Gabi gave me a fist bump. “No truer words, my friend.”
There had been a waitress coming around with drinks so we didn’t have to get up, but my cranberry and Sprite had run dry a while back. I was down to chewing the ice.
It was slow around the bar, as Leo’s groupies had temporarily dispersed.
“Your fans left?” I asked. “Did you break their hearts?”
“Of course,” he said. “It’s what I do.” He nodded toward my empty table. “Your suitors taking a break?”
I slid my ass along a stool as he wiped up some spilled liquid.
“Well, two of them I think I scared when I told them I got this shiner playing roller derby with my bitches,” I said.
Leo laughed out loud, and my ovaries clenched.
Stop.
“One was kind of normal but he had this nervous twitch thing going on with his hand,” I said. “I thought he was going to bang a hole in the table.” I glanced at Leo’s left hand as he rolled a quarter over his knuckles without even looking at it. Hell, possibly without even knowing it. “Kind of like that, but not as cool.”
He palmed the coin without looking down. “My uncle taught me that,” he said. “One of the few things he was around long enough to do. Another cranberry and Sprite?”
“Sure,” I said, suddenly remembering something I’d forgotten to ask him. “Hey, this is a weird question, but you don’t know Jeremy, do you?”
Leo turned to fill my glass, a pause in his reach. “How would I know him?”
“From the same area?” I said.
“Do you know everyone in your town? In your county?”
“Okay, smartass, I’m just asking,” I said. “Or if your brother worked for his dad.”
“You’d have to ask my brother.”
“Oh, my God, whatever,” I said. “But he acted like he knew you. Something about a long time ago,” I said. “Or something like that.”
Leo grabbed a slice of lime and slid it onto my glass. “I must just have one of those faces.”
I doubted that. The only person who could come close to Leo McKane was Nick, and neither of them had one of those faces.
Katrina flashed the green light, making circle motions with her finger.
“Looks like she’s summoning the troops,” Leo said.
“Seriously,” I said, frowning her way.
“Rachel,” a guy with too much cologne said, touching my arm as he passed. “Time to get back at it.”
“Rachel?” Leo asked after he was gone.
Oh yeah. Rachel. Forgot about that one. I opened my mouth and closed it, giving him a shrug.
“What can I say?” I said, grabbing my glass.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure I’ve met you yet.”
The next round was almost numbing. There’re only so many times you can tell your story. Even the made-up ones. After a while, I couldn’t remember which was what and a little bit of reality got mixed in, and before I knew it, I was staring into the eyes of the sweetest but clingiest man named Jeffrie-with-an-ie, who held my hand and didn’t care that my ex-husband sold crack or that my ex-mother-in-law had punched me because I’d left him for my Roller Derby team but then decided I didn’t like women after all. This guy was enamored. And I really needed that red light to come the hell on.
“Anastasia,” he said, because I’d decided to loop back. “You deserve so much better. No one should ever treat you like that. You should never settle for anything but pure, one hundred percent all of me kind of love.”
Ooookay.
The red light came on and I bolted from my seat, raising my hand.
“Can we have a bathroom break?” I asked.
Katrina smiled like I’d just said something brilliant. “Awesome idea,” she said. “From our special attendee tonight!”
Oh, fuck.
I headed for the bathroom as Gabi ducked off to take a phone call. Even just five seconds alone would be priceless right now, but an exit sign just past the girls’ room door called to me. Glancing over my shoulder and hoping for no alarms, I gingerly pushed. No beeping. No yelling. Just quiet.
“Oh, thank God,” I said, pushing into the low hue of a nearby security light. Not so bright to really be able to see, but not so dark that a stranger could sneak up and—
“Can I help you?”
“Shitfuckhell!” I yelped, flattening myself against the now closed door and trying desperately to remember what shoes I had on and if they were weapons. Where was my fucking toothpick?
“It’s me,” Leo’s voice said to my left, a chuckle following it. “Take a breath.”
“Jesus Christ, Leo,” I breathed, willing my heart to back off its superspeed mission. “Don’t ever do that to a woman alone.”
“Sorry,” he said. “You’re right, I wasn’t thinking.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out, wiggling my fingers to return the blood.
“What are you doing out here? Hiding?” I asked, now that I could see him. He was sitting in a plastic chair, legs kind of sprawled, his arms folded over his chest with a cigarette between his fingers. “Smoking?”
He unfolded his arms and looked down at the cigarette. “Nah, this thing is ancient,” he said. “I quit, but I still like the getaway and holding it somehow gives me peace.”
I nodded as I strolled slowly over and leaned against the wall next to him. “I get it. Thatcher—my brother—he does the same thing.”
He nodded, and we existed in silence for a few beats. Again, I had a moment of amazement that we could do that. Just—be. No words, no expectations, no needing to fill the space. It was nice. I felt the troubled vibes coming off him, however.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, keeping my voice soft in the spirit of the silence. He just shook his head, but I nudged his arm with my knee. “Something’s eating you. You aren’t your normal chirpy self.”
He chuckled at my wit and pulled out a worn wallet, putting the even more worn out cigarette into it and pocketing it again.
“Ever feel like you’ve been trying to put something behind you forever?” he said, almost to himself. “Logging millions of miles, just to find out that you’ve been on a treadmill the whole time.”
“He asks the runaway bride?” I said, making him chuckle again. “Lord, I hope not. I hope getting away from Jeremy is real.”
Leo nodded. “I hope so, too.”
Curiosity pulled at my brows. There was something in his tone that was about more than just wanting that for me. “Why?”
He paused. “Because he’s—what do you know about him?”
Warning bells started to tinkle in the far recesses of my brain.
“Well, pretty much everything, considering I was with him for eight years,” I said. “Then again lately I’m not sure. But I thought you didn’t know him.”
Leo shook his head. “I don’t,” he said, still staring forward. “But he reminds me of someone I used to know. Another time and place.”
Funny that Jeremy had said nearly the same thing.
“And who was that?” I asked.
“Someone who was bad news,” Leo said. “Who was cold and freakish and would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Including terrorizing his ex-girlfriend, selling out his own parents, and buying into his own lies.”
“And you think that was Jeremy?” I asked after a pause.
“I didn’t say that,” he said. “I just think you need to be careful with people like him.”
My control trigger yanked, and I pushed it back. He was trying to be helpful, but it felt an awful lot like—no, I didn’t need to get defensive. I blew out a breath. I’d already had enough of that today.
“Well, I don’t have to be anything with people like him now,” I said. “It’s over.” A long stretch of silence waned bef
ore I spoke again. “So, you gonna expand on what you’ve spent all these treadmill miles getting away from or do I just get the metaphor?”
“Let’s just say karma’s a sadistic bitch,” he said.
“Well, that’s helpful.”
“So, Thatcher, the nonsmoking brother,” he said, changing the subject with the subtlety of a neck snap. “Is that your only sibling? I feel like I should know this after the big escape and all, but all that conversation seems like a blur.”
“Yeah, it does,” I said, laughing. “God, that seems like a hundred years ago.” I shook my head free and leaned against the wall next to him. “And no to your question. I’m the middle. I have a little brother who lives down on the coast. Jolly Beach.”
Leo nodded and gazed off into the night. “Family is important.”
I looked his way. “Yes, it is.” I took a shot. “Have you talked anymore to Nick?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t tried, but I don’t think it would matter if I did.”
“You don’t know that.”
That head kept shaking. “I’m just glad he’s getting the chance at another family.”
“Another one?”
There was a pause. “Nick was a father at seventeen. Addison’s her name.” Even in the almost dark, I could see the look of pride on his face. “She’s in college now. Art school.” His expression changed. “I missed all that, and now I’m going to miss this one, too.”
I recalled him telling me that Nick had needed him and he’d bailed. Teenage fatherhood could fit that bill. It could also explain Nick’s bitterness.
“If you know she’s in art school, then you haven’t missed everything,” I said.
He gave me a look that probably said I was too nosy for my own good.
“I’ve kept tabs.”
“Leo, you don’t have to miss this,” I said. “You’re here. You can be there, be a brother again. Be an uncle. Mend things.”
“That’s easier said than done,” he said. “And it’s not enough that I want it. He has to want it, too, and that’s—” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, leaning his head back against the brick. “That’s not happening.” He frowned and gave me a sideways look. “Why are you out here?”
I rolled my eyes, not that he could see it.
“I was excused to go to the bathroom,” I said, making him chuckle. “And this looked like a few blessed moments of quiet.”
“Sorry,” he said.
“No,” I said, nudging his shoulder with my wrist. “This is good, too. A little piece of normal.”
His chuckle burst into something heartier. “If I’m a piece of normal for you, you’re in deep shit.”
A laugh bubbled up my throat. “No kidding.”
The door squeaked open to my right, just a smidgeon.
“Anastasia?”
I gripped Leo’s shoulder like a vise. “Shit,” I whispered.
“Anastasia?” Leo whispered on a chuckle.
“Shh.”
“You out here?” came Jeffrie’s voice. The door pushed open farther and he was about to appear around it. “I saw you come out here. I don’t think we’re supposed—”
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t have another lame, meaningless conversation with someone I had to lie to just to get through sixty seconds. What could I do? Fight or flight, Micah? What I did next wasn’t planned or even thought out in the next second. Call it a reaction, call it running again, call it panic, but my leg swinging over Leo’s lap was as much of a surprise to me as it was to him.
Especially considering I couldn’t have nailed that landing any more precisely.
My gasp as the sensation shot through me was cut short as his hands automatically spanned my thighs, fingers spread wide, as he inhaled deeply and I wound my fingers into his hair.
“Follow my lead,” I managed to whisper, trying not to think about what I was doing or the overwhelming sensation overload that flooded my body. About how close his mouth was, how he felt against me, about the heat of his hands on my thin little leggings and exactly where his thumbs started making tiny circles. I saw his eyes, and yet I didn’t. I couldn’t see the words behind them, and I didn’t want to. My head was spinning with too many what the fucks to go adding knowledge to the mix.
“Anastasia?” Jeffrie called out again, rounding the door.
“Follow mine,” Leo whispered against my lips. Heat claimed my skin in waves of goose bumps as his mouth took the lead.
One of his hands slid up my back under the cardigan, all the way to the nape of my neck, while the other one moved to my ass and gripped me so tightly against him I saw stars. I sucked in a gasp as our mouths met and wasted no time with the small stuff. His lips were wet. Soft. Demanding. My toes curled under as his kiss instantly deepened, our mouths searching each other hungrily. My hands went from his hair to the hard lines of his shoulders and back again, all in the span of—
“Anastasia!”
—of that.
I jumped, and stared straight into Leo’s eyes that time, our breaths mingling as we struggled to catch them. How was that—it had to only be seconds, but—
Fuck.
Both his hands were firmly on my ass now, mine were fisted in his hair, some poor scarred sap was standing somewhere in the vicinity wishing he’d never held my hand, and my stupid plan to quickly get rid of him now had me fighting the urge to wrap my legs around Leo and ride him till the cows came home.
“What are you doing?” the guy sputtered. “Oh, my God, he isn’t even—is that the bartender?”
“Not at the moment. I’m on a break,” Leo supplied helpfully, not breaking eye contact. I could still feel his breath on my skin and my hands were still in his hair.
“I thought we had a connection,” Jeffrie said, his voice full of disdain and disappointment. That was me. Double Ds. “I came to check on you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice wobbly and gravelly and not sounding at all like me. I cleared my throat. “I’m—I just—”
“Do you even know what she’s been through?” Jeffrie asked Leo, accusingly. “Do you know what her ex-husband did?”
“Actually, Leo’s the one who turned me back on to guys,” I said, backing up an inch and holding out a hand. “But you can join us. The more, the merrier.”
Jeffrie’s mouth formed a perfect O as he made some snort of irritation and stormed back inside.
“Oh, my God,” I said under my breath, closing my eyes as I rested my hands back on his shoulders and Leo laughed.
“I didn’t realize I’d turned you,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You keep having to save me.”
His hands hadn’t left my ass, either. In fact, I was fairly certain that his fingertips were growing roots. Every nerve ending in my body was zinging at top speed, however, including the ones in my lips. They were reaching for more of his mouth like food to the starved.
“I’ll send you my bill,” he said, closing his eyes as I opened mine. I watched something change on his face as he shook his head as if to himself and then open his eyes again. “We had to make it look good, after all. Give them something to talk about. People don’t sneak out of places to hold hands and keep it PG.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Right,” I said. “Making it look good. Something to talk about.” I took a steadying breath, trying to catch up to the coolness chilling the heat between us. “All pretend.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth again, however, fire sparking in them again as he slid his hands slowly off my ass and along my thighs. His fingers spread wide. “I assume that’s where you went.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Of course,” I said in response, my words echoing in my ears. Of course. Pretend. All a big show. Yep.
So why was I still in his lap with no one out there, my lips st
ill tingling from his kisses. Kisses that in just mere seconds had rocketed me further than years of being kissed by Jeremy.
“You okay?” he asked softly, blinking logic back into his expression again.
I blinked, too. Maybe that was the trick. “Why?”
His hands traveled down to my calves. I felt the trail of every finger. It was a bold move for something supposedly pretend, and it drove me to slide my own hands slowly up his neck. I felt a rush go through me as my fingers found his hair and his breathing quickened, but I couldn’t look away from the—something. The need, the want, the raw desire mixed with this is a bad idea—that, I understood. That was probably all over me, as well. This was something else.
“You’re trembling,” he said.
Shit. He was lucky I wasn’t pole-vaulting. It was like a supermagnet was pulling me to his mouth, and I couldn’t breathe until I tasted him again.
The door squeaked open again, and I inhaled sharply through my nose.
God, get it together.
“See?” came Jeffrie’s voice from somewhere over the rainbow. “I told you.”
“Micah!” Katrina Bowman exclaimed.
“Who’s Micah?” Jeffrie asked.
A nervous laugh escaped my throat, and Leo chuckled too, as his hands spanned my hips and helped me off him. The weirdest disappointment washed over me as we separated, like the missing contact was needed. Too needed.
“You know, if you’re just going to make a mockery of everything here,” she said, all the nicety of earlier, gone, “why don’t you just go back where you came from?”
“Relax,” Leo said, standing with me. “We were just blowing off a little steam. Not that it’s your business.”
“Not my business?” Katrina asked, her voice moving up an octave as she put her fists on her hips. In that pose, in that leather outfit, she looked like a cross between a pissed-off Viking and a dominatrix. “I’m running a dating event tonight if you haven’t noticed. And when the featured contestant skips off to get nasty with the bartender—”
“Hold on, there was no nasty,” I said. Not yet. But, oh man, my body was still thrumming with the trip that direction. “It was a show so that John-boy there would stop stalking me.”
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