by Claire Adams
“Jesus, Pacey. What’s crawled up your ass and died? Seriously, what’s with you this week? Your date couldn’t have been that bad. I haven’t seen you this worked up in,” he scratched his head, “ever, I think.”
I waved him off, frustrated because he was right. I’d never been stuck in a rut of quite this magnitude before, but I’d never admit it. “It’s nothing; I just haven’t been sleeping well.”
It was as close as I was going to get to telling him what was wrong, because honestly, we weren’t 12-year-old girls braiding each other’s hair and dishing about crushes.
Tugger shrugged, knowing I was full of shit, but not pushing me for anything further. Good man.
“Okay, you know what might help you sleep better?”
“What?” I grunted.
“Poker night,” Tugger said. “The guys are coming over to my place to play, and while I know that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is insanity, I’m inviting you anyway.”
I was about to turn him down by rote, but then I figured, what the hell. It wasn’t like I was planning on going out and hitting on any women, I had enough women on my mind as it was. Left to my own devices, I would probably just end up staring at a TV at Rennie’s and spending too much money on beer.
Maybe a night with my boys was exactly what I needed to jolt myself out of this funk. If I thought about it, it’d been months since I’d seen any of the guys except for Tugger; shooting the shit with them and taking their money in a game sounded enticing for once.
Weird because it hadn’t appealed to me in ages, but now I found myself nodding at a puzzled-looking Tugger. “I’m in. What time?”
“Okay, now I know something’s wrong with you,” Tugger said, his puzzlement making way for a wide smile.
I punched him in the arm. Hard. We both burst out laughing, and he handed me the hedge trimmer back. “Smartass. Don’t make me regret saying yes already.”
“Oh, I plan on making you regret it by taking your money all night long,” he said. “Let’s finish up; the guys will be over in an hour or so. You can get cleaned up at my place; you still have a spare shirt in the truck, right?”
“Right.”
“Good. Don’t plan on going home first then; if you do, your dick might convince you to ditch us and go searching for a hookup instead,” he smirked.
I flipped him off, but I couldn’t completely hide my grin. “Asshole.”
Tugger batted his eyelashes and put his finger to his lips, “But I’m your asshole.”
I burst out laughing, and Tugger dropped the act, chuckling as he started collecting his tools and loading up the truck. Those few minutes were probably the first time I’d laughed all week, and it felt good. I was already glad that I’d said yes.
An hour later, we’d packed up on site, driven over to Tugger’s, showered, and were setting out chips and salsa when the doorbell rang.
“Wanna bet that that’s Asterix?” Tugger asked. Dean Campbell, a.k.a Asterix, so nicknamed because of his uncanny resemblance to the iconic character, lived a couple of towns over and used to be in our unit.
He was also punctual to a fault. It had been a while, but I hadn’t forgotten. “No bet. I’ve been busy, but I didn’t get brain damaged.”
Tugger shrugged and walked over to get the door. “I’ll take your money yet, Nelson.”
“I wouldn’t take that bet either, Tug.”
His bellowing laughter rang out behind him and a few seconds later, he was back in his dining room with Asterix in tow. His eyes widened when he saw me waiting, and his lips curled into a monstrous grin.
“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in. How’s it hanging, Pacey?” We slapped our palms together and exchanged a quick one-armed hug.
“A little to the left today, thanks for asking.”
“Always,” Asterix quipped, accepting the beer that Tugger plucked from an ice bucket we’d set up on the side table—on a pot stand, of course. Jess was out with the girls, but she’d trained Tugger pretty well about coasters and all that shit.
“Where you been, man?” Asterix asked, when he settled into his seat across from me, pointing at me with his beer bottle.
I shrugged, “I’ve been—”
“Fucking everything that moves,” Tugger supplied helpfully, a shit-eating grin on his face.
Asterix laughed, nodding appreciatively. He’d been worse than I was back in his game days, women loved the burly, rugged thing that he had going on. Until he’d met Cammie. Her hair was as fiery as his, and her personality matched it.
Four months to the day after he met her, we watched as she ran down the aisle and threw her arms around him, making him vow to come back to her safely after our deployment. May had scoffed quietly next to me; she wasn’t the most romantic person who’d ever lived.
“How’s the game treating you? Not thinking about packing it in and slapping a ring on just the one woman?” Strangely, it wasn’t May’s face that flashed in my mind at his question, but Juliana’s. I pushed the thought away. Tonight was about relaxing and getting out of the very funk I was in because of those two women.
“Nah,” I told him. “Someone had to take up the mantle after our team lost you.”
Tugger sniggered and exchanged a look with Asterix. “I promise you, Pacey’s taken the game to a whole new level.”
I raised my beer to Asterix. “I learned from the best.”
That earned me another round of laughter, which was interrupted when the doorbell rang. Tugger went to get it, and Asterix and I caught up a bit before Tugger reappeared with Shawn, Walker, and Sawyer in tow.
They were all former Rangers who we’d met shortly after moving to Stone Mountain, and though it’d been years, the Army vs. Navy debate was an everlasting battle between us. They were good guys though, and I’d always enjoyed spending time with them. Swapping stories and laughing at the ever-present one-upmanship in our conversations.
Tugger handed out more beers, and the game got underway with a lot of good-natured ribbing and more stabs at my sex life. Thankfully, Shawn and Sawyer, dark-haired twins from Atlanta, were also single and quickly started regaling us with their recent misadventures.
I was tame compared to those two, honestly. Or maybe the pool I played in was just smaller, but I swore that they were prolific.
“Do you remember Tara?” Asterix asked Tugger, who doubled over laughing.
“The phantom chick who gave me crabs during training? Fuck yeah, I remember her.”
“Phantom chicks are real?” Sawyer asked, looking like he might just join the SEALs if they were.
“They’re real.” I told him, though I’d never partaken in the practice of calling up a random froghog—as the girls who hung around SEALs only were called—to give me a blowjob in the middle of the night.
“Dude, they should’ve told us this shit,” Shawn said, and Walker nodded his agreement.
As the night wore on, I felt myself starting to unwind. By my third beer, neither May nor Juliana was on my mind, and I was locked in a debate pitting the merits of Call of Duty against that of Halo with Tugger and Sawyer. The poker game had run its course, and we stuck to a rule that we’d made years before that we never played more than $100 a night.
“I don’t agree with you, Nelson. Halo is way more realistic,” Sawyer was saying. He’d cleaned up with the poker, but I was in close second.
I sighed and shook my head. “Not a chance. Back me up here, Tugger. Halo is set in space.”
Tugger plucked another beer from the ice bucket and went head-to-head with Sawyer on which game had the better guns. “Call of Duty kicks Halo’s ass now. It might’ve been the laughingstock at one stage but no more; the new one is insane.”
While we were debating games, Walker and Asterix, both fathers to 3-year-old girls, were comparing the specs on the car seats they had while Shawn gaped at the prices of the things.
“I’m going to start double-wrapping my co
ck. No way am I spending that amount of cash by getting someone knocked up,” Shawn swore.
It’d been too long since I’d spent a night with the guys and I realized that I’d missed their masculine banter and didn’t hesitate to join in now. I spent most nights with one-night stands to avoid my big empty bed, as Tugger called it.
Being with the guys though, I found that instead of the usual mounting anxiety at the thought of sleeping alone, I was actually beginning to relax.
Our dinner was the limes that we had with the tequila and the last of the salsa and chips, so no one complained when I called for pizza near midnight, and the delivery guy was met with a round of cheers.
It was hard to remember why I’d avoided this for so long. It felt good.
“Help me out here, Pacey,” Shawn said, slurring his words a bit. “Metallica was formed before Guns N’ Roses, right?”
“Yeah, pretty sure they’re about five years older or something, why?” I said, happy to be talking 80s rock instead of obsessing over a certain sexy blonde that I was starting to consider calling. Booty calls were a thing for a reason, right?
God, I must’ve been drunker than I thought. Sawyer saved me from myself.
“We’re starting with Metallica, then,” Sawyer said, jumping up and looking at Tugger. “You still got karaoke?”
Karaoke!
I hated it, usually. But it sounded like a great idea at the time. “I’ll take “Enter Sandman.”
“Hate to break it you, but Journey’s even older than those two,” Asterix said, with an expression of mock seriousness. “So, I shall lead us in with “Don’t Stop Believing.” I’m dedicating it to those three idiots.”
He pointed to Shawn, Sawyer, and I as we followed Tugger to his living room, where he started setting up his gaming console and grabbed Jess’s microphones from a drawer nearby.
Sawyer laughed at Asterix, flipping him off to demonstrate his thoughts on the special dedication. “I’ll never stop believing that you guys are idiots for chaining yourselves to one pussy for the rest of your lives.”
Asterix shrugged and took a mike from Tugger, offering the other to Walker. “You’ll see.”
They climbed onto the wide, wooden coffee table while the rest of us arranged ourselves on Tugger’s couches, then we all became small town girls and city boys in a horribly off-key rendition of the song that only Sawyer wasn’t belting out at full volume.
Something about sticking to his guns and that he was disappointed in Shawn and me for caving. I didn’t give a crap; I was having more fun than I’d had in forever. The shots kept flowing and soon Tugger was in my face, the neck of his beer bottle pointed toward me.
“I’m challenging you to a dual, Nelson. You think you got all the moves? Let’s do “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” and we’ll see who’s got what.”
I laughed, nodding. “You’re on.”
Tugger and I took our places on the coffee table and proceeded to make utter fools of ourselves, and I loved it every second of it.
We sparked a series of duals that lasted well into the early morning hours. By the time I got home and collapsed into my empty bed, I was feeling better than I had for a long time.
Chapter 20
Juliana
It’d been a week since the Scott and Amber debacle, and I decided that I’d had enough of being housebound. Two Saturday nights in a row spent at home over the whole thing was unacceptable to me. I’d also spent the last few days, since I’d been disappointed to find Amber standing at my door instead of Pacey, telling myself that I was over the asshole former SEAL who didn’t know how to work his phone.
Standing in front of my full-length mirror in my room, I gave myself a last once-over. I was wearing a navy skirt that was full and hung to a couple of inches above my knees with a cute, flowy white top that showed enough cleavage to make me feel sexy but not so much as to appear slutty.
I’d paired the outfit with a comfortable pair of heels and had blown out my hair, but applied my makeup with a light hand. Since I was dressing for myself and not for anyone else, I thought I looked great, which made me feel confident and ready for a night on the town. By myself.
I was even wearing the awesome new lacy underwear that I’d bought for Scott but had never worn for him. I was happy about that now; they were mine and all for me. They did wonders to boost my self-esteem and add to my overall feeling of breaking out of my exile.
The time had come for me to go out, to have a good time, and relax back into myself. By myself. I wouldn’t go home with any boy, but I would flirt and have fun if the opportunity presented itself. I was putting myself first and reminded my reflection of that out loud.
“This is all about you. No boys, no drama, no backstabbing friends.”
I smiled at myself in the mirror, added a last layer of lip gloss, and headed to the Jeep. Once there, I pressed play on the girl power mix I’d made for myself earlier and considered my options while letting the music flow over me.
There was no way I was going to Rennie’s and risk running into Scott and Amber, my ‘two exes.’ Wait, three exes, if I included Pacey in the mix. Not that we’d ever really gotten far enough for him to truly be considered an ex, but it was my list, and he was on it.
Which also meant that Penn’s was out, because I remembered running into him there the night we went for that motorbike ride and we ki—
No, I wasn’t going there.
Screw him. Screw them all, or let them screw each other. I was over it.
I shuddered when I realized that crossing Rennie’s and Penn’s off the list meant that it looked like I was headed to Elmer’s and the dreaded karaoke crowd.
But whatever. I was determined to have fun, and Elmer’s cocktails weren’t that bad. I turned up my music, started the Jeep, and pointed it in the direction of the outskirts of Stone Mountain.
Elmer’s was tucked away at the edge of a big lot, currently filled to the brim with cars. Like all the other places in town, it had its loyal regulars, and it was Saturday, after all. That suited me just fine. It meant that there was likely to be at least a few guys I could flirt with to get my mojo back.
I found a parking spot about halfway down the block, grabbed my clutch, and walked down the sidewalk, across the gravel lot, cringing when the first strands of karaoke became audible from inside the rundown building.
By my second cocktail, however, the karaoke was really not sounding so bad. I was even considering signing up myself. A cute guy ambled up to me at the bar, smiling broadly. He had an Abercrombie and Fitch look going on, with curly blond hair and big green eyes covered by glasses that he may, or may not, have actually needed to see.
“You here with someone?” he asked, his voice was smooth and not too deep. He wasn’t a poor choice for the launch of Juliana 2.0.
“No,” I said, then stuck out my hand. “I’m Juliana.”
“Adam.” There were no sparks when he put his hand in mine and shook it, but I wasn’t after sparks tonight. “You want to do a duet with me later?”
“Depends,” I said, trying my best to sound demure. “What’re you proposing we sing?”
“Summer Nights” from Grease?” Adam suggested. It was a sweet song, and one that I actually knew the words to.
“After another cocktail, I might be up for it,” I told him. “But I think I need some more inhibition-killing juice first.”
Adam flashed me a sweet smile and nodded. “Okay, come find me when you’re ready.”
“Will do,” I told him, then watched him walk back to his friends on the other end of the bar, right by the door.
It swung open, and he came walking in the door.
Crap.
Pacey was here. I tried to duck, but it was too late, he’d already spotted me. I half-expected him to ignore me; he’d been so good at it all week that I didn’t really see that changing now.
But he surprised me by walking right up to me, only stopping when I could smell that intoxicating scent of his a
nd wished I could plug my nose. No asshole had the right to smell as good as he did.
“Juliana! Fancy meeting you here; how’ve you been?” Damn, his voice was even more sexy than I remembered it being, but that set aside, I couldn’t believe his brazenness.
Who the hell did he think he was?
I wondered for a moment what the best way was to respond, opting eventually for fake surprise. Tossing the last of my cocktail in his face wasn’t far behind that choice though.
“Oh, Pacey. Hi. It’s good to see you here, you know, since I thought you’d fallen off the face of the earth and all. Tell me, how was your trip to Middle Earth?”
The corner of his mouth cocked up and those gorgeous eyes crinkled, melting pots of milk chocolate that were drawing me in more than I cared to admit, even if only to myself.
“Excuse me?”
“I just mean that since I’m not aware of anywhere around here where there’s no reception, I was wondering where you’d gone where the phones don’t work.”
Pacey smiled another infuriatingly gorgeous smile and held his hands up in surrender. “I deserved that from you, I’ll admit it.”
“Fancy that,” I muttered under my breath, but when a genuinely contrite expression crossed Pacey’s features, I knew that he’d heard me.
“I’m sorry, Juliana. I know I said I would call and I didn’t. I took your words to heart, you know, about the breakup and everything. I was trying to give you some space.” It sounded like he was being truthful, at least to some extent, but there was something else there that he wasn’t saying and that I didn’t have time for.
I rolled my eyes. All that he’d done was to pick the rudest way possible to be respectful and I wasn’t buying it.
“Okay, well thanks for that. I hope you have a good time tonight, but it won’t be with me. I’m not looking for male attention, and I certainly don’t want yours,” I told him firmly. I’d spent the last week waiting to hear from him; he had his shot, and he’d blown it.
Tonight is about me, I reminded myself again when his hand caught my forearm gently. My skin buzzed and sang where it connected with him.