Right now Dad and I are both living on our own. I see him on Sundays, unless he’s gone hunting. And we’re not robots anymore. We’re friends. Partners. Two people felled by the same foe.
Living with Britt is the opposite of living with my dad. She’s talkative, secure, and well-adjusted. She hails from a happy home with a mom and a dad, a sister and a dog and a two-car garage. When I picture her house, I add a white picket fence around the green lawn, even though I know it doesn’t have one. I’m not jealous of Britt. I’m happy my best friend had a glorious childhood with a mother who showered her in snuggles and love. I just wish I’d had the same.
And Britt, my beyond-lucky best friend, has decreed that today is the day I stop thinking about Owen. She has just burst into my room with her freshly highlighted blond bob cocooning her face, eyes bright.
“I’m taking you somewhere tonight, and you’re not saying no. I’ll drag you bound and gagged if I have to.”
I point toward my window, where the driving rain pelts the glass and runs down in rivulets.
She crosses her arms. “It’s supposed to let up soon. Besides, you won’t melt if you get wet. Actually, you'll dry first. Can't keep Arizona heat behind the clouds for long."
I want to keep arguing with her, but I don’t have the heart. Britt is used to getting her way. And she’s never had a guy dump her. Britt dates but doesn’t get involved. It’s her thing.
Because I love her, and because her intentions are good, I get ready like she asked me to.
Under a shared umbrella, we walk to the street of bars near our apartment. It isn’t until she pulls me to the last in the row that I balk.
I point to the neon sign with the cowboy on a bull. “Rodeo Mike’s?”
Britt rolls her eyes. “There’s no way Owen will show up here. That’s why I chose it. It’s not his scene.”
She’s right. I guess tonight this is our scene. Britt invited the three girls who live in the apartment below us, and they’ve texted that they’re already here. Jasmine, Maize, and Erin never say no to a bar. Or a good time. Or a party. Or much of anything, really.
The bar is loud and bright. I take three steps inside and turn around. This was a mistake. I can’t take the band with its upbeat music, the couples on the wooden dance floor twisting and turning. Britt was wrong. What I needed tonight was something dark and brooding, like a martini bar where you could barely see a hand in front of your face.
Someone’s grabbing me, pulling me back. “Just give it a chance.” Britt whispers. She tugs me along with her.
Jasmine orders a round while Britt leads us to an empty table.
“Sit,” she orders. “Close your eyes and take a deep breath.” I do as she says, taking in the scent of wood, perfume, cologne, and beer. When I open my eyes, she’s watching me.
“You made it.” Her chin tilts up, pride shines in her eyes.
“To where? Here?” I tap one finger on the table. I know what she’s getting at, but I don’t want the accolade.
Jasmine returns, her arms full of drinks, and sets them on the table. Britt grabs a bottle for me and a bottle for her.
“You made it through the first two weeks. It’ll only get easier from here.” She gently knocks the top of her bottle to mine.
I drink with her. “You’re not exactly an expert.”
She shrugs. “I have eyes. I’ve seen it enough times to know.”
A twirl of yellow behind Britt’s head catches my attention. I lean left so I can follow the movement of the yellow dress, and the woman it’s attached to, on the dance floor. She’s as affixed to the man with her as the clingy dress is to her. The music is up-tempo, but they dance slowly, swaying to their own song. In my head I hear something old and sultry, maybe Etta James. My cheeks heat just watching them, the way their bodies mold against one another. I look away, feeling like an intruder despite the fact that they’re in a public place.
Britt’s upper half swivels, and she watches them too. When she turns back to me, her eyes light up, mischievous.
“You know what you need?” She smiles around the mouth of her beer bottle.
“Nope.” My lips make a popping sound as I enunciate the p. I know what she’s thinking, and it’s not going to happen.
“Ohhhh, yes, you do.” She lifts a solitary finger. “One night. No strings attached.”
I wrinkle my nose.
“Stop.” She holds up a hand. “Just stop. You’re heartbroken.” Her hand moves to her chest. “Owen let go of the best person I know. Forget about him tonight. Forget about everything. Please?”
Her blue eyes plead, and I know what she’s really asking of me. She wants me to stop lingering in that place, the one where my thoughts grow maudlin. She wants me to stop before I begin to compare Owen’s departure to that of my mother. She’s asking me not to do what I’ve already done.
I’m so flawed they couldn’t stay.
I’m the atrocity.
It’s my fault they’ve left.
I love Britt. I really do. I love her so much I don’t blame her when a cowboy with a big, shiny buckle and an even bigger hat comes to our table and sweeps her off her feet.
His name is Dane.
Or Dax.
Or…something that starts with D.
The point is, Britt’s gone.
It doesn’t take long before the other girls I’m with have caught the eyes of other wannabe cowboys and left the table. They all offered the requisite Are you sure? before walking away, and I reassured them it was fine. I like being alone, and I happen to be really good at it.
My fingers are slick with condensation as I peel the wrapper off my beer and rub the wet paper into a tiny, hard ball. I flick the small wad and watch it roll across the table and onto the floor.
The slow-dancing couple from earlier is back on the dance floor, but now they’re moving to the tempo. Even though they’re moving appropriately this time, there’s something different about them. Some kind of sensuality. Maybe it’s magic. Or chemistry. Whatever it is, they have it.
I push the bottle to the middle of the table. Time for me to leave. I may like to be alone, but I don’t care for torture. I stand, grab my purse from the table, and spin.
I take a step away from the table and bump into something. Or, rather, someone.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…” My sentence hangs unfinished as I look at the person I’ve run into.
I must have a thing for smiles, because that’s what grabs me first. The left side of his mouth pulls up more than the right. It’s a happy grin. Immediately I picture a light shining from somewhere inside him. An inherent, ambient light.
He extends one long, deeply tanned arm. “No worries. I’m Isaac.” The smile doesn’t waver.
I place my hand in his. “I’m Aubrey.” Am I smiling? My face feels numb. My whole body feels numb. God, I hope I’m smiling. That’s what a normal person would do.
“Nice to meet you, Aubrey.” He nods when he says my name. “I hope you aren’t leaving. I was just coming over here to offer you one of these.” He lifts his left hand to show fingers intertwined around the necks of two beer bottles.
My lips twist. A few miles away my bed is calling my name. “Actually, I was heading out.”
Isaac’s frown is partly a pout, which accentuates the fullness of his lower lip. “Can I convince you to change your mind? It would be a terrible waste of good beer to let it get warm.” He holds one bottle out to me, eyebrows raised. “This beer needs to fulfill its destiny.” He moves the bottle a fraction, so it swings gently side to side.
I eye his hopeful face. I was headed home. To my TV. And ice cream. In my head I see Britt’s stern look, and it makes me wonder if she’s staring me down from the dance floor behind me.
“OK.” I nod. “But I’m not taking an open drink from someone I just met.”
His lips shift like he’s trying not to laugh. “You think I’ve poisoned your drink?”
I shrug. “I have a ru
le, that’s all.” Actually, it’s my dad’s rule, but it makes sense, and I’ve always followed it.
He nods and curls the beer back into his chest beside the second bottle. His grin turns crooked as he watches me for a few seconds. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but I’m sure I won’t measure up.
Tears burn in my eyes, but by sheer will I hold them back. The last thing I want to do is show emotion to another man. I’ve learned by now that men use emotions as weapons. There is no way I’ll give someone the power to hurt me again.
I should go.
My breath whooshes up in surprise when Isaac grabs my hand. Without looking back to see my reaction, he pulls me through the crowd and to the bar. Two people leave, and he quickly claims their seats. He sets the bottles down on the bar and pulls out the stool on the right.
“Let’s try this again.” He winks at me. “Aubrey, it’s nice to meet you. Please sit and have a drink with me from a bottle you see the bartender open and hand to you.”
Laughter bubbles up my throat as I sit.
Isaac bypasses his seat, leaning over it and setting his forearms on the edge of the bar. I try not to notice the ripple in his arms. Or the way his shoulders pull back. Or his stunning profile. How does a man get lips like that? Fillers. That must be it. I pinch my average-size lips together to keep from laughing.
He focuses on the bartender, and, when he gets his attention, lifts his head back slightly. Isaac points down at the bottles in front of us and lifts two fingers in the air. He smiles politely and thanks the bartender when he delivers the beer.
The stool doesn’t seem tall enough to fit Isaac, but he manages, folding his long legs awkwardly beneath the bar top.
“How tall are you?” I blurt out.
“Six-three. How tall are you?”
“Five-seven.”
He nods and grabs the neck of his beer with the same two fingers he used when he first approached my table. “Can we have that drink now?”
I tap the bottom of my bottle against his, take a small sip, and watch Isaac take a long pull. I like the way he holds his bottle. Just those two fingers wrapped around the neck and a thumb underneath.
Leaning a forearm on the bar top, Isaac pins me with his gaze. “So, Aubrey who’s five-seven and doesn’t accept open beverages from men she doesn’t know, what were you doing trying to sneak out of here so early?”
“I have a hot date.” I toss my hair over my shoulder and look at my wrist, despite the fact I’m not wearing a watch. “And now I’m late.”
Isaac’s gaze moves around my face and, slowly, reaches my eyes. He grows intense, and when that happens, his lips move, the tiny muscles around them twitching.
“Finder’s keepers.” The words are languid, sliding from his lips like caramel.
I take a deep breath and force myself to look away, even though so much of me wants to let him sweet talk me. My heart and my ego could use the attention, but I know better.
“What did he do?”
His words make me turn back to him. I give him a side-eye and gulp my beer. “What makes you think somebody did something to me?”
“You’re defensive and hesitant. In my experience, that usually means a woman’s been hurt.”
I glance at the door, just ten feet away. How easy it would be to escape. Part of me wants to run for the hills. But the other part wants to know what it would feel like to tell a total stranger the whole ugly truth.
“Excuse me?” I stop the bartender as he’s passing by. “Two shots of Jack, please.”
Isaac whistles, low and disbelieving. “That bad?”
“Ugly truth?” I ask.
“The whole thing.” He says. “Don’t leave anything out.”
He asked for it. By the time I finish my story, Isaac will be sprinting away from me, just like Owen did. But maybe he’ll turn around as he’s running and yell the reason back to me. Maybe I’ll finally understand.
The bartender sets the tiny glasses in front of us. I grimace as the shot burns my insides on the way down.
Isaac pushes his glass to the back of the bar top and signals for another. “Hit me with it.” He says to me. “Let me in. Tell me your big, bad, ugly truth.”
So I do. I tell a perfect stranger every detail. And it feels so good.
He doesn’t run. He doesn’t say something trite. He doesn’t even say anything to make me feel better. All he says when I’m finished is, “That really fucking sucks.”
And that’s when I decide I like Isaac.
“You’re the third person I’ve told that story to.” Britt and Owen are the other two, but does Owen even count? “Can you believe that?” My brain feels fuzzy. We stopped twice during my long story for shots. “Let’s take a picture to commemorate the night I told a stranger my darkest, dirtiest secret.” Digging in my purse for my phone, I find it and present it with a silly flourish.
Isaac waves his hands in front of him while I swipe open the camera. “Pictures steal a piece of your soul.” He protests. “I don’t believe in pictures.”
I swivel so my back is to Isaac and snap one anyhow.
“I just stole a piece of your soul.” I do a goofy celebratory dance with just my upper half.
He laughs and shakes his head, then returns his eyes to my face. Those eyes… So intense, so dark. Their depth seems to go forever.
“What now?” I ask. “I can’t keep drinking or I’ll stop functioning. And no more stories for a stranger. Unless said stranger is going to start sharing a few of his own.”
Isaac watches me, and for a moment I think maybe he’s going to tell me why he’s there, but instead he says “I have an idea, but you’re going to have to stop calling me a stranger. Considering I know more about you than most of the world, I’m pretty sure that makes me your second-best friend.”
I frown as I consider what he has said. “You’re right.”
“I like those words.”
I laugh and nearly fall off my barstool. Isaac catches my arm and steadies me.
“See what I mean?” I point at myself. “No more shots for this girl.”
Isaac laughs. “I’m convinced.”
His grip on my arm loosens, but he doesn’t let me go.
“Do you want to go somewhere with me?” he asks.
“Are you planning on killing me and tossing my body in a dumpster?” I squint at him as if I’ll be able to tell by his facial expression if he’s a madman.
He makes a disgusted face and releases me. For a second I think I’ve upset him, but he grins as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. Tossing a few bills on the tab, he turns to me. “My job is to do the very opposite of hurting people. And I have no plans to hurt you.” His thumb runs over the sensitive length of skin on the inside of my forearm. “Unless you want me to, of course.” His voice is deep and low, his eyes burning into mine.
All I want to do is play it cool, but I can’t stop the widening of my eyes. He laughs softly when he sees my response, and his Adam’s apple bobs.
I want to know why he’s still here. Why he isn’t running in fear of the woman who caused not only her first boyfriend, but also her mother, to leave and never look back. I’m too afraid to ask, because I don’t want him to change his mind.
I catch his hand and run my fingertips across the top of it. Something twists in my stomach, and thanks to Owen, I recognize the feeling. That may be the only thing I ever thank him for.
“I’ve never been hurt before… not like that, anyway. But I wouldn’t mind if you did other things…” My upper teeth catch my lower lip, and heat burns across my face.
His ever-ready smile is back before I’ve finished my thought. I wonder what makes a person smile so readily? He probably has the perfect life. Raised in the perfect home with a mom who made him cookies after school and helped him with homework and a dad who played catch with him in the front yard. A perfect little sister who’s the perfect amount of sweet and sassy. No doubt his parents have the perfect
marriage.
Perfect, perfect, perfect. That must be why his smiles are always ready, lined up and waiting in his body like candy in a Pez dispenser.
Tonight, I want a taste of perfect.
Before I can rethink my decision, Isaac holds out his hand. “Do you want to find your friends and let them know you’re leaving? I mean, assuming you’ve decided to leave with me. A non-killer.” He laughs at his own joke.
I take his hand and pull him away from the bar. I’ve already made up my mind about him.
I find Britt line dancing with a different cowboy than the one who first asked her to dance. I think, anyway. It’s hard to tell what they really look like with their cowboy hats on. I wave at her, and she ducks out of the dance and comes to my side. She has a sheen of sweat on her chest, and her cheeks are pink.
“What’s going on?” she asks breathlessly, glancing from me to Isaac with excited curiosity.
“I just wanted to let you know I’m leaving.” I clear my throat, my nervousness getting bigger by the second.
Britt evaluates Isaac. “Leaving leaving?” She asks me without looking my way.
“Yes.”
She sticks her hand out to Isaac. “I’m Britt, Aubrey’s roommate.”
Isaac shakes her hand. “I’m Isaac. Non-killer.”
Britt makes a face, and looks at me with worried eyes. “Inside joke,” I explain. “We've established he's not a murderer.”
She nods and walks to Isaac’s other side. She lifts her face to his ear, and he bends down to listen. I watch him nod as she talks, then he says something to her. I can’t hear him, and I can’t read his lips, because he’s turned his head to look at her.
Britt points a playful warning finger at him while she walks around him and pulls me in for a hug. Isaac still has a hold of my hand. “Have fun tonight.” Her voice is a whisper in my ear.
She steps back onto the dance floor and is reabsorbed into the dance.
“Do you want to dance?” Isaac leans closer, his words caressing the top of my ear.
Our Finest Hour (The Time Series Book 1) Page 2