“Gwen,” I plead. “Gwen!” Maybe I can get her attention and somehow find a way to talk her into leaving and getting out of what I know is a horrible disaster waiting to happen.
My severely intoxicated friend only glances up from her phone and gives me a drunken stare. “What?” she mumbles annoyed, then looks back down again. Her phone is obviously more important than the situation she’s just gotten us into. An escape is definitely not in the cards.
Turning around, I allow myself to meet the eyes of our new guest for the first time. He’s about five-eight or nine, clean shaven and has muscles bulging out of his shirt, which is two sizes too small for him. The sorry excuse for a shirt is labeled with a surf brand. I have to stifle a laugh because I know this man has probably never surfed a day in his life.
My hateful stare further dissects this annoying little man. Tight jeans, impeccably clean shoes, and he has a few of those tribal band tattoos on each bicep. He’s also wearing so much cologne that it almost overpowers the smell of whiskey seeping from his breath. Not entirely, but almost.
Yup, very typical!
“I’m not your pretty little thing, if that’s what you’re insinuating,” I sneer at him, just as the waitress returns with our drinks. I grab my drink and take a long sip, hoping maybe he will get the hint and leave me alone. I try and emphasize this by swiveling in my chair so my back now faces him, but my plan fails.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bud hold his glass up to the waitress signifying he obviously wants another, to which the waitress just rolls her eyes and walks away. Great, Bud is also a ill-mannered jerk. Not that I am really surprised. They tend to run in packs. He rounds my side and walks right in front of me.
Bracing his arms on the table behind me, he leans in close and whispers, “Why don’t we just wait and see where the night takes us,” and drunkenly teeters back when he then takes it upon himself to cheers his glass against my own. Like a toast is all that’s needed to seal the deal and change my mind.
Men actually think women fall for this? What is wrong with my generation? Don’t even get me started because I will never end that rant.
“How about we don’t,” I shoot back, swiveling my chair again in the other direction. I hate that I promised Gwen I would meet her here on my last night in town. I would rather be anywhere else in the world than here right now.
His irritating pick up lines continue to ooze out of his lips as he says, “Hey, come on now. A sexy siren like yourself has to be used to all sorts of attention.”
He tries to touch me, moving my hair off to one side and leaning in closer from behind. I shrug his hands off with all the force I can manage without actually getting up and punching him.
Get the hint already and back off, Bud!
“I know you didn’t step out of the house looking like that to not get noticed,” he says, as he walks in front of me again, giving me an awkward looking wink. I have to swallow back the vomit that involuntarily starts to rise in my throat. Go ahead and touch me one more time and see where that gets you.
An unpleasant silence falls between us as we sit there and stare at one another. Rolling my eyes, I decide to stand up from the table and think of a way to lose Bud and leave this very stupid situation. Maybe I can claim to need to use the restroom. Maybe I should pretend I smoke so I could go outside and hopefully ditch Bud and his wingman in the process.
Tom, the wingman, who along with Gwen is now missing. A blank stare comes across my face as I stand there wondering when that happened and how I could have missed it.
Frantically, I begin looking around the bar for Gwen as Bud takes a step closer. It’s as if he thinks standing up from the table is a signal for him to come closer. Moron. I roll my eyes for at least the tenth time since he approached the table, and then continue to try and put distance between us as I scan the room for any sign of my now missing best friend.
Leaning in, Bud takes a deep breath right next to my neck. “You smell good,” he says, extremely intruding upon my personal space.
I’m taller than him with my heels on, and it makes me have to look down on the tiny man. This has to hurt his ego. How can my towering over him not make him feel like less of a man and make him want to retreat from his over-the-top, persistent mission to somehow make me his?
Irritation makes me snap. “Really…” I glare at him, my annoyance at an all-time high. “Is that supposed to make me want you now? Make me change my mind and decide to let you take me home so I can spread my legs for you? I don’t think so!”
I take a step away from the table and continue to scan the room looking for Gwen. Unfortunately, Bud still persists, stepping up beside me and trying to grab hold of my waist. Shaking off his grasp, I shoot him a look daring him to try it again. And I do dare him! I want nothing more than to knee him where it counts right now and drop this loser to the floor.
“Don’t be so cold!” Bud shouts and slams down his now empty glass on the table. He tries his best to focus back on me as he continues. “Pretending like you don’t want it … If your half as easy as your friend was last night with Tom,” he says, reaching out to try and touch me again, “I shouldn’t have to try hard at all.”
His statement makes me step back. Pausing for a second, I let his words resonate in my mind. I honestly can’t believe what I am hearing. First the jerk has the audacity to think I can easily be picked up, and then he insults Gwen, thus obviously insulting me further. I know her shenanigans aren’t always honorable, but damnit no one gets to say so except me!
“Excuse me?” I shout back. It’s the only response I can manage as his previous statement has left me in a state of shock. Finally able to find some words, I glare at him as I sternly say, “I think it’s about time you go to hell and take your friend with you!”
Grabbing my coat and purse, I turn to leave. I’ll find Gwen wherever she is, but there is no way in hell I am standing here listening to this for one more second. Bud grabs my arm and swings me around to meet his eyes. He has a forceful and severely painful hold on me. I glance down at his hand holding my body in a vise grip and look up again with a hateful stare.
He smiles mischievously and moves in closer. “Don’t be like that. We can take it slow … if that’s what you want.” He licks his lips and moves closer, his voice now a grotesque whisper between the two of us. “Trust me, baby, I know you’ll like it.” He grabs me around the waist again, trying to grind himself against me, cornering me against the table.
“Let me go,” I manage in the most assertive voice I can. My eyes glare into his as I push off him, a desperate attempt to break free and make a run for it.
“I’ll leave you begging for more. Come on, you know you want to, baby. I know you haven’t had anything as good as me.” Bud tightens his grasp on me, leaving barley any room for a possible escape.
“I said let me go! Stop it!” I yell.
Noah
Southern California … Alright … been here, done that. Can we pack this up and go home now? An insane world with endless buildings, endless people, and endless craziness. Two hours sitting in traffic to go five miles? No thank you! Are we done yet?
I glance at the clock on my phone for the hundredth time in the last two minutes and then look over at Rex and the latest fling he caught this vacation. Beth, the bar troll that’s somehow made it to day three.
Wrapped around one another, Rex and Beth are totally unaware of the looks of disgust people are giving them. They continue groping one another in a way that I’m surprised doesn’t make them feel uncomfortable. They’re saying goodbye for what Beth thinks is just until tomorrow but I know is permanent. Rex never holds a relationship longer than a week. Two tops.
I met Rex in college. A born and raised Californian that landed at Ole Miss. Rex was as far from a southerner as you could get and always stuck out in a crowd. Saying he was from California gave him a lot of attention from the ladies, which he loved. How we ever became friends, I couldn’t tell you, but so
mehow we managed to hit it off and have remained almost inseparable ever since.
He suggested I move out to California with him when he graduated last spring, and I jumped at the idea in order to put some distance between me and the one girl I can’t seem to escape and never want to see again. The one that broke my heart and still won’t stop haunting me. Lesson learned. Never break up in a small town. You can’t escape it.
Moving to California sounded like a chance to live on greener pastures, so I signed up to take my senior year of classes online and followed him out west eager to make a fresh new start. I figured a new life, where no one knew my name or my past, was exactly what I needed.
Once we arrived in Northern California, I liked the change of scenery. The hills and country almost felt like home. We signed a year’s lease, and I started to stretch out and settle into a brand-new world. However, now my year was almost up and my time in California was coming to a close. I hadn’t agreed to renew the lease with Rex, and honestly couldn’t wait to pack it up and move back home. I thought I could find some sort of new meaning to life and freedom in the move, but the longer I stayed, the more I regretted it. With absolutely nothing to keep me here any longer, I know without a doubt the California lifestyle, northern or southern, was definitely not for me.
This trip south was Rex’s last attempt at making me change my mind, and actually all it did was prove he might just be stupider than he looks. A country boy has no place in a cluster fuck like Los Angeles. The beach was pretty but over crowded. All I can dream about is being able to go home to the beautiful countryside, have the space to breathe and think. Something you can’t do with all the noise and chaos in Southern California.
Yes, sir, as soon as Rex could kindly remove his tongue from that superficial girl’s mouth, I will be hightailing it to the car. I can’t wait to jump on the road and get the hell out of this concrete jungle and away from all the people in it.
Trying to find something else to focus my thoughts on besides the two I’m sitting next to, I thumb through my phone, not paying attention to what I’m actually looking at as my mind races back to earlier. Slowly, I let my mind wonder back to her … that girl, the one standing on the edge of the pier that I couldn’t stop staring at. Hell, on a scale of one to ten she was off the damn chart. Even from where I stood on the sand I was drawn to her. She looked sad in the most gorgeous of ways.
Is that even possible?
And even through the ocean’s glare and her apparent sadness, I couldn’t help but be stunned by her beauty. Her long blonde hair blew perfectly in the breeze. One look at her and damnit if it wasn’t obvious she had to have broken a thousand hearts. I remember at one point she smiled, making me instinctively catch my breath.
She was stunning!
She was stunning in the way that everything about her made you want to know her more. In that brief moment I first laid eyes on her, I felt myself wanting to be able to experience everything I could about her.
What she smelled like …
What she talked like …
What her favorite food was …
Did we listen to the same kind of music?
I stared at her for what seemed like forever, and it still wasn’t long enough. I took in every bit of her I could from the distance between us, trying desperately to commit that moment and her to memory; and subconsciously knowing I never wanted to forget her, and knew I couldn’t even if I tried.
She would haunt my fantasies forever. Why? I don’t know if I will ever know.
I stood there starring at her, noticing the way she ran her fingers through her hair, how she shifted her weight on her feet. I even caught the slow exhale of breath she gave as her thoughts slowly consumed her mind. God, what I wouldn’t give to be the one she thinks about.
The thought comes out of nowhere and shocks the hell out of me. Shaking my head, I try and refocus. Forget it! Girls like her are usually all sorts of trouble. Heck, any girl is trouble. I’m headed home to Kentucky in two short months, away from here and her. And that is just the way I like it.
My annoyance quickly returns as I am brought back to the here and now watching my best friend act like a horny, embarrassing teenager in public. I try and think about how he managed to talk me into going for one drink before we hit the road. One drink that Rex has now turned into three—with a few added shots just for the hell of it!
He is plastered all over Beth in our back corner table, not paying any attention to anyone or anything else. I will no doubt be driving, which is why I’m sitting in the back corner of some bar off a side street in a town I can’t wait to get out of and drinking a plain old coke when what I really want is a dark beer.
Glancing up from my phone, I make out the girl from the pier sitting at a table nearby and my breath immediately catches in my throat. Nervously, I pull my ball cap down lower and fidget in my seat. I want to get a better view of her but have an overwhelming need to hide my stare all at the same time.
I must look like an idiot, but heaven help me because damnit if I’m not helplessly drawn to her. Looking away for a moment, she pulls me back to her like a fucking magnet. I feel like a drooling idiot, a prepubescent teenager myself who just bumped into their junior high crush. But hell, I can’t help it; and somehow I don’t want to either. She’s more captivating up close than I could have imagined. I sit here in a damn trance, watching the way she moves, studying her every gesture. Never has a woman fascinated me like her before.
She’s addictive.
She’s sitting with another girl which I have no doubt has to be her friend. I watched her friend drink one drink after another before the girl from the pier arrived. She seemed as interested in the guy she was with as she was in the drinks she was drinking.
Shortly after, I notice another man approach their table. I’m surprised as a surge of jealousy runs through me, thinking this guy has to be her boyfriend. A girl like her is usually never single. Well, I guess I lost out on that one.
The fact that I’m even considering mystery girl has me confused. I shake my head again, trying to regain some sort of sanity. Get it together, Noah! Don’t let one drop dead beautiful woman make you feel what you’re feeling. All chicks are the same. They’ll just take and take until you have nothing left to give—and that’s when they always leave. Glancing back up, I continue watching the two of them, even though I feel sick inside doing it.
Why can’t I shake this pull she has on me?
It doesn’t take long watching the two of them for me to second guess myself. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe pier girl doesn’t have a boyfriend. I quickly see annoyance run over her face. I sit and watch as the conversation escalates, both their voices rising higher. I look closer as the guy from the bar proceeds to put his hands on her and back her into an almost cornered position. If she does know the guy, it’s obvious she wants nothing to do with him.
Before I can process the emotions and thoughts running through my head, I am on my feet and over at their table. Without hesitation, I grab the girl from the pier and swing her around towards me. God she’s gorgeous. I falter slightly as I take her in. Wide blue eyes, startled expression, flushed cheeks … Damnit! I’m in more trouble than I thought!
Wondering what the hell I was thinking, and what I’m about to do next, I pause and swallow hard as I manage to say, “Hey, there you are! I’ve been looking all over for you …” Without another thought, I pull her into me, kissing her senseless. I grab her tightly around her slender waist, feeling her crash into me and knowing I will never recover. From her. From this. She’s priceless!
As my lips crush hers, I suddenly collapse into the magnetic force between the two of us that even she can’t deny. I’ve never felt anything like it. Our connection is undeniable, hitting straight to my core. The spark is consuming, robbing every bit of me. I surrender to her, wanting to never return from wherever she can take me.
She never pulls away, and I hope that’s a good sign as I unintentionally deepen our kis
s. Too passionate and familiar to be a first as I feel her fall into me effortlessly, like this isn’t the first time I have tasted her. Too fueled with desire for a person I don’t even know, and I have to stop myself from taking it further and stealing her away somewhere just to be able to take more of her.
Holy hell, this girl tastes like heaven. Sweet as hell and in every perfect way breathtaking. I can taste her drink on her tongue, and it makes me crave her. It makes me need her even more. Pushing a little further and not letting up, I am surprised to feel her grip tighten around my arm, and I swear she kisses me back. She presses into me instinctively like she doesn’t want to pull away. Either that or my head is more screwed-up than I thought.
When I can finally force myself to break free from the surprising ecstasy just created between the two of us, I am once again drowning in the most beautiful pair of blue eyes. A pair of blue eyes that are most certainly looking at me now like a deer in headlights, completely shocked, stunned, and wanting an explanation. Maybe I should start counting the seconds before her alluring eyes regain their sanity and tell her the smart thing to do is to slap me in the face.
Time to think quickly. I grab her arm and pull her to my side then shoot my hand out to the jerk from a few minutes earlier who was trying to get way further than the first base I just scored.
“Hey, thanks for keeping my girl busy,” I start off, glancing back at the girl from the pier. God help me! Just looking into her eyes is the most thrilling thing I have ever experienced. Her lips are now swollen from our kiss, eyes still wide in astonishment. I’m amazed when I can even find the words to continue. Looking back at the man in front of us, I say, “I guess you succeeded in showing her what kind of scum hangs out in local bars and taught me never to leave her waiting!”
My hand is still extended towards him, and I’m not the slightest bit surprised that he never takes it. I look back at the girl standing next to me, and she still hasn’t taken her eyes off me. The silence thickens. My throat goes dry as I try to find the right words to say. At any moment this could turn bad. I’m either the smartest guy in the world or the stupidest. And I’m about to find out.
Indecision Page 2