by Ali Parker
I groaned and covered my face with my serving tray. “You stupid girl.” I tapped the tray against my forehead a little harder than necessary. “He’s dangerous, Holly. You can’t go running off with a guy like him.”
I was a mother now. Things were different. I had to be responsible at all times. And Jax, or as I remembered him from ages ago, Bryan, always made me impulsive and reckless. He used to say he just brought out the real me.
Whatever that meant.
But everything was different now. I had a son. Would Jax even be interested in me if he knew? And I had the baggage of a crazy ex who was sending me threatening texts. Now was certainly not the time to throw caution to the wind and indulge in a date with the man I had been thinking about for years but had told myself was strictly off limits.
“It’s just drinks,” I told myself. “You can handle drinks.”
Chapter 7
Jax
“So, Holly’s pretty,” Ellie said as she swept into the shop on Thursday afternoon with a blended drink in one hand and her sunglasses in the other.
I looked up from tightening a bolt on one of the Harleys. “Oh, great. This is just what I need right now.”
“What?” Ellie asked with a frown, cocking her head to the side. “I’m just here for moral support. And I mean it. She’s really pretty. Never thought a girl like that would ever be interested in the likes of you, though.”
I wiped my hands on my jeans and chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Maybe she’s only taking pity on me.”
Ellie sipped her blended coffee and plopped down on a stool beside me. She pushed her hair back on her head with her sunglasses and stretched her long legs out in front of her. “Where are you taking her?”
“Roy’s.”
“Nice. Perfect place for a first date.”
“I guess.”
“You’re usually such a chatty Kathy when you’re about to take a girl out. What’s the deal? You nervous or something?”
“Me? Nervous?” I scoffed. “Please.”
“Oh my god. You are nervous!” Ellie shrieked delightedly and pointed an accusing finger at my chest. “Holly must be something special. Tell me about her. Axel says the two of you go way back to your high school days?”
“She was in high school.”
“You had a thing for the younger ladies?”
I shrugged. “I had a thing for Holly Whitton.”
Ellie’s lips were wrapped around her straw, but I could still tell she was smiling by the way her cheeks puckered. “You’re bordering on sounding like a romantic, Jax. How unexpected.”
“Nah. But now that she’s back, I’d be an idiot not to take a chance with her. I have to admit, I spent a lot of time believing she and I would end up together one day. Even back then, when she was committed to her idiot boyfriend, she still made time for me.”
I thought back to the time she had her legs wrapped around my waist as I fucked her for the first time. It didn’t last long. She was so fucking sexy, so feminine, that I had lost complete control of myself with her. I was shocked when she let it happen a couple more times before she left for Philadelphia.
“Did you love her?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer Ellie’s question. I’d asked myself the same thing over and over, especially in the weeks and months after Holly had first moved away. “I think I did.”
Ellie paused with her mouth halfway open as she was about to take another sip of her coffee. She squared her shoulders and pulled her knees up with her feet flat on the floor, bringing the stool closer to me. “Damn. All right. I was just messing around. I didn’t think you actually might really like this chick. She didn’t seem your type.”
“My type?”
“Yeah. You know. Crop tops and yoga pants and belly button rings. The more skin, the better. That’s what you’re into, right?”
“You really think so little of me, hey?”
“Not anymore. Holly is respectable as fuck. She gives off, like, elementary school teacher vibes, and she probably doesn’t owe anything on her credit cards. She’s a catch. Don’t screw it up.”
“I’ll try my best.”
Ellie got to her feet and patted my back as she skirted around me and made for the nearly finished Impala. “No more of this mushy stuff. Get back to work.”
“I’ve been working the whole damn time!”
Ellie laughed loudly and gave me the middle finger over her shoulder.
I arrived at Roy’s fifteen minutes before eight and picked a spot at one end of the bar. We would be close enough to order drinks as we saw fit without having to be surrounded by too many people. I wanted to catch up with Holly and didn’t want the distractions of other patrons getting in my way.
The bartender, a woman with sleeves of tattoos and a head of short, fire engine red hair, rested her forearms on her side of the bar, pushing her tits up to the very edge of her black tank top. “What can I get for you, handsome?”
“Just a whiskey on the rocks.”
“Sure thing.” She gave me a sultry smile before dropping three ice cubes in the bottom of a glass. She topped it off with three ounces of whiskey and slid it toward me as she leaned over the bar again. “What’s a guy like you doing all alone in a place like this?”
On a different night, when I wasn’t expecting the exquisite company of Holly Whitton, I would have indulged the bartender in the little game she was playing. Hell, I would have enjoyed it. But tonight wasn’t one of those nights.
“I’m waiting for my date, actually.”
“Pity.” She frowned. “Lucky girl. Or guy.” She winked, spun away from me, and set to asking other customers lined up down the bar what they wanted to drink. I caught her eyeing me up several times as I sipped my whiskey and waited for Holly.
She arrived two minutes past eight and paused in the doorway to the bar to look for me.
Her shoulder length blond hair was slightly curled, and strands were pulled back from her face. Her skin was glowing and bright, and her lips were full and pink. Her green eyes landed on me, and I waved her over.
It was impossible not to notice the other men in the place looking at her as she wove through tables to get to me. She was stunning, by far the most beautiful woman in the room.
She was dressed simply in a pair of dark, tight-fitting jeans and strappy black heels that weren’t as high as the ones most women I dated wore. The effect of the hip-hugging denim and heels made her legs look lean and elegant. I itched to peel the pants off her and see what mysteries lay beneath the jeans. The floral print blouse she wore was loose but fitted enough to show her hourglass shape. Gold earrings winked at me as she drew closer, and I slid off my stool to greet her with a hug.
She smelled like lavender and mint.
Bloody fucking hell.
“Hey,” she said, nervously tugging at the sleeves of her blouse as she slid onto the stool beside me. “Sorry I’m late. Had a bit of a delay in getting here.”
“You should be sorry. Making me wait a whole extra two minutes. How important do you think you are?”
She gave me a sideways look and smiled. “Bite me.”
I laughed and caught the bartender’s eye. “What can I get you to drink?”
“Oh. Um. What are you drinking?”
“Whiskey.”
Holly pursed her lips and scanned the shelves of liquor behind the bar. “A gimlet, please.”
The bartender stopped in front of us, and I was thankful she didn’t put her tits on display again. She kept it professional, respecting Holly, and took the drink order. “Shall I keep them coming?”
I glanced at Holly. She nodded. “Sure.”
When Holly had her drink, we finally had some time to ourselves. There was no hovering manager, no nosy bartender, just us and our drinks.
“This is a first,” I said.
“Yeah. A little strange. A good strange, though.” Holly swirled her straw around in her drink and the ice danced along the sides of the glass. �
�How have you been?”
A vague answer felt weak, but it was all I could offer. “Good. Keeping busy. I work in Axel’s shop now. Keeping my head down as best I can.”
The smile that pushed dimples into her cheeks made me suspect she didn’t quite believe me. Holly leaned forward to purse her lips around her straw. The sweet puckering of her mouth had my imagination running wild.
“Keeping your head down, huh? You’re still running with the same guys, I assume?”
Lying was tempting but pointless. I might as well lay it all out on the table now. “Yeah. They’re my family.”
Holly nodded like she understood. “I know.”
“What about you?” I spun my stool so I could lean one elbow on the bar while I faced Holly more directly. “How have you been?”
Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine for a moment before she finally answered. “All right. Trying to adjust back to the hustle of New York City has felt like a bit of a slap in the face, but it gets easier every day. And I have Kim to help me out.”
“You have me, too, if you need me.”
Holly peered into her drink like there was something there that could distract her from my comment. I let her pretend I hadn’t said anything and changed the subject. I was being a bit self-serving, but I needed answers from her if I was going to let myself go any further with the girl.
I didn’t want to be left in her rear-view mirror like last time. She had driven away with my battered heart in her hands and never looked back. She had Kent there to erase me from her memory.
“So, let’s address the elephant in the room. You and Kent are finished?”
She finally looked back up at me. At first, I thought she might tell me to get stuffed. She’d always had a bit of an attitude, which I liked about her, but it stayed under the surface for now.
“Yes. I left him. It’s almost been a month now.”
“Finally realized he could never make you happy?” I scolded myself internally as soon as the words spilled out of my mouth. It wasn’t my place to make assumptions about her relationship. I was projecting my own issues on to her.
Holly chuckled and stirred her drink some more before taking a long sip. “I knew how unhappy I was for a long time before I finally decided to walk away. Kind of embarrassing, to be honest.”
“Embarrassing?”
“Yeah. Everyone always told me he was no good for me, but I was never willing to listen. I looked past what people said simply because I was pissed that they had the nerve to say it. I didn’t like that they didn’t trust my judgment. Which is ridiculous, but I didn’t trust my own damn judgment.” She sighed and rested her chin in her hand. “It doesn’t matter anymore, though. Kent is a part of my past, and I’m never looking back. He can go fuck himself.”
More questions exploded at the back of my mind. Had he hurt her? How bad had she let things get before she was finally willing to walk away from him?
I couldn’t go there with her right now. She didn’t need to see my temper. I’d managed to always keep it under control around her in the past, for the most part, at least.
“Don’t be embarrassed. We all put ourselves in situations we know we shouldn’t. Sometimes that’s all part of the fun.”
“Fun,” she mused. “What’s that feel like again?”
“Oh, sweet cheeks, be careful. You know I’d be more than willing to remind you.”
Holly blushed, and the giggle that came out of her had me suffering from flashbacks of kissing her in the back of my old Mustang 5.0. There hadn’t been much space back there, and the memory of the heat of her skin on mine had the hairs on my arms prickling and blood rushing to my cock, which swelled inside my jeans.
Holly Whitton still had the same effect on me that she’d had when she was a bright-eyed teenager with wild dreams and a desperate ache for adventure.
All of which I would have given her if she’d chosen me over Kent.
Chapter 8
Holly
Fun. Was that what I was having right now? Was this light, bubbly feeling in my chest and the ache in my cheeks from smiling for two straight hours because I was having fun?
Jax was literally knocking my socks off.
I hadn’t spent much time around men besides Kent over the last six years because of his insane jealousy issues. It was just easier to stay home with Luke and not have to deal with the torrent of questions about where I went for the day, who I saw, what time I came home, and who the missed call on my phone was from.
Basking in the company of an attractive man like Jax who made me laugh like I used to was refreshing. The ever-present pit of nerves in my belly was gone, and so was the tightness in my chest from anxiety. I felt like myself again for the first time in over half a decade.
This realization made me feel a twinge of guilt because the time I was spending with Jax could also have been given to Luke, who needed it desperately. He wasn’t used to being apart from me for so long.
But I reminded myself that having a happy mother was good for him too.
However, it was probably getting close to leaving time.
“One more drink,” I said, leaning on my stool to yell it at Jax over all the background noise. Roy’s got pretty busy after eleven, and the music was thumping, and tables of people were roaring with drunken laughter.
“Just one?” He pouted.
I nodded. “I have to get home. Besides, this is more than I’ve had to drink in a long time.” It wasn’t a lie. The four drinks I’d already had were making my brain buzz with giddiness. Or that was also a side effect of Jax’s company.
“All right, all right. One more.” Jax flagged down the bartender, who had our drinks to us within a few minutes.
The first sip was always the best. I savored it as I swallowed and closed my eyes. It was difficult reopening them. “I think I’m drunk.”
“I think you are too.” Jax gave me a cocky grin and shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing wrong with having a good time. Letting loose.”
Letting loose. Another unfamiliar way of being for me.
“Okay, maybe one more drink.”
Jax rocked back on his stool with laughter. “You’re out of control, woman.”
Sitting with him and laughing with him felt exactly the way it used to when we were kids and nothing in the world was tainted yet. My old self was rushing toward the surface with every bout of laughter with such force that I was shocked by how content I was.
I wasn’t consumed with thoughts about Kent. I didn’t wonder where he was or what he was doing or whether or not he was drinking. I was so used to being plagued by those worries because I was so accustomed to them being my reality.
Now, in the warm light of Roy’s and the jovial company of a man I used to love, I was basking in sunlight when it was nearly midnight.
“Thank you for asking me to come out. I needed a night like this. It’s been a really, really long time.”
“Kent never used to take you out for dates?”
I scoffed. “You remember Kent, right? Tall, brooding, angry all the time? No. He never took me on dates unless it was Valentine’s Day, and even then, we both knew it was out of obligation. He never wanted to.”
“Did you want to?”
Painfully so, but I didn’t dare speak those words out loud. He would think I was weak. I shrugged. “I liked the idea of him taking me out for more dates. The question is whether or not they would be good dates or not. It was always better to stay home and read. No disappointment that way.”
I noticed the way Jax’s jaw tightened. He looked down at his drink, lifted it to his lips, and tossed it back. I watched his throat as he swallowed and remembered how I used to press my lips to the skin under his jawline. I could still recall the lingering scent of his aftershave even now.
I found myself draining the bottom of my glass to avoid meeting his steely gaze.
“You didn’t have to leave with him, you know.”
As soon as the words left Jax�
��s mouth, I wished he had never spoken them. But now that they were out there, floating in the open space between us like dust, there was no pretending anymore. I had chosen Kent all those years ago, and I had always known how much I hurt Jax in doing so. “I’m sorry.”
All the tension in his shoulders evaporated as he shrugged one shoulder and tilted his head to look at me out of the corner of his eyes. “It was a long time ago. We were young and stupid. Now, not so much.”
He was letting me off the hook. Something tugged at my heart and urged me to slide off my stool and wrap my arms around his shoulders, to press my chest against his and remember what that closeness felt like.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.” Jax stood and offered me his hand, which I took. “Do you need a ride back to Kimberly’s place?”
“No, there’s a bus stop two blocks from here. Her apartment is only a fifteen-minute ride or so. I’ll be all right.”
“Don’t be crazy. I’ll drive you.”
“No really, I don’t mind the bus. I brought a book.”
“A book?” Jax shook his head as we wove through the bodies in the bar. He guided me effortlessly, his wide shoulders creating an open path for me to walk through. “You haven’t changed a bit. But I insist. You’re not getting on a bus by yourself at this time of night.”
Back in Philadelphia, Kent had never expressed concern over me taking public transit by myself regardless of the time. I wasn’t used to the concern, but I reminded myself that I shouldn’t be this surprised. This was Jax, after all. He was a man who could be held to a much different standard than Kent.
A much different standard.
We emerged out on the sidewalk in the warm night air with our hands still wrapped tightly together. There were other people outside, strolling down the sidewalk in front of the other open bars, which were pumping happy music out onto the street. Jax pulled me gently along beside him, and I peered up at him as discretely as I could.
His profile was sharp and angled and rugged. A fluttering in my stomach set off warning bells in my brain.