by Claire Adams
Keeping a discreet eye on her, I noticed little things about her that I hadn’t had the chance to memorize before. Her bangs were overly long and hung over her eyes just a little, enough to make her brush them away every so often. Her lips formed a thin line while she listened to her friend, and she’d suck them into her mouth when she was clearly trying to physically stop herself from saying something, and her eyes popped wide open in disbelief when the friend said something she didn’t agree with.
She had to have the most expressive face I’d ever come across, which made me wonder why her friend would keep saying whatever it was she was saying. If it was that clear to me that Blondie was getting more and more upset, surely her friend could see it, too.
Apparently, she didn’t, because she kept going for another couple of minutes before glancing down at her clutch and turning to walk in the direction of the bathrooms. She hadn’t made it halfway there before Blondie pulled her phone out of her own clutch, rolled her eyes, and started what appeared to be a rapid-fire, one-sided argument with someone—probably the douchebag boyfriend.
Then she hung up, practically threw her phone down on the bar, and downed the last half of what I assumed was her cocktail. Perfect. I would leave her to stew for a few minutes, then when she was good and pissed at him, I would swing in for the kill.
Easy pickings. His loss would be my gain, no doubt about it.
Leaving my martini half-drunk on the bar, I headed towards the bathroom myself. It wouldn’t do to have nature calling once I finally moved in on her, it was best to be prepared. I elbowed my way through the crowd, finally reaching the darkened hallway that led to the bathrooms.
It was short and narrow, with a sign at the end that read, “Guys to the left, ‘cause women are always right.”
There were a few people milling about, men leaning against the wall probably waiting for their women to finish up and a few girls huddled, talking quietly among themselves.
Almost at the end of the hallway, Blondie’s brunette friend was pressed to the wall, her phone stuck to her ear, and her head bent slightly forward as she spoke in a low, urgent tone. Her hair formed a curtain around her face from being bent over, but I still caught a snippet of her conversation when I passed her.
“Damnit, Scott. How much money? When?”
She jumped a little when he answered, a loud hiccup escaping. She listened to whatever this Scott person was saying, then replied just before I pushed through the glass doors to the men’s room.
“I don’t know, Scott. How did this happen?”
That was the last of the conversation that I heard after the doors fell closed behind me. I didn’t know who Scott was, probably the friend’s boyfriend, but I was sure glad that I wasn’t him. From the sounds of things, he was in serious financial shit.
What was it with these two women? The brunette had nothing on Blondie as far as I was concerned, but she was decent-looking in her own right. Yet Blondie’s boyfriend was a druggie, and this one’s boyfriend had money worries. If the guys were as close as their girls, it was likely that his money troubles would be drug-related too.
I couldn’t be certain if Blondie knew about her boyfriend’s problem, but the friend clearly knew to some extent of her own anyway. Why were they sticking with these losers?
Be that as it may, there were two kinds of problems in the world, and their choices in their romantic relationships were not the kind that had anything to do with me. Blondie’s sexual relationships, or the one I was hoping she was about to embark on with me, were the only thing I cared about.
When I was done in the bathroom, I washed my hands and headed out to find the brunette gone. I assumed she’d be back with Blondie, but when I reached the main floor, I noticed with mild relief that she wasn’t.
“I’ll have one beer and one cosmopolitan, please,” I ordered once I reached the front of the bar. The place’s signature drink was a twist on the classic cosmopolitan, and I was pretty sure that it was what Blondie had been drinking. The pink liquid, glowing in the light from under the bar, and the lemon rind that had been sitting in the glass after she drained it were pretty telltale signs.
The bartender mixed the cocktail with flair, then grabbed a craft beer from the low fridge behind him that lined the back wall of the bar, and grinned when he delivered both to me. I paid the man and made my way toward Blondie, holding the cocktail glass and my beer in one hand, tapping her lightly on her shoulder with the other.
A quick glance while I’d waited for our drinks revealed that she was still frowning, twirling her empty glass between her fingers and staring into space. A girl who looked like her didn’t deserve to look that worried, or that bummed.
Luckily, I was more than ready to put a smile on her face. And if everything went my way, I would be able to do it all night long.
Challenge accepted.
Chapter 10
Juliana
Fucking Scott!
Where the hell was he? He hadn’t answered any of my texts and despite numerous voicemails to call me back, he was still missing in action. When he’d dropped me off, I was sure that his stupid errands, business, or whatever wouldn’t take more than an hour or so.
As erratic as he’d been lately, a couple hours were usually as long as it took for my sweet, charming Scott to reappear. I didn’t like it, but I could live with it. This secretive, mind-your-own-business stuff that lasted hours and hours was something entirely different.
Since he’d already been agitated and unsettled by the time I’d gotten home, and it was now at least four hours later, with still no Scott, I was strongly suspicious that he was hiding something from me and I didn’t like it one bit.
Amber thought I was overreacting, saying that Scott was a good guy who was probably just going through a tough time at work. I didn’t agree with her. Scott was a clerk at a local music store; how much trouble could he really be having?
I knew that he had taken on some projects on the side, guitar tutoring or something that kept him late into the night sometimes, but I didn’t see that being particularly stressful either. All things considered, it was more likely that he was hiding something from me, or was flat out lying. Which of those two things was the truth remained to be seen.
In the middle of reminding me how good things were with Scott and why I should stick it out with him, Amber’s phone had started ringing and she’d paled a bit when she saw who was calling. She then stuffed her phone back into her clutch and told me she needed to take it.
Then she’d scurried off to the bathroom and still hadn’t returned. I was no stranger to being left alone in bars, what with Scott always flitting around, but I didn’t exactly like it. Especially not because I’d seen Amber leave the hallway that led to the bathroom, phone still glued to her ear and head to a quieter spot out on the covered patio.
She hadn’t even looked my way, so I assumed she was going to be a while with whoever the mysterious caller was. The bartender had been by a few times to ask about getting me a refill, but I wasn’t really in the mood anymore. I didn’t want to sit at home by myself either though, so I was giving myself a while to decide what I wanted to do.
Lost in thought, I was weighing the pros and cons of being alone at the bar or being alone at home, where I had a tub of ice cream and an unwatched season of my favorite show waiting, when I was startled by a light tap on my shoulder.
I whirled around, ready to give either Scott or Amber a piece of my mind, when I found myself looking at a strong chin and a wall of muscle instead. His masculine, strangely familiar scent enveloped me at the same time that I lifted my eyes to his and found the vaguely determined eyes of the hunky SEAL staring down at me.
The corners of his mouth twitched up, and he held up a drink, offering it to me. As I stood there, surprised to see him for the second time in one day, the strangest thing happened. For a fraction of a second, the music, the club, my troubles with Scott, everything just disappeared.
They fell away,
and I was only aware of him. Of me. Of my heart skipping several beats and my mouth going dry. Blood rushed to my ears and replaced the music before I swallowed and tried to regain my composure.
I reached for the drink he was holding out at the same time that I blurted the first question that popped into my head. “Are you stalking me?”
When he laughed in response, I thought it was one of the most beautiful, genuine sounds I’d ever heard. It was hearty and boisterous, like the sound was happy to be freed.
“It’s a small town; isn’t everyone sort of like a stalker?”
I pointed at him with my fresh drink. “Then how did you know what I was drinking?”
His lips curled up higher, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Was it supposed to be a state secret? I’m observant, is all. Hazard of the job, I guess. Saw you from across the bar, recognized you and thought I’d bring you a drink.”
“Oh.” He’d noticed what I was drinking all the way from across the bar? Scott still had me order for myself, not knowing what I was drinking even when I was right next to him.
“So, since we’ve cleared that up, what’s with the frown?” He took Amber’s place at my side, leaning on the bar with one forearm, his body turned fully to me. The interest in his eyes was clear: nothing like I’d been used to with Scott, or any of the other guys I’d dated. When this guy looked at me, it was like I was the only person the room, like what I had to say was important.
A shiver ran down my spine at his scrutiny, fizzling down before it landed squarely between my legs.
Yup, this guy is definitely trouble. There was a reason why girls in relationships didn’t hang out with guys like him, but he wasn’t making any moves; he was just patiently waiting for my answer while keeping a respectful amount of distance between us.
“Frown?” I asked. “What frown?”
“The one you’ve been wearing since I first spotted you earlier,” he said. I wondered if I should’ve been creeped out by the fact that he’d noticed that too, but I had a feeling his answer would again be something about his powers of observation.
My shoulders sagged a little, and my heart felt heavy. I wasn’t about to lie to this guy, but it sucked that the man who was taking an interest in me wasn’t the one I wasn’t going home with.
Fucking Scott.
“It’s just Scott, my boyfriend. I’m having some issues with him, and I haven’t been able to get hold of him all night,” I admitted.
Confusion crossed the guy’s features. He tried to hide it, but it was too late. His eyebrows had knitted ever so slightly, eyes narrowing, and his lips pursed.
“What?” I asked, demanded really.
He threw his hands up, palms facing me. “This is none of my business; I’m staying out of whatever is going on here.”
Tilting my head, I fixed my gaze on him, hands going to my hips. “What do you mean ‘whatever is going on here?’”
“It’s probably nothing, anyway,” he said, reaching for his beer to take a long pull at it.
“You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who would even mention something if you really thought it was nothing, so just spit it out, okay?”
“Fine,” he conceded, turning fully toward me again and setting his beer down on the bar. “Look, what I’m about to tell you may sound a little stalkerish, so hear me out.”
“Stalkerish isn’t a word.”
He smirked, “That’s the part you’re latching on to?”
I shook my head, “No, sorry. Go ahead.”
“Okay, so I saw you earlier, like I said. You were talking to that same friend who was with you the first night we met, the brunette, right?”
I nodded, uneasiness creeping up on me like an icy blanket was being draped around my shoulders. “Amber, yeah. That was her.”
“I went to the bathroom, and she was standing out in the hallway, I only heard a sentence or two of the conversation when I walked past her, but she was on the phone with someone named Scott. I’m sure of it.”
My eyebrows shot up, and that blanket of uneasiness tightened around my shoulders. Amber knew I was trying to get hold of Scott. That had to be it.
But she ran off when her phone rang, and it’s been ages.
“Thank you for telling me,” I said, my smile frozen in place as I looked up at my unlikely source of information. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some mysteries to solve.”
“Okay, Nancy Drew,” he said. “Have at it. I’ll be on the patio outside if you need anything else. Perhaps a sidekick?”
I started to smile; then I remembered what the joke was about. “I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you, but thanks.”
“No problem. Good luck.” He tipped his beer at me; then I was pushing my way through the crowd, deciding to start on the patio where I’d seen Amber duck out to so that she could have some quiet.
To speak to my boyfriend.
That was if the SEAL could be trusted, but it was kind of in his job description to be trustworthy, or at least he had to have some sort of moral fortitude to have done the job that he did. Besides, he had no reason to lie to me.
If he had, I would get behind it pretty soon, and then I’d have a reason to stay away from him. Which would probably be the preferable outcome here, if I was being honest with myself.
I hunted Amber down, finding her at the far end of the covered patio, standing in the corner formed by the joining of two steel railings and facing toward the exit. She saw me coming as soon as I stepped out of the crowd, her eyes widening before she pasted a fake smile on her face, muttered into the phone quickly, and ended her call.
A guilty look flitted across her features and an icy drip of fear started in my stomach. She’d been lying to me; I knew it as soon as I saw that look.
“Jules!” she exclaimed, a little too loudly. “I’m sorry I was on the phone for so long, I was just—”
“Talking to Scott?” I asked,
My fears were confirmed when she took a beat too long to answer, and then, withering under my stare, nodded. “Yes, I was talking to him.”
“Why?” Realization dawned that he’d slept at Amber’s house the night before. “Don’t answer that. What happened last night? Why didn’t you bring him home?”
“My place was closer, Jules. Really, he was super drunk, and I thought it was better to get him to bed as soon as possible, and I didn’t want to bother you.” Her chocolate brows shone as she protested her innocence, but I wasn’t buying it.
“You thought it was best to get him to your bed, you mean?” My voice was dripping acid by this point, all the nights I’d left them both behind started tumbling through my mind.
“It wasn’t like that, Juliana. He was trashed last night, I just—”
I stopped listening to her ramblings, hastily pulling my phone from my bag and dialing Scott’s number from my call log. It rang and rang, going to voicemail as it had been all night. Seven tries in all, if my log was correct.
Holding my hand out to Amber, I made a ‘give it here’ motion with my fingers. “Your phone.”
“What?” she squeaked.
I exhaled an exasperated sigh. “Give me your phone, Amber. Now, please.”
Amber dug it out of her bag, handing it over with no small amount of reluctance. I knew her security pattern as well as I did my own, entered it and saw Scott’s name as the incoming call on her log while we’d been at the bar.
I punched down on it, and Scott answered almost immediately. “Ambi? I wasn’t expecting you to call back.”
Though his speech was slurred, there was no mistaking that it was Scott’s voice on the other end of the line. “Ambi? Really? You’ve been dodging my phone calls all night, but you’ll take my best friend’s calls. What the hell, Scott?”
“Jules. Julie, baby,” he cooed. “Don’t be like that. It’s loud over here, only felt my phone buzzing now.”
“Don’t lie to me! Amber already told me that she spoke to you and I’m calling you from her phone, i
diot, so I saw your name on her incoming call log,” I spat. “How stupid do you think I am?”
“Don’t be that way, Julie. Just a misunderstanding, that’s all.” His tongue was heavy and dragging over most of his syllables, but he managed to grab onto his patronizing tone easily enough.
“A misunderstanding? What’s a misunderstanding about this situation, baby?” I added the term of endearment sarcastically. “You’re out God only knows where, with my car, while you’re living in my house, but you don’t come home, don’t tell me where you’ve been or where you’re going, and now you’re dodging my calls but taking them from my best fucking friend? So exactly what way don’t you want me to be? Am I misunderstanding any of that?”
“Get off your high horse, Juliana,” he retorted, his voice cold as ice now, sounding more like he was talking to someone he detested instead of supposedly loved. It was a bitter pill to swallow. “You’re being a baby about this.”
I was dumbstruck for just a second. “I’m being a baby about this?”
“You are. Grow up, Jules. I’ll see you when I see you.”
“Fine,” I said, then hung up the phone and Scott was gone. I stared at the phone, the screen lit up with a picture of Amber and me from our sophomore year.
Then I blinked at Amber, a couple of years older, but still Amber. Her eyes were filled with tears, and her mouth was open, presumably to offer some kind of explanation, but I didn’t want to hear it.
Instead, I stuffed her phone back into the clutch she was still holding and tried to bite back the scathing words I never thought I’d want to say to her. Instead of saying something while my vision was blurred from rage and a blindingly painful sense of betrayal stabbing at my gut, I turned and walked away.
I had nothing more to say to her. Not now.
If Scott was going to be an asshole, I could take it to the next level. No problem. All I had to do was find my trusty sidekick.
Chapter 11
Pacey
The lights from downtown Stone Mountain at this time of night were few and far between. A haphazard patchwork of lackluster neon that ran down Main Street and blended with the light from the traffic lights hanging overhead.