“It was a really hoppy IPA, too,” I confessed, sending her into a fresh gale of laughter. “He was pissed. Would only drink from cans or bottles for months afterward.”
“Well, who can blame him?” she asked. “I know you love hops, but not everyone does. Oh! For Easter, you could do an IPA-themed night. Get hoppy, or something like that.”
“You are so cheesy right now,” I teased her. “I’m loving it.”
“I could help you come up with the best puns for your theme nights,” she said. “Now, go ahead. Buy a keg of that pumpkin beer.”
“I can’t just buy something like a keg without Jack authorizing it. I wish I could, but I have more respect for him than that. He trusts me to make good decisions.”
“This is a good decision.”
“I know. But he would want to know about it first.”
“Okay. How about you surprise him with a case of that pumpkin beer, just to prove to him that you’re more than capable of taking the initiative to make the right decisions for the bar, and then go from there? I bet the case would fit on the back of the motorcycle.”
I laughed at her. “With you on the back, too? I don’t think so.”
“I do! We’d strap it down tight, and then I’d just sit really, really close to you.”
Could I be blamed for the way the crotch of my pants got a little tight at that prospect, Nadine’s front pressed against my back as we vibrated down the road?
“I’ll think about it.”
“No, Brody, just do it. I promise it’s a good idea. People are going to love this pumpkin beer. You’ll sell out of the case immediately and be forced to order a keg of the stuff.” Nadine smiled at me. “Take a leap of faith, here.”
I had no choice but to smile back. Her happiness was infectious. “Okay, you know what? Fine. I’ll buy the case. But I don’t want to hear any complaints on the way back to Rio Seco about how close you’ll have to sit to me to fit the beer on the back of the motorcycle.”
Mischief played over Nadine’s face. “Have you ever considered adding a sidecar to your bike?”
I burst into laughter. “A sidecar? Really?”
“I think it’d be pretty amazing,” she said. “I could ride in it, or you could use it to carry groceries from the store.”
“No one wants to ride in a sidecar, Nadine.”
“I do! I’d look great in a sidecar. I’d always have a fancy dress on, plus my helmet. And I’d get some aviation goggles.”
It did paint a pretty amazing picture in my mind, Nadine all fabulous in the sidecar, rocking the goggles. If anyone could pull it off, it was her.
The ride back home was amazing. We chatted and shouted at each other and laughed the entire way, the bottles in the case clinking together ominously whenever there was a bump in the pavement. I tried to go as smoothly as I could, but it was hard to do when Nadine was as close to me as she was, still somehow snapping photos for the entire ride. We stopped once to watch the sun set, painting the desert in orange and gold, before making it back to my house as the first stars were winking to life, there all day but in need of darkness to truly shine.
“I should probably take this case on to the bar and beg Jack for forgiveness,” I said. “I used the company credit card.”
“That can wait until tomorrow, can’t it?” Nadine asked, waiting as I unlocked the front door. She’d had considerably more to drink than I had, and her eyes drooped in a cute way.
“Sure, it could probably wait until tomorrow, but I can go ahead and take care of it tonight,” I said. “Can’t say I’m much of a procrastinator.”
“You could take care of me tonight.” A single arched eyebrow gauged just how I was going to take that obvious proposition.
I cleared my throat a little awkwardly, feeling hot beneath my collar in spite of the cool, autumn night. “Is that what you really want?”
“Of course it is. That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“I just wanted to make sure.” I was the one who wasn’t feeling sure of myself, following Nadine inside, the box of beer still tied to the back of my motorcycle. It would be fine, but I wasn’t sure I would be. The sex lately had been pretty explosive I wasn’t lying when I brought it up to the guys at the bar. But this felt different. There was nothing to prove, nothing to be angry about, just a nice day we’d shared at a brewery, and on my motorcycle. It was a full-fledged date, and it had been a long time since I’d been on one of those.
“Why are you dawdling?”
I refocused to see Nadine sitting on the edge of the bed in the darkened room. She’d taken the liberty of stripping down to her bra and panties, and she fidgeted with the edge of the rug with her toes, waiting for me.
“Just thinking about what a pretty picture you’d make,” I said. “Should I take a photo of you?”
She snorted. “Who’s the photographer, here?”
“You are, but you’re beautiful enough to be the model, too.”
“Oh my God, that is officially the worst pickup line I’ve ever heard,” she said, rolling back onto the bed and guffawing. I leapt after her and tickled her along the ribs, teasing her as she squawked with laughter. She fought back, and gave as good as she got. It was only when we were both out of breath, grinning at each other, that I realized how much I wanted her, how hard I was beneath my jeans.
“You really are beautiful,” I said, then kissed her cautiously, not sure what to expect.
“Thank you,” she said softly, then kissed me back.
Something in my heart lifted, and I deepened our contact, weaving my fingers through hers, touching her tongue with mine. Of all things, she tasted a little of the pumpkin beer we’d sampled, and I smiled against her lips, thankful for breweries and motorcycles and adventures and the chance to get all of this right. That’s what this all felt like. A glorious second chance. A new beginning. I sure as hell wasn’t going to squander it.
“Take off your clothes,” Nadine suggested shyly, plucking at my belt. She managed to get it unbuckled before I stepped in, shucking off my jeans and boxers in one motion, then flipped my shirt up and over my head. “That’s better.”
“You think so?” I gasped as she took my erection in her hand, working her fingers from base to tip as if she were judging it for the first time.
“I definitely think so.”
I made her lose her train of thought by rubbing her through her panties. She let go of me and spread her legs wider, sighing with something that sounded a lot like relief.
“Needed this?” I asked her gently, tracing the shape of her lips through the cotton.
“Feels good,” she confirmed, reaching around behind her back to unfasten her bra. Nadine planted her feet against the mattress and lifted her hips so I could draw her panties down her legs and over her feet to join the pile of our clothing on the floor, and when she beckoned me to her, I obeyed, eager to please.
I reached between us to test the waters, so to speak, and was surprised when my fingers came away practically dripping. “You’re so wet.”
“Chalk it up to a long motorcycle ride pressed up against you,” she said with her very best leer, and I laughed even as I got even harder at the notion that the entire ride home, Nadine was getting all worked up on my bike, not even inches away from me.
I sank into her as easily as if I’d never left, and it was a corny thought, but she felt like home to me. She canted her hips, scooting around until she made herself comfortable, then wrapped her legs around my waist and squeezed, giving me the go ahead.
I kissed her everywhere my lips could find during those first few minutes, relieved and enchanted and achingly aroused by just how well today had gone. We’d clicked in a way that was more cerebral than carnal today, and it made tonight’s tryst more tender, somehow. More understanding. I’d confessed my dreams to her, for God’s sake. There wasn’t much more in the way of baring myself that I could do.
Well, I supposed I could tell her that I loved her, but I decid
ed I’d rather focus on this moment, on sussing out all the little sighs and moans I could get out of Nadine, rocking into her, losing myself to the rhythm and the sensations of something we both knew how to do.
“You know it’s me, right?”
I paused in my thrusts, panting, and cradled Nadine’s face with one of my hands. “What?”
She gave me a small smile, blinking rapidly. “It’s not you. It’s me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just…nothing.” Her eyes were too bright, even in the darkness of the bedroom. Was she about to cry? “Make love to me.”
“Nadine …”
“Please. For me. Please.”
I thrust forward again, unable to deny her, and she cried out, squeezing her eyes shut, taking my breath away with her legs around my waist. What was going on here? She obviously didn’t want to talk about it, but I didn’t think continuing our little session was the right move. Nadine was upset enough to have tears in her eyes, and I needed to know what had put them there. Was it me? Something I’d said or done? She’d said it was her, though, and I couldn’t puzzle that one out.
I flattened against her, drawing my body along hers, our sweat-slicked skin slipping against each other. “You know you can tell me anything, right?” I kissed her ear, then the tender skin of her neck just below it.
Nadine shuddered. “I…”
“Because I’m here to tell you that you can. You can trust me. I want you to. Anything you want to tell me, you can.”
Maybe it was some revelation about her behavior while working at the bar, flirting with everyone. Something that would explain all of that, and the awkwardness that ensued between us for which I could never really figure out an excuse.
“I can’t,” she breathed, raking her nails down my back, the sudden spike of pain bringing me right to the edge of climax.
“You can,” I argued. I really didn’t want to be arguing at a time like this, but it felt like an important point to make. “I’m here for you, Nadine.”
“I want you to come.”
“We should” Jesus, it was hard to ignore that particular request “talk about this.”
Nadine arched her back and squeezed every muscle, drawing my orgasm out of me almost against my will. It didn’t make sense, how I could come at a time like this, but she’d known exactly what she was doing. I was helpless to it, burying my face in the crook of her neck to hide my groans of pleasure.
I wasn’t sure if Nadine had climaxed, too, but when I reached between us to touch her, she rolled out from underneath me.
“Can I Did you” It was hard to come up with words, least of all sentences after that. I knew a lot of it had to do with the fact that I’d been so unsure of our relationship until our magical time at the brewery. I’d never had so much fun before with someone, and I knew it was because Nadine understood the things I was most passionate about. I only wished I could understand her better, too.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just a little drunk. Nothing I can’t sleep off.”
“I want to make you feel good.”
“You did.”
“Can we talk about the thing you said right now?” I wanted to smooth the skin of her arm, to reassure her, cuddle her to me, but I didn’t know if my touch would be welcomed. I didn’t know which Nadine I was in bed with right now the one who had encouraged me to pursue my dreams, or the one who liked to flirt with other people in front of me.
“What thing?” Her voice was thick with exhaustion, but I had to know.
“You know. You said it wasn’t me. It was you. What is that supposed to mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. I’m drunk. I’m going to sleep now…”
Sure enough, just as the end of her sentence trailed off, soft snores started. I watched the steady rise and fall of her chest, sweat still cooling on her skin, and wished I could get her in the shower. It would help her be more comfortable, I thought. It hadn’t been overly dusty today on the road, but on the back of a motorcycle, you always picked up a little dirt. I eased off the bed and slipped into the bathroom and returned with a warm, damp washcloth and towel. I wiped her off in the places that mattered, and dried her thoroughly. She still shivered a bit following her improvised sponge bath, so I covered her with the comforter and spooned her until she stopped.
I wanted this. Maybe I was an idiot for not fully understanding what I was getting myself into, but I wanted this. I cared for Nadine so much that I was willing to sacrifice everything, only there would be no sacrifices involved. She was all I wanted. She made me happy even when she bewildered me.
I woke up later that night, not sure what had kicked me out of slumber. It wasn’t until I rolled over and realized Nadine wasn’t in bed that I really became aware. Where had she gone? The sheets were cool, meaning she hadn’t been there in a while.
I padded around the house until I found her asleep on the couch. The last person other than me to sleep on that couch was Sloan, when he was too drunk after a Fourth of July party at my place over the summer. It seemed strange that Nadine was on it. What had been wrong with the bed? Had she woken up, sober, disgusted with herself for falling in with me again?
“It’s not you. It’s me.” Those were the words she’d said to me while we were in the middle of making love. What did that mean in the context of our relationship, though? How in the world could I accept that statement without knowing what was behind it? What was Nadine? A tendency to flirt with people? To make me feel small? To ignore me until she was bored enough to take me up on an offer of a quick day trip? And what was not me? An ability to hold her interest? Any kind of future we might have happily shared? How was I supposed to make sense of that?
I looked down at her, asleep on the couch, and wondered where I’d gone wrong. Everything had been going so well, but it seemed like, most of all, she hadwoken up and hadn’t been able to stand sleeping next to me. I wished there was some easy explanation she’d gotten hot, or she’d wanted to watch TV for a bit to help her fall asleep.
But maybe the simplest one was that we just weren’t meant to be together.
I only wished that today hadn’t been so perfect. It just made everything else that much more confusing.
Chapter 5
I knew Nadine ending up on the couch was a red flag, because the next time I went into the bar when she happened to be working, she had renewed her flirting efforts. What was new about this round of flirtations was that I was less taken aback and more perplexed. Nadine continued not to pay me any attention, even when I was behind the bar, completing her drink requests when Ace got too busy with the patrons actually seated there.
“What is she doing?” Ace asked as Nadine planted an overly long kiss on a regular’s cheek.
“I don’t know. Just being friendly?” I examined Nadine’s scrawled out receipts and determined that I should be filling a pitcher full of boring beer that tasted more like water than anything that would get you drunk as well as mixing up some margaritas. People here were predictable. I had to remind myself that it wasn’t their fault that Nadine was on a flirtatious rampage. There was no reason to be cross with people who were just trying to get a drink.
“She can come be friendly my way,” said Marty, one of the Horizon bar’s most devoted regulars.
“That’s enough, Marty,” Ace fussed. “That’s Brody’s girlfriend.”
“What?” Marty blinked at me. “Really?”
“No, not really.” I scowled at Ace. “We’re just roommates.”
“Romantic roommates?” Marty waggled his eyebrows at me, and I just sighed and shook my head.
“See what you did, Ace? You deal with this.”
Ace held his hands up and shook his head solemnly.
“Hey, I’m just trying to get a feel for the situation,” Marty said, defending himself. “If she’s your lady, I won’t try my luck. I have too much respect for you, Brody.”
I heaved a sigh. “Well, thanks,
then, Marty. I’d appreciate it if you could not come on to Nadine.”
“So there is something romantic there.” The man laughed as he hoisted his beer in the air. “Cheers to you, then. She’s a firecracker.”
“She’s something all right,” I agreed, watching her wreak her special brand of havoc across the bar. Husbands obviously drinking with their wivesor the dates they’d picked to take to the bar weren’t even spared Nadine’s lingering hands or gazes or pecks on cheeks, and her laughter rang out regularly over the general din of the customers. I found myself going over those strange words she’d uttered during sex. “It’s not you. It’s me.” That was usually something somebody said when they were giving a lame excuse for a breakup, but I wasn’t sure there was any kind of relationship between the two of us that necessitated a breakup. What was it about her that was causing me this heartache? It wasn’t fun for me to watch her behave like this. And I had to remember that when she first started working at the bar, she wasn’t like this at all. She loved to chat with customers, sure, but there was no physical contact whatsoever beyond a friendly touch on the arm.
Everything she was doing now went way beyond the norm for waitress-customer relations.
“Say, did you redo your chairs?” Marty wriggled around a bit on his barstool. “This one’s so comfortable. It’s like sitting on a cloud.”
“Hey, looks like you noticed you’re sitting in the VIP seat,” Ace said, grinning. “That means your next round’s on me.”
“What, really?” Marty beamed. “Well, I don’t really know what that means, but thanks!”
“Have you really been doing that?” I asked as Ace poured a fresh beer for Marty. “Giving free drinks to people who happen to sit in the VIP seat?”
“Only when they comment on how comfortable it is,” Ace said, chuckling.
“How often would you say that happens, on average?”
“Oh, don’t worry about it, you miser,” he complained. “It’s not going to drain our kegs or our funds. It happens just often enough to be funny.”
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