by K. A. Linde
“Nice to meet you.”
He quirked a smile at me. “You, too. This is McAvoy.”
McAvoy’s eyes were bloodshot, and he looked really out of it, but he still managed to nod at me.
“Hi,” I peeped. “Who is Hurst?”
Both guys’ eyes bugged, and they turned to Grant. What the hell is wrong with them?
“He owns the bar,” Grant informed me without glancing at his friends.
“Oh, well, that’s great for you guys, right?”
“It is,” Miller said. “Bigger the shows, the better the business is for him.”
“Bro!” Vin called, barging in between them.
I was thrown back into Grant and grunted as I slipped on my high heel. He put his arm around me to help me regain my balance.
“Bro, where is Sydney? I thought she was going to come to the show.”
I raised my eyes to Grant, who still had his arm around me. Who is Sydney?
“She couldn’t make it,” Grant said.
“Dude, you spend all week with her and can’t even bring her back to share with me?” Vin asked.
He was clearly cracking himself up, but Grant looked like he was about to pummel him.
I moved away and crossed my arms. So, that is why he had been gone. He had been away, visiting someone else. If I had to wager from Vin’s comments, she was probably someone who was a lot easier than I was.
“What the fuck have I told you about talking about her like that?” Grant growled.
“I’m an ass man. You can’t fault me.”
“Um…who is Sydney?” I managed to get out.
Grant took his eyes off Vin for a second to look at me, and his anger dissipated. “Oh, no. She’s not…” he said, fumbling for the right words.
“She’s not what?” I asked. Why am I getting defensive? It wasn’t like we were dating.
“Ari, Sydney is my cousin.”
“Oh.”
Well…shit. I really am an idiot. I had gotten worked up, thinking he had hooked up with some girl all week when he just went to visit his cousin. I wasn’t sure why I had even been getting worked up over him. It wasn’t like we were together or anything—or that I was even interested in that. He’d intrigued me, that was all. God, maybe I am judgmental.
“I, um…okay,” I said. My face heated, and I turned to walk back to my friends. I should probably get back to my quiet, invisible life. Calculus is way easier than this.
“Ari,” Grant said, following me into the crowd. “Aribel, will you stop?”
“What, Grant?”
His eyes were fixed on me, but all I could see was everyone else staring at us. It was like the quad all over again, except all of our friends were here this time.
“I’m starting to think you’re going to back out of our arrangement.”
“What arrangement is that?”
“You said you’d see me again. I want some collateral on that,” he said, stepping closer to me.
I just narrowed my blue eyes. “What kind of collateral?”
“I was thinking your phone number.”
The people around us had gradually grown silent. Everyone was giving me the same expression that Miller and McAvoy had given Grant when I introduced myself. Maybe Grant actually didn’t go on dates with anyone…
“You want my phone number?” I whispered now that the room had quieted.
“Then, I can make sure I can find you.” He was so close to me now that his lips were nearly grazing mine.
“Just kiss her already!” Vin called out.
Grant smirked, and my heart stopped. His hand found the back of my head, and then we were kissing. Full-on making out in front of all these people, and I didn’t even care. I just wanted to let this desire course through my body and live in the moment. Live the moment that I’d never allowed myself before.
Two days later, Vin and I were playing Madden on my Xbox.
“You going to call that chick?” McAvoy asked, plopping down on the couch in the middle of my living room next to Miller.
“Of course he isn’t going to,” Vin said. He was bobbing and weaving with his players as he spoke.
“I don’t know, man,” I said.
My player sacked Vin’s quarterback in the last play of the game. I’d won again. Vin flipped me off.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Vin asked. “She’s just some chick that you had a quickie with in the back room of the League.”
“She looked like a little bit more than a quickie,” Miller observed.
“Bro, Grant doesn’t do more than that.”
“Vin, you blind?” McAvoy asked. “He pulled her onstage, and she introduced herself. How many groupies you know that do that?”
“There was that one girl,” Vin said dismissively.
“Who?” Miller probed.
“Fuck, if Grant doesn’t remember their names, why would I?”
“Guys, chill,” I said, relaxing back into the recliner. “It’s no big deal.”
“Is that code for the three-day rule?” McAvoy asked.
I shook my head. “What the fuck is the three-day rule?”
I needed to get out of this real quick. These fuckers knew me too well not to realize that I was in over my head about Ari. I had a fucking reputation to uphold.
“When you get a chick’s phone number, you wait three days to call her. Just long enough to make her think you’re not interested, but not long enough to actually look disinterested,” Miller filled in. “It’s more of a guideline.”
“Anyone actually follow that standard?” I asked.
“Looks like you are,” McAvoy teased me.
I set the controller on the coffee table, stood, and stretched out. Now would be as good a time as any to make up some shit, so they’d leave me alone. “Nah, I’ve got plans tonight with a hot Puerto Rican chick. I’m going to be getting laid while you assholes sit around and play video games.”
“See?” Vin said. “My man, Grant, isn’t some pussy worried about when to call some bitch. He tapped that last night. Wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.”
A muscle twitched in my jaw, and for a second, I thought I might throw Vin through the window. Who the fuck does he think he’s talking about? Aribel wasn’t some slut who fucked every dude in her path. If I hadn’t done more than kiss her yet, then I was sure she wasn’t letting just anyone dip into the honey pot.
“Vin,” Miller said in the voice he would use when Vin wasn’t paying attention during rehearsal.
I relaxed my jaw, but it was too late. Miller had seen what I was thinking as clearly as if I had laid it out in front of him. The motherfucker knew me too well.
“What?” Vin asked, oblivious.
I walked through the living room and grabbed my brown leather jacket. I didn’t know where the hell I was heading to now that I’d committed myself to going out, but it would be better than sitting around and getting shit about Ari.
I uncovered my motorcycle in the garage and steered it across town. Soon, I was out on the interstate—hitting eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty in the blink of an eye. My pulse rose with the speed of the bike between my legs, and a sense of control settled over me. This was what I’d needed—speed, adrenaline, power—to make me forget everything I was constantly running from.
My cherry red baby, the booze, the girls—they were all the things I’d gotten used to needing in my life. But Ari was different. She was the new distraction to my uninterrupted self-torture. And I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I had no control with her, yet I didn’t feel the pain when I was around her.
Everything else did nothing but dull the ache. Ari might have started as a conquest, but I’d never met anyone else like her. Girls would put up with my shit, but she would push my buttons as much as I’d push hers. She’d give shit back to me tenfold and glare at me with those hurricane dark blue eyes, like she was going to chew me up and spit me right back out.
And she was so innocent. She hardl
y let me touch her, and fuck, did I want to touch her. I had a reputation to protect, yet I’d gone and made a fucking idiot of myself by asking for her phone number in front of everyone. Now, Miller and McAvoy were catching on, and I didn’t want to deal with any of it.
But I’d still call her.
I knew I would. Like an addict, I’d take the morphine hit to forget the pain—even if it was temporary. I had always needed more and more of everything else in my life to stall the pain of what one argument, one kiss from her completely eradicated.
I kicked up the speed on the bike, trying to drown out her face and everything else that originated from being interested in someone like Aribel.
The rain came as unexpectedly as Aribel had into my life—a dribble and then a downpour.
I cursed under my breath, but it was soon lost to the wind howling in my helmet. I checked the next sign and groaned. I was over an hour away from home. I pulled off on the next exit ramp and cut my bike back toward Princeton. I hoped I could outrun the worst of the oncoming storm.
I felt the shift in the weather just as I was making it onto my street. The wind picked up, the rain came down in sheets at an angle, and lightning ripped out of the sky from every direction. I’d never been happier to park my bike in the garage. It had been a cold, miserable hour, and I just wanted a steaming hot shower and to jack off in peace.
I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket and took the stairs two at a time. I stalled on the landing when I saw that I had two missed calls from Aribel. Fuck! I couldn’t believe she’d called me while I’d been out riding around in this shit. Actually, I couldn’t believe she had called me at all.
When I dialed her number, she answered on the first ring. “Oh my God, you called me back,” she said in that bitingly sarcastic tone she used all the time.
“Hey, darlin’. You miss me?”
She snorted, and it made me smile.
“Grant, I’m stranded.”
“What?” I asked. “Where are you? What happened? Are you okay?”
I probably sounded a bit frantic, but I’d only just met her. I didn’t want anything to happen to her.
“Yes, I’m fine. My car broke down right off campus, and my roommates are in the middle of a movie. I-I don’t know what’s wrong with my car. Do you think you could, um…maybe come help me?”
I stared down at my drenched clothing and shrugged. I was already soaked through. It wouldn’t hurt me any to go check on her.
Who the hell am I kidding? I wanted to see her, and I’d drive through this madness to do it.
“Sure. Where are you?”
Aribel gave me the nearest intersection, and I was happy to hear that she was only a couple of miles from my place. As soon as I hung up, I was out the door and in my truck, but the storm had managed to get even worse since I’d been inside. With the wipers on high and my brights lighting my way, I could still only see a few feet in front of me.
A three-minute drive took me nearly fifteen minutes, but then I saw a black BMW sitting on the side of the road with its flashers on. “Fuck. She drives a Beamer?”
I parked behind her, shaking off the questions of why someone would give a college student a BMW, and then I dashed out of my truck. When I reached the driver’s side, I tapped on the glass. I saw her jump in the front seat, and then she smiled when she recognized me. That smile is going to be the death of me.
I opened the umbrella I’d brought with me as Aribel rolled down the window. “Take the umbrella and go get in my truck.”
“What about my car?” she asked like there was a better plan.
“Pop the hood. I’ll take a look, but you won’t see a tow truck tonight. Not in this mess.”
She sighed and then nodded. She didn’t even argue with me. Miracle of all miracles.
After she exited, she slid the keys in my hand, took the umbrella, and then made a dash for my truck. It only took me a couple of seconds to realize she had a busted radiator. She’d have to leave it until the morning. When I finally made it back to my truck, I didn’t think there was an inch of me that wasn’t sopping wet.
“Thanks,” she said softly once I was settled in the seat.
“No problem,” I said. “I mean, I thought I might have gotten lucky, and you wanted a jump.”
I winked at her, and she just rolled her eyes.
“Seriously, everything is sexual with you.”
“I just saved your hot ass. I think you can handle a joke.”
She sighed and then seemed to agree. “All right. Could you tell what was wrong?”
“Cracked radiator.”
“Great,” she groaned.
“Yeah, but it won’t be too bad. I have a friend I could hook you up with. He does great work for cheap.”
“My parents will probably want me to take it to the dealer.”
“Ah.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I shifted into reverse and backed away from her car. I made a U-turn in the middle of the street and started back the way I had come.
“Wait, my house is that way.” She pointed behind her.
“I know, Princess. It would take an hour to get to your house in this. It takes fifteen to get to my place, so that’s where we’re going.”
“Um…I don’t think so.”
“Look, if we’re driving the hour to your place, then I’m staying there because I’m not driving the hour back.”
Aribel opened her mouth as if she as going to contradict me, but then she didn’t. I glanced in her direction twice, waiting for her to say something, to tell me that I’d fucking drive her to her house and back because she said so, but still nothing came out.
“My parents are going to be so angry,” she whispered.
“Why? It’s not your fault.”
She shrugged her little shoulders and stared determinedly out the window. “I don’t know.”
“Seems like a silly thing to get angry about.”
“Well, you don’t know my parents. What would your parents say?”
“Nothing,” I said, tensing at the question.
“Really? You’re so lucky.” She sank back into the seat and crossed her arms.
She looked really young. I’d never given a thought to her age until that moment.
“How old are you, Princess?”
“Nineteen,” she said without skipping a beat.
Shit! Really young. I mean, I’d fucked girls her age and younger, but shit! Ari wasn’t just some fuck. She seemed so mature. I definitely would have guessed a solid twenty-one at least. Maybe that was just what I’d been hoping for.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh.”
“What?”
“You’re my brother’s age. He’d kill me right now if he knew what I was doing.”
“What exactly are you doing? Getting a ride home from a guy who just helped you out of a tough position. Yeah, what an asshole!”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said, trying to backtrack. “He’s just…protective.”
“Doesn’t want his little sister to turn out like the girls he’s fucking?”
“Aaron is not like that!”
I cracked up laughing because there was nothing else to do in the situation. I was certain her brother was exactly like that.
“It’s not funny.”
Aribel smacked me on the arm, but I caught her hand before she could yank it back.
“If you’re going to be such a jerk, I’ll reconsider making you drive across town to take me home.”
I turned onto my street just as she said it. After stopping in front of my house, I unbuckled her seat belt and pulled her across the cab to me. “Ari, at this point, you’d have to walk home. You’re not fucking leaving.”
Her eyes found mine, and I saw the anger leaving her body as she stared at me. She still looked a bit like she wanted to slap me around, but I was good with that as long as I could get her inside.
After a m
inute, she conceded. “You’re right. I’m not.”
Well, damn. This was going way better than I’d thought it would. She had fought me tooth and nail for every second of her time up until this point. When did we turn a corner?
I kissed her softly on the lips. I didn’t want to get too into it before we went inside, but fuck, when she responded to my touch, I had to fight myself not to lay her out in the cab of my truck.
She pulled back first, and her cheeks heated when I looked down at her.
God, I want to fuck her.
“Let’s go,” I said, nodding toward the house before I actually acted on that.
We jogged through the rain until we were inside. I gestured for her to take the stairs, which she did without a single snide remark.
“I like your house,” she said.
“Thanks.”
My eyes were fixed on her body in the light from my bedroom. She was wet, and her clothes were clinging to her in the most tempting way. All I could think about was what it would feel like to peel them off of her, to get my hands on her soft skin again. I felt my body stiffen at the prospect. “I need a shower…if you’re interested.”
She shook her head. “I’m sure you can have enough fun all on your own.”
“But you’re already wet, babe.” I couldn’t hold back my smirk.
She snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “Is everything sexual with you?”
“Not everything,” I told her. “But you are torturing me with your body right now.”
I watched as she shifted uncomfortably from my compliment. She wouldn’t even meet my eyes. For someone who looked like that, I would have thought that she could take compliments better.
“No, I’m not going to shower with you, but some dry clothes would be appreciated, so I can stop torturing you,” she responded softly.
“Who said I wanted you to stop torturing me?”
She leveled me with an eat-shit-and-die look, and I just laughed.
“All right, all right.”
I found her some clothes before reluctantly retreating to the bathroom. It took a solid ten minutes for the cold to leach out of my skin and another ten until I felt human again. I hated making Aribel wait that long, but I had spent the better part of the last two hours in the rain. I deserved a twenty-minute shower.