The Way He Looks at Me [What Are Friends For 4] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Rita Sawyer

  “Hey, can’t you ask Slade and Gage to dig around a little?” Karen asked. “Hell, since you guys have all the hot sex, we might as well get some use out of them.”

  Jillian laughed for the first time that night, and Karen got the feeling they just averted a major crisis. She turned to look at Sadie. That was going to be a little more difficult.

  “You agreed to the bet, and you’re not a quitter. If you’re too swamped at work, we’ll find you a guy.” It was a reasonable offer.

  “Whoa, back that train of thought up to the station and get off. Okay, I will make an effort to find a guy. We both will.” Sadie tugged Jillian to her side. “But I’m with Jillian, we’re in it just for the sex and chocolate.”

  “Chocolate?” Amy asked, while the rest of them just stood there.

  “Any guy worth getting in my pants better realize I’m worth chocolate.” They all laughed this time, and Lainey bumped Karen’s shoulder with hers.

  The rest of the night was spent eating cookies and mini-cupcakes, which meant that she was going to have to step up her workouts this week to keep them from adding to the width of her hips and ass. They gave Lainey their opinions on which flavors they liked best. By the time Karen got home around nine thirty, she was still experiencing a pretty stellar sugar rush, which wasn’t completely offset by her slight stomachache. The quiet house made her wish she had taken Lainey and Sadie up on their invite to a late movie. A little bored and pretty wired, she started cleaning her house, which didn’t take very long, since she was usually a neat person. She packed a bag to take to Blue’s, then unpacked and repacked it three times before chucking it next to the front door.

  With nothing left to do, she got ready for bed, but as she lay there with some game show on the TV and a book in her hands, she kept thinking about what Jillian and Sadie had said. She couldn’t help wondering if she was making a huge mistake. Blue was a great guy any woman would be lucky to catch. Though she had to admit, when they’d started it, she’d thought Blue would be one of those guys who never got serious. What if instead he turned out to be the type that wanted to settle down?

  He was really close to his family. Sweet, protective, and so fun he made her smile without even trying. He’d been the one to move them from dating to an actual couple. So why was she freaking out now? Because she’d never once considered the risk Blue could be to her heart until her friends forced her to see it. She’d worried more about what dating him, or any other guy, could do to her reputation than if she’d even fall in love. Now, thanks to Sadie and Jillian, it was all she could think about. As she drifted off to sleep, the only firm conclusion she came up with was that she had fallen in love while she wasn’t looking. But was it enough?

  * * * *

  Blue tossed his sneakers into the closet and closed the door. He looked around, pleased with the little touches he’d added hoping to sweeten Karen’s time there. The flowers on the coffee table and the bookshelf weren’t something he’d normally go with, but they did give the place a girly touch. He finally put the little square pillows his sisters bought for his couch on it, too. Karen had been to his house plenty of times, so he no idea why he was primping. He just wanted everything to be nice for her.

  “Am I a sap or what?” He laid across the couch, his body stretching from end to end, and turned on the TV.

  He flicked through the channels, trying not to focus on the fact that she was about a half hour late. It wasn’t like they had the weekend planned minute by minute. They were just gonna hang out. His plan was to keep it casual and show her nothing had changed other than the fact he would now introduce her as his girlfriend. His plan was going to go to hell in bits and pieces if he didn’t get a grip.

  Momentarily, Blue’s attention was snagged by a bass fishing competition on one of the sports channels. His finger hovered over the button, ready to flick to something new. Blue wasn’t very big on fishing. Sure, he’d gone with his buddies when he had time, but never had he experienced anything like this. The boats were outstanding machines and those were some seriously big fish they were pulling out of that lake.

  He lost interest and pressed the channel-up button a couple times until he found an old Elvis movie. Nothing better to do, he watched for a few minutes until he heard the bell for the door go off. Blue almost tripped over the coffee table in his rush to get to the stairs. He slowed a bit, not wanting to slip and break his neck, which would totally ruin their weekend. When he opened the door, he found Karen standing on the steps with her back to him.

  She turned around, and he noticed right away something was off. “Hey, you okay?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She nodded and let him take the bag from her fingers. “Just crazy weekend traffic.”

  He tugged her close, and she automatically tipped her face up for his brief kiss. “Wipe it from your mind. The next thirty-six hours or so, there’s no worries.”

  Blue was a man of his word. After stowing her bag in his bedroom, they went for a walk through town. He introduced her to a few friends of his. They had lunch at a nice little café. Blue took her shopping at a strip of antique and little eclectic shops his sisters liked to frequent. Karen seemed to have forgotten whatever had been bothering her when she first arrived. He didn’t believe for a minute it had been traffic that had her upset. Instead of pushing Karen to open up and tell him what was going on—he hoped she’d do it on her own when she was ready—he tried to distract her. Still, every once in a while when she thought he wasn’t looking, he’d catch her frowning, or worse, looking almost lost.

  He leaned against his kitchen counter and watched as she chopped veggies for the dinner she was making him. They chatted about her friends, his family. They even talked about her family in a lot more detail than she normally gave him. They talked about everything, but what was eating at her.

  Blue came up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist. “Should I go set up the movie you brought, so when we’re done eating, it’ll be ready?”

  Karen tilted her head to the side, giving him better access to her neck, where he was currently kissing. “Keep this up, and you’ll be going to bed with an empty belly.”

  “Punishment for pleasure. You make it hard, you know.” Blue pressed his hips forward to prove his point. “How long is it going to take to cook this?”

  “About twenty minutes. Why don’t you go check on things downstairs, and it’ll be ready when you get back?” Blue figured she wanted him out of her hair for a little while.

  “Okay, but just remember, good boys that finish all their dinner get dessert.” She laughed and gave her head a shake, laying the knife on the counter.

  Karen spun around and grabbed his jeans by the belt loops and brought him flush against her. “Tempting me into dessert before dinner could be dangerous. Now go on and see your sisters.”

  Blue laughed as he left the apartment. He entered the bar, not surprised to find it full and the patrons happy as clams with Debbie and Tanya running things. Some guys called out his name and Blue stopped to make some small talk. He checked to see if the girls needed anything. As he expected, they said no. With his mind at ease, he took the stairs to his place two at a time.

  Karen had a little feast set up for them on the coffee table. She was sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch. Blue smiled and joined her. He looked down at the vegetable-and-rice stir-fry that looked like what he would have gotten served in some fancy restaurant.

  “Everything okay down there?” She handed him a fork, and they both dug in.

  “Mmm…this is great. Yeah, they aren’t even missing me.” He laughed, knowing he wouldn’t have believed it just a few weeks ago.

  While they ate, Blue told her a couple of really bad jokes, and she laughed. Though he probably could have eaten another bowl of food, he hinted that he was ready for dessert. Karen wasn’t letting him off that easily. She wanted to watch her movie first. He cleaned their mess while she settled on the couch. Blue hit the lights as he came back, casting t
he room in darkness. He sat down and pulled her against his side while she cuddled right up to him and hit the start button.

  Blue followed along with the tale as well as he possibly could with Karen running her fingers back and forth across his stomach. It was like she was stroking a dangerous beast and didn’t know it, even though she probably did and just enjoyed teasing him. The heroine in the peculiar story wanted to find her true love, but everywhere she looked she found something else. She encountered sex, pain, romance, lies, passion, and surprising to her, laughter. Her journey was fraught with strife, which Blue thought was mostly of her own making. Karen seemed entranced, but every so often, she’d look up at him and smile.

  Finally, Blue had had enough. The next time she looked up, he caught her chin in his hand and lowered his mouth to hers. She moaned and crawled onto his lap. Blue had a damn good idea where this was headed, and thankfully, he was prepared, but this time he was going to take things slow. He curled her against his chest, and together they settled back to watch the rest of the movie, telling himself he had all night to seduce her.

  Chapter Eight

  Blue reached out and wrapped his arm around Karen to pull her closer and groaned. Damn pillows, he thought, tossing them aside. He reached out a little farther and came up with nothing but the cold, empty sheet. It wasn’t easy to force his eyes open, but he managed as he sat up and looked around. Karen was standing by the door with her back to him. She had a dark pair of jeans on that hugged her hips and ass, matched with some kind of long, loose T-shirt. Her hair was still a sexy, rumpled mess. She closed her hand around the doorknob, and he noticed the travel bag that hung from her other hand.

  “Hey. Where you going?” He was still a little groggy, but the red numbers on his alarm clock told him it was only seven twenty-one.

  Too damn early to be up on a Sunday morning. It was the one day he normally slept in until around nine. He’d been looking forward to waking up next to her and just lying there without either of them having to take off. She turned around, and Blue knew from the way she didn’t meet his gaze head-on that something was wrong. He climbed from the bed, wrapping the sheet around his hips and taking it with him.

  “Were you leaving?”

  Blue couldn’t help but watch Karen’s breasts rise and fall as she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Um…yeah, I need to go. I’ll call you later.”

  “Wait a minute. You told me last night you cleared your entire day just to spend it with me. What changed? Is something wrong? Did I do something wrong?”

  “No. I did clear the day. It’s just, the more I thought about it, I decided I really should go home and get caught up on my lesson plans.”

  “Does this have anything to do with what was bothering you yesterday?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You’re too smart to play dumb.” And it pissed him off that she would even try. “Something is bothering you, whatever it is, we can talk about it.”

  “Right now, you are bothering me.”

  “Well, as your boyfriend, I think I have the right to know.”

  “I don’t. You can ask and think you know, but if I say that nothing’s wrong, then that’s the end of it.”

  “Hey, let’s take it down a bit.” He sat on the couch, giving her plenty of space.

  “It wasn’t up until you pushed it. I think it’s a good idea for me to leave.”

  “Right, because that’s what you were going to do anyway. I didn’t even garner a good-bye.”

  “I left you a note.” She waved her hand toward the kitchen.

  He glanced over, and sure enough there was an envelope on the counter with his name on it, which made him wonder if she’d planned this in advance. “When did you write that?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “Did you ever plan on spending the weekend? Or did you come here planning to end things?”

  “Truthfully, I wasn’t sure...”

  “Because we are so different? Or do you have some other lame excuse. Oh, that’s right, you’re worried about your reputation.”

  “Blue, you’re a—”

  “Bartender. What would people think if they knew your boyfriend was a lowly bartender? I’m sorry if I embarrass you, but you should have thought about that before you climbed into my bed.” Blue felt like he’d been hit by lightning. “That’s it. I was never supposed to be more than a fling.”

  “Blue, I never—”

  He couldn’t stand to hear her say it. “You never intended to make me fall in love with you while you were just playing games. Too bad, because you did. You want to leave, then go. I’m not going to beg you to stay. If you’re done with your taste of what it’s like to be with a guy from the other side of the tracks, I hope you enjoyed yourself, but please don’t come back. Because even though you don’t have more respect for me than that, I do. I’m worth more than a fling.”

  Karen didn’t say anything. Not that it would have mattered, because he wouldn’t have listened. She opened the door and walked out of his life just as abruptly as she’d entered it. Blue could have told her how wrong she was. Given time, he probably would have. He should’ve showed her a bank statement to prove he had the money to live it up in high style if he wanted to. But that just wasn’t who Blue was. And until that very moment, he never would have thought it was who she was either. It hurt that she didn’t shed a tear or even put up much of a fight.

  To know that he was the one that wanted to cry just made it all worse. Thankfully, he was so stubborn that he refused to shed a tear for a woman who obviously had been leading him on from the start. She wormed her way into his heart only to crush it in her fist without a second thought. Damn it, how could he have been so fucking blind and stupid to not see what she was doing? Somewhere along the line, he’d missed some signs or something.

  He walked over to the counter and lifted the letter in his hands. Fuck her! He ripped it into tiny pieces and dropped them on the counter. He didn’t want to hear anything she had to say. They were over, because that’s what she wanted.

  * * * *

  Karen ran down the steps and didn’t stop until she reached her car. She could barely see through her tears. They rolled down her cheeks freely now. She’d held them back until she got out the door. Blue had been wrong about the way she thought of him, but he was right in some ways, too, which made it worse. She yanked the door open and threw her bag in. It had turned out terrible, and it was all her fault.

  She’d never really thought the weekend through, and that’s why she’d decided to leave. If he’d stopped talking long enough to let her respond, she might have been able to explain things. She knew she was lying to herself. She’d been ready to leave the second she woke up, and his anger gave her the last little push she needed to get out the door.

  The problem was the minute the door closed behind her, she knew she made a mistake, but there was no going back now. Not after he’d tossed those nasty accusations at her. The hardest thing to hear had been that he loved her. Yet at the same time, he obviously thought she was shallow enough to judge him by his profession. He could have been a brain surgeon, and she still would have panicked. Because that’s what it had been, pure and simple panic. She could list dozens of reasons why, but none of them would have made any sense to him.

  Karen pulled over and did the only thing she could now that she’d ruined everything. She slid her phone from her bag and called Amy.

  “Don’t tell me you broke down.” Amy’s laughter only made her tears fall harder.

  “Nope.” She let out a shuddered sigh.

  “Are you crying? Did you get in an accident? Are you okay?” Amy asked in rapid-fire fashion.

  “Yes. No. And definitely not.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Parked. I’m going home. Can you meet me there?”

  “We’ll be there. Drive carefully.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  Karen knew if anyone could f
igure out why she’d just sabotaged the best thing she had going for her, it would be her friends. Sunday traffic was practically nil, and she made it home a lot quicker than she expected. Everyone’s cars were parked in line outside her house. She pulled into the driveway, and the front door flew open. Her friends descended on her, looking ready to shoot someone if necessary.

  “I fucked it all up,” she cried, and was instantly enveloped in a group hug.

  They went inside, and she was ushered to the couch, where a cup of hot tea was pressed into her hands. She took a sip and gagged at the unexpected strong alcohol content. Needing something to dull the ache, she took another sip. Between gulps, she managed to tell them everything that had happened. Her panicked escape, his anger-filled accusations. And how her heart felt like it was shattered into a million pieces.

  “This is all my fault,” Sadie and Jillian said at the same time.

  Karen shook her head. “I did this to myself. Yeah, Blue was harsh and mean, but he was hurt. Really hurt.”

  “Whoa!” Amy yelped. “I don’t care what you did, he should have known better than to judge you so harshly, especially since he claims to love you.”

  “Amy, he caught her trying to sneak out. If a guy did that to you, how would you feel?” Lainey, as usual, was the voice of reason. “I get it, but I’d still like to go kick his ass.”

  “I think the best course of action is to sit back and do nothing.” Dianne took Karen’s cup and refilled it. “You were both upset. You did and said stupid things. Give him time, and I bet he comes crawling on his knees within three days, tops. If he doesn’t, you can decide if it’s worth you calling him.”

  “She’s right. Given the time to cool down, you’ll both probably see reason.” Jillian pulled Karen into a hug and rubbed her back and just let her cry.