“The bar?”
What is up with this guy? He’s a shell of himself.
“Yeah, dufus. The bar. What… do you wanna cuddle up in a booth together? I could hold your hand.”
“Shut it.” He makes his feet move forward.
No fun will be had this night.
We each take a seat on the far side of the bar. I look around behind us. “There’s no art on the walls. How long they been open?” Mark shrugs.
A bartender walks up to us, looking scared… from me to Mark, then back to me. “You guys want a beer?”
Mark and I exchange a look. Mark nods and the guy races off to pour us a couple pints from the draft. No asking if we want bottles. No asking what kind of draft we want.
“What the hell?” I mutter sideways.
Mark just shrugs. “It’s a surprise.”
“Well, at least the glasses are frosted.” I watch the guy pour us Bass Ale. “And at least he has good taste.”
He returns and puts the chilled pints in front of us. He stares for a second and then just leaves. Something short of a chuckle breaks out of me and I pick up the beer. “I’ve never had a bartender not ask me what kind of beer I want before. But maybe that’s what they do here?”
Mark lifts his glass. “Part of their ‘thing,’ maybe. They guess for you.”
“Huh. I like it.” Mark drinks without a toast.
We stay quiet for a while and then I’ve had it. “Mark, Let it fucking go already! You’re making your grandchildren depressed. She’s a woman just like every other woman.”
3
Annie
Face: calm, cool and collected. Cleavage: gathering beads of sweat.
________
Getting closer, I overhear Mark. “She’s not like every woman, Brendan. She’s just not.” His face is tired and he looks, well, heartbroken. I conceal my shock. Is Jerkoff Mark in love?
Brendan shoots him a huff of annoyance and turns in disgust, to me.
I can’t breathe, but I keep walking. My heartbeat suspends the air between us. I look at him like he’s any other customer, as I come to stand in front of him.
I wait for the fight to begin. For the name-calling. For the running out.
“Can we get a couple glasses of scotch, neat?”
I blink, speechless and waiting for more. Within fractions of a second, I realize he doesn’t even remember me. Here I am nursing a torch for a guy who has no idea I even exist! But in a flash, just as I’m considering whether or not to reach over and slap him again, I catch a glimpse of my strawberry blonde hair. It’s not that he doesn’t remember me. It’s that he doesn’t recognize me.
I plant my hands on the bar with a sassy smile. “What kind, honey?”
Brendan drifts to the hills of my breasts all pushed up and pretty, and holds there. As I feel goose bumps spread down my legs, he meets my eyes, his saying volumes, before he casually looks past me to the bottles on the shelf, deciding on a scotch. Stunned, I watch his face, grabbing the opportunity to tighten my screws.
How could I have forgotten how different I look from back then? Gone is the heavy, white foundation, leaving my freckles no longer hidden. Gone is the thickly applied black eyeliner and lipstick. Gone is the baggy clothing. My breasts are riding high in my halter; that certainly wouldn’t have happened back then. And the real kicker is my hair – long, light and healthy – the stark raving opposite to the black dyed bird’s nest he last saw me sporting.
He’s so handsome, it makes my brain hurt.
Leaning back, he regards me with a sexy look that instantly tingles my panties up. “Let’s do Oban.” I have to hold myself back from leaping the bar and landing on his lap.
Flashing him a flirtatious smile and a “Good choice,” I stroll away to the shelves with an extra swing in my hips, loving every minute of this newfound anonymity. Reaching up, I stand on my tiptoes with my back arched way more than necessary, pulling the bottle gracefully down like a sexy librarian reaching for a book. My ears are trained from working in bars for the past four years. I can hear anybody over anything if I’m focusing. Like right now.
Brendan says to Mark in a voice he thinks is undetectable, “Guess what I’m doing later?”
I almost fall over.
Also not quietly enough, Marks whispers back, “Looks like the door is open.”
Feigning ignorance, I plop the two glasses down, pouring heavily. The door has always been open…didn’t you know that? Didn’t you know how much I adored Brendan for all the years I was at State? How much I lived to hear just a word from him? No, you didn’t know, because you thought I was invisible. Well, I’m not invisible. It is on.
I hand Mark his glass, looking at him like, Recognize me. I dare you. He just thanks me for the scotch. I can’t believe it.
I shift my weight to my other hip and look at Brendan, daring the same thing. Eating me up instead, he sits back and smiles. He holds my look with the confidence of one who knows his admiration is always wanted.
“What’s your name?”
You asked me five years ago! My heart picks up the pace, racing with anticipation. When I tell him – AGAIN - will it jog his memory? Is this the moment the curtain comes down? Where we see that the wizard isn’t a sexpot ginger, but really just a shy, socially inept girl who nobody noticed?
“Annie.” I wait for it, ready for anything, my hair standing on end on the back of my neck.
“Annie.” Rolling it around on his tongue, he says it again. “Annie… I like it.”
Holy crap. He has no idea who I am. I need a second to think. I can’t be trusted not to climb over the bar and lick him.
So I tap the bar counter once, say “Good,” and head away.
As I’m leaving I look back and catch him staring at me. That he was still looking at me stirs up a smile from deep inside my heart. Something shifts in his eyes, too. Neither of us expects it. His reserve melts as our gazes are locked and I see it – what Brendan hides – his soft underbelly, exposed. I see in this instant the nice boy I used to love, not the suave player he’s become.
My old butterflies launch themselves into my stomach, happy to be home and wondering where I’ve been all these years. With eyelashes falling hastily to the floor, I look away. I can’t believe this feeling. It’s like I’m falling.
4
Brendan
Brain: cracked open. Thoughts: twisted. Eyes: still staring. Cock: awake.
________
As she keeps walking, I realize I’d stopped breathing. What is going on with my pulse? It’s through the roof. “Oooohoooo. Wow. Did you see that?”
Mark glances to her and gives me a knowing look. “I think you may have just met your match.”
I don’t say anything as I glance over at her, wondering why my veins are pumping so hard. It’s unsettling watching her and for a second I consider what he said before I toss it in the trash with all the other bad ideas. I’m not interested in meeting my match, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give her the ride of her life.
I raise my glass. “To meeting new women.” We clink and drink.
“Mmm. That’s good stuff,” Mark says, feeling the warmth.
“Or course it is. It’s Oban.” My mind is still with her though. I glance over again, hating myself for the distraction of her. It’s like I can’t focus on anything but her. I see her leaning gracefully forward to place a glass of wine down for an older gypsy lady, saying something I can’t hear.
Mark gets an email and suddenly ups and leaves. Man that guy is whipped. I wish him luck and look at his unfinished glass. Idiot.
Annie looks my way and our eyes lock again. I can’t look away from her and I’m trying to. She goes to the first bartender and whispers something in his ear and I’m watching every second of it. As she leaves him and heads toward me, everything else disappears. There’s something in her eyes, something familiar. I’ve never experienced this kind of a reaction to a girl before. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one
bit. I think you may have just met your match. No way. Not gonna happen.
“Want another?” she asks, placing her hands on the counter between us.
“When do you get off?”
She pauses and her eyes dance. She’s trying not to laugh.
Suddenly, I realize how that sounded, why she’s smiling at me like that. On a grin, I correct myself, “Off work, I mean. When do you get off work?”
She nibbles on her bottom lip through the smile, considering my question. “Why do you ask?”
I wait and let the tension build. Staring at her is addictive. “Why do you think I’m asking?”
Surprises flickers over her whole body. I see it. I want to make that body do other things. We stare at each other. I feel like I’m clicking into a groove I’ve been in before, looking at her. Like this is supposed to be happening or something. Like I’m supposed to be here. My pulse picks up speed even as I try to deny it. I have to have her just so I can prove to myself I don’t need her.
Reluctantly, she says, “We close at two, but then I have to clean up. Then I’ll be tired, so…”
The idea of waiting another night is suddenly impossible to me. I can’t do it.
“You need help cleaning?” I hold up my hands. “I’m very good with my hands.”
She leans in and rests her elbows on the bar, her face tilted to the left. “Promises, promises.”
I lean in too, taking the flirtatious cue and running with it. “Why aren’t you jumping on this? I can see you want me… to help you clean.”
She laughs. “You know what, buddy?” She looks at my lips like she wants to suck on them. “I don’t know you! Do you think I allow strangers in here after everybody’s left? When I have no one to protect me?”
I smirk. “I’ll protect you, Annie.”
She tries to look serious. “You’ll protect me from you?”
Leaning back, I exhale loudly and throw up my hands. “Fair enough. Okay. My name is Brendan Clark. Nice to meet you. I’m a Scorpio, I know you women love that shit, so there it is.” She laughs freely, and the sound is like music.
“I’m Annie…” She pauses, looking at me a little oddly. “O’Brien. Annie O’Brien? And I know you hate that shit so I’m not telling you my sign. Besides, it’s lame.”
“Lame! Great. So I’m scoring high on the points already. Awesome.”
We grin at each other. “I like your freckles.”
Her eyebrows twitch. “Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. O’Brien. So, you’re true Irish aren’t you?”
“Ninety percent.”
“What’s the other ten?”
“Bitch.”
I laugh. “Nice. Okay, back to me so you feel safe…”
“Right. Not because you’re an egotist.”
“Not at all because I’m an egotist. This is all for you, Annie Freckles O’Brien. So, to continue on with my introduction, you should know that I am very important. Verrrrrrrry, very important.”
She shakes her head, glances down the bar and holds up her finger to a waiting customer. “I’ll be right there,” she calls to the guy. To me she says, “I am working you know.”
“Right, I’ll finish this up. I’m the very important creative director for an internet advertising firm called Location Times Three. Kind of the head honcho. So you see, I can’t be a serial killer because that would hurt my upwardly mobile trajectory and I’m all about goals.”
Her bright blue eyes are sparkling. “Go on. This is your last plug. I need to go get that guy drunk.”
Making a sucking sound, I look down at my glass to think of something else to tell her. I have to get her to say yes. There is no other option.
Why not just go for it?
I reach out both my hands, lay them on the counter next to, but not touching, her arms. Her eyes shoot down, curious to see if I’ll brush against her skin. I move my index finger the length of her arm like I’m tracing it, but never once do I actually touch her. I stop and wait. She looks back up and I’ve got her. She’s breathless.
“My last pitch is that I live just around the corner in a huge penthouse loft that needs you walking around naked in it. Tonight.”
Her eyes go wide.
5
Annie
Would screaming, YES…be bad?
________
“Is that so?” I say, trying to understand how my arm feels like he touched it when he actually didn’t.
He stares at my lips. I can tell by everything he does that he knows how to make a woman scream. All I want to do is walk around that Penthouse wearing nothing but a smile.
“It is so. I go after what I want.”
I say quietly, “And what you want is me.”
“Yes.”
My heart crashes out of my body and lands on an alien’s head somewhere on Pluto. But I have waited this long... I think I should make him wait a few nights. Make him take me to a movie first or something. Men are hunters and they chase what they don’t have. Evolution hasn’t driven that out of them yet, and the sooner we women accept it, the happier we’ll be.
I shake my head and as I’m walking away I look over my shoulder. “I’ll see you at two.”
So much for playing hard to get.
“I’ll be right with you,” I tell the poor waiting customer.
Rushing to Barb, I refill her glass and whisper, “Do not act like you’re looking, but what is he doing right now?”
She does a great incognito glance around the room. “He’s putting cash on the bar and getting up to leave. Did you tell him to go?”
“I don’t have that kind of will power.” I snicker. “You want another? Oh wait. I’m already pouring it, aren’t I?”
“Your arms are covered in goose bumps.”
“Oh!” I give them a good rub and look up just as he’s about to walk out the front door. He throws me a little smile, a wave, and disappears. Oh. My. God.
6
Brendan
The Air: promise of fog. My Head: mentally kicked for what I just did. Immediate promise to self: 2:00 a.m. will have me anywhere but here.
________
There’s something about that girl that makes me think things I don’t want to be thinking. I grab my phone and call Mark. He picks up after the first ring. “Hey.”
I come up on a couple people sleeping in bundled clothes on the sidewalk, and frown. “Aren’t you gone yet?”
“No flights until the morning. Fucking curfew.”
Stopping to open my wallet, I bend and slide a couple tens where they can find them when they wake up. “Does she know you’re coming?” The economy has been eating up the world. I can’t stand it.
“No way. I emailed back her friend though.”
“The one you had sex with.”
He’s obviously packing from the way he pauses several times like he’s distracted. “Right. And she says we have to handle this right. So, I’m deferring to her judgment. I’ll go to her place first.”
Since I’m walking back the way he and I came earlier that night, I see our usual haunts up just ahead. My feet pull me there like they knew that’s where I was headed all along. “She wants you to come to her place first? Wake up, man! You think this chick is really going to help you? You know she’s a woman, right?”
“You really need to work on your trust issues, B-man.”
I scoff, “I really need to keep living in reality, that’s what I really need to do. You go ahead. Run off to New York. Get yourself in the middle of this threesome and see who gets smashed. It’ll be you, my friend.”
“She’s not like that. She’s... Forget it. Hey. What happened with Strawberry?”
I stop just outside the window of Knockout. Teri sees me from where she’s sitting inside, and waves. I nod my chin to her.
“I’m not interested.”
Mark doesn’t say anything for a second and I wait, looking around. There are still plenty of people out. They’re keeping the fog at bay, but it’ll be co
ming later when the place clears out.
“What’s your problem?”
“Brendan, when are you going to let someone in?”
“Oh come on! Did you grow a vagina when I wasn’t looking?” Even as I say it, I’m listening too intently to his meaning.
He doesn’t acknowledge my vagina comment. “Look I’m going to be gone first thing in the morning. And if you come home tonight, I will be very disappointed. I expect to see your bed not slept in and empty when I leave.”
“What, you don’t want me to bring her home, so you have proof?”
He chuckles. “No, I want you to go to her place so I don’t have to hear you crying when she turns you into mush.”
“Hardyfuckinghar. Like that would ever happen.” It’s unnerving how much I wish I was back at Le Barré right now. I’m not happy.
Teri taps on the window with her nails. I hold my hand up, give me a second.
“I’ll see you next week.” Mark says.
“Wait, what?”
“The art show is this weekend, remember? The investors are meeting me there. So I’m staying through the weekend. Just going early, that’s all.”
I stare at Teri as she turns and heads back to straddle a bar stool in a very sexy way. “Oh. Yeah. I forgot. Okay, see you next week.”
“Now go get her.”
“Oh I’ll get her alright.” I hang up, turn and open the door.
Teri looks over, opens up her arms. “Where’ve you been?”
“Looking for you.” I give her a hello-peck on the lips and turn to Bobby. “Hey Bobby. Get me a Bass, would ya?”
“Bass?”
“I’ve got a taste for it tonight.”
“Sure Brendan. Comin’ up.”
As I put my hands on the bar and wait, I feel Teri’s arm go around my waist. “You have plans later?”
I stare ahead at the mirror, see her pretty face close to mine in the reflection. “Nope. No plans. What are you doin’?”
“You.” She nibbles on my earlobe as I watch in the mirror. My eyes are dead, just how I like them.
Hearts Series Bundle: Books 1-6 Page 9