would have gone differently. Or maybe if Jamie had parked on the other side of the lot, they could have just gotten back in the truck and sneaked away and found a freaking ATM or a restaurant that took debit cards.
But Jamie hadn’t parked on the other side of the lot, and the well-endowed bride was a lefty who tossed the bouquet just kitty-corner enough that it bypassed the three women, who seemed to be in a game of tackle football, and now resided in Brynn’s free hand.
In a flurry of motion the two were whisked inside the café with the momentum of the crowd, the place obviously closed for the wedding party’s exclusive use. They eyed the small buffet of Texas barbeque, and then they eyed each other and grinned.
Jamie grabbed a paper plate and handed it to Brynn. Then he grabbed one for himself.
“Now,” he said. “Now we’re crashing a wedding.”
They still had no cash, but that didn’t matter.
The food was delicious.
…
Angie and Dean were the lucky couple, and they welcomed them to their celebration with open arms, the whole crowd too nice or too liquored up to care when they realized Jamie and Brynn were strangers.
Speaking of liquored up, this wedding clan sure as shit knew how to party. Brynn could hold her own with a few beers. Hell, even with a shot or two of Jack thrown in. But they were in Texas now, and the Coyote Bluff Café had ten kinds of tequila behind the small bar, which meant this wedding party was getting ten kinds of plastered.
Brynn stared at Jamie who shook his head slowly at her, but his grin stood at odds with the gesture. Did he want her to do this shot or no?
She lifted the small glass, and someone at the table shouted, “She’s going for number three!” The bride and groom joined in, clapping as everyone cheered her on.
Was this really her third shot? Because she felt fine. Totally fine. She felt great, actually. She realized now that Jamie’s smile was more of a smirk, challenging her. And she wanted to smack that smile off his face—if smacking meant licking it.
Wait. Did she just think about licking Jamie’s face?
That was enough for her to throw back the potent liquid without another thought. If this was her third shot, it would be enough to wipe out all tendencies to lick or even think about licking the man sitting across from her. When she slammed the glass on the table, ever
yone cheered again, and she searched for her lime. When she tilted her head up, her eyes met Jamie’s.
“Looking for something?” he asked. The rest of the party’s attention had gone back to the bride and groom who were getting ready to cut their cake, and Jamie and Brynn had a rare moment of privacy at a table full of strangers.
“My…” But then she saw his hand, palm up on the table, her lime wedge resting in it. He raised his arm and changed his grip so he was pinching the fruit between his thumb and forefinger, and he reached it toward her mouth.
Her teeth pierced the lime’s flesh, and then she sucked. Jamie’s finger rested on the corner of her mouth, and on the other side, his thumb. She could almost taste his skin if not for the sweet bitterness of the lime. Before he lingered at her lips too long—and really any amount of time was too long—she gripped his wrist and pushed it away as she released his offering from her lips.
“Foggy,” she said, and Jamie’s brow furrowed. “S’foggy in my head,” she explained and hoped he’d be able to translate whatever she was thinking into something that made sense. “You gonna drink that?” she asked, and reached for the full shot sitting on the table in front of him.
With blinding speed he downed the shot himself—completely ignoring the lime.
“You, Sleepy B, have had enough.”
“Jean,” she said.
“Who’s Jean?”
She shook her head. “I’m not Sleepy B, silly.”
Jamie chuckled. “I’m sleepy,” he said, his voice soft and warm, like Brynn could snuggle into it.
“Mmmm…” she said. “I wanna snuggle with your voice.”
Wait. What?
“You’re hammered,” he said, laughing again.
“You’re screwed,” Brynn countered, and then she laughed so hard she snorted. “Do you get it? Hammered and screwed? Now someone just needs to get nailed.”
More snorting ensued as Jamie’s eyes widened. She was hammered. Plastered. Screwed. Nailed. All of it—three sheets to the wind plus a pillowcase and maybe a duvet. She knew because even with her glasses on, Jamie was fuzzy around the edges. She knew because she didn’t normally say things about snuggling with his voice, and she certainly didn’t have a habit of sucking fruit from between his fingers and wanting to devour him in the process.
So this was how it was going to be from here on out? Alcohol working as some sort of truth serum? Well, she was going to do something about that, and by something she apparently meant vomiting out more truth.
“James?” she asked, doing her best to fake composure. Because this was important.
“Sleepy Jean.”
He nodded, seeming proud of his ability to overcome his own tipsiness to call her by the correct nickname.
“I think you should know that, mostly against my will, there were a couple of times in the past two days when I maybe, kind of, probably thought you were sexy.”
Good Lord. She was Mr. freaking Darcy.
“Wait,” she said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Jamie leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Oh crap. While Brynn apparently couldn’t fake composed to save her life, Jamie had just done his best version of measured calm with a tiny dash of smug. He was eating this up.
His eyes raked over her, and his grin stretched wide. But he didn’t say anything, not for several seconds.
“You,” he finally replied as he leaned across the table, his voice deep yet noticeably unsettled, “are the sexiest woman I know.”
She stared at him. Speechless. This was the part where she was supposed to ask how he could say that to her when he was dating someone else. But the tequila wasn’t making her wish for that kind of honesty. Instead she smiled and tried to ignore how shallow her breathing seemed to be. But with each inhale, the oxygen in the restaurant grew thinner.
She grabbed her bouquet and stood up.
“I need some air.”
Brynn’s pushing away from the table did not go unnoticed.
“Y’all leaving us already?” This came from Angie, the bride, who proved to be as sweet as her boobs were huge.
“I think so,” Jamie said, answering for Brynn as he joined her in standing. “But thank you for everything.”
Brynn nodded in agreement with Jamie’s sentiments, and after a flurry of hugs and thank-yous and pats on the back, they were out the door.
The only difference between being in the Coyote Bluff Café and outside of it was that now Brynn was drunk in broad daylight.
“Maybe we should stay here tonight?” Her statement came out as a question, the three shots of tequila—and whatever else came before that—giving her the liquid courage she had hoped for. Because finding Jamie sexy wasn’t the only thought she needed to get off her chest. She had to tell Jamie about her Cadillac Ranch epiphany.
But even in her state she couldn’t help thinking how shitty it would be to tell a guy who was in a good relationship, one that seemed to make him happy, that you might be in love with him.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Was she in love with him? That was the epiphany—her feelings. Now wasn’t the time to figure out what she felt. Not when she ran the risk of saying it out loud.
“Saying what out loud?” Jamie asked, and Brynn wanted to strangle her internal monologue for going all external on her.
She started walking down the sidewalk, swaying as she passed a small strip of retail shops. Jamie kept pace with her.
“I am hammered,” she finally said.
Jamie slung his arm around her shoulder, steadying her into his side.
“I’m not in any condition to drive. That’s for sure,” he said.
Oh, how she wanted to burrow into him and take in his scent while she had him this close. But wanting to smell him and lick him and tell him things that he probably didn’t want to hear—this was not part of the plan. And Brynn liked plans, especially when everything went according to them.
But everything she thought about this week had just gone topsy-turvy, and only part of that was because of the tequila.
“We’ll lose our reservation,” Jamie said. “And they might charge me for the night anyway because of the online discount code I used. It was kind of an all or nothing type deal.” They were supposed to stay in Adrian, Texas, tonight, a town about an hour west and the true midpoint of Route 66. But waiting out their inebriation would mean getting on the road after dark.
“You’re right,” Brynn blurted. “It’s a dumb idea. We’ll just go when you’re good to drive. I just—I don’t know—I kinda like this place is all.”
And then he dropped his arm from her shoulder and did that thing again where he linked his fingers with hers. They’d done it before, hundreds of times, but it all felt different today, and she found herself trying to read something into a gesture that had always been second nature for them.
“I kinda like this place, too,” he said.
That’s when the first raindrop pelted Brynn in the back of the head. At least that’s what she thought it was, but with one hand in Jamie’s and the other gripping what he was calling her lucky bouquet, she couldn’t check to see if it was water or something worse, like some sort of karmic bird making her pay for the free barbeque and tequila. But then Jamie’s free hand flew to the back of his neck where he wiped away what was clearly a drop of water.
And then it was pouring, the truck that now neither of them could drive was in one direction while they ran in another, seeking shelter in the first place they could find. After a couple of blocks, someone beckoned to them from the screen door of a house, and neither questioned the other as they sped up the sidewalk and under the roof of the covered porch.
“Look at you kids,” an older man said from inside the opened door. “You’re soaked. Come in and dry off, at least until the storm passes.”
They didn’t argue. Despite the warm desert air, the quick burst of rain had quickly chilled her to the bone, and when they got inside, a plump woman with chin-length gray h
air approached her with an afghan and draped it over Brynn’s shoulders. Then the woman’s hand went to her chest as she inhaled, swelling with a smile.
“Frank, look. They’re newlyweds. No one’s booked the cottage for tonight…”
Frank, tall and lanky but for his paunch of a belly, scratched the back of his salt and peppered head and then clapped his hands together as if just then realizing what his wife had said.
“The cottage! Of course, Dora.” Frank turned back to the soaked and hammered Brynn and Jamie. “Let it be our wedding gift to you two.”
Brynn’s brows pulled together. She was still shivering, which made it harder for her to focus on the conversation. Okay, the alcohol might have had something to do with her focus as well. When she looked at Jamie, his hair dark with rainwater and his black T-shirt plastered to his form, he shrugged and half whispered, “Lucky bouquet.”
Oh my God. This was no karmic bird shitting on her head. It was a karmic joke, this lovely couple who seemed to be the proprietors of a B&B were offering them a room as a wedding gift. For their wedding. Because obviously, a girl in a white shirt and jeans holding a bouquet in one hand while her other was linked with the man’s next to her must be a bride.
“What do you think, sweetie?” Jamie asked, and a feeling of sheer terror shot through her. He was playing along.
“I…” Her mouth hung open. “We had that reservation in Adrian,” she started, and Dora tsked before waving the idea away.
“Y’all are not driving to Adrian in this.” She gestured outside. “We don’t get much rain around here, but when the sky decides to open up, she gives us everything she’s got.”
Brynn couldn’t argue there. She’d never expect Jamie to drive in this even if he did sober up, and a free night in Amarillo would make up for the charge Jamie would most likely incur for canceling his reservation so late. Brynn rationalized that they wouldn’t be taking advantage of this nice couple since karma would win out in the way of them still paying for a room, even if it wasn’t the one they were staying in.