by Brill Harper
I nod. She’s right. Okay. I can lean.
The walk to the counter feels incredibly long. I belly up to the bar next to Christopher and say hey to Nash.
“You need another?” Nash already knows the answer and gets me another and then I turn my attention to my denim-wearing boyfriend. “Hey, doc. What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”
“Are you implying my bar isn’t nice?” Nash asks with a grin.
“Nash.” I flutter my eyelashes at him the way all the girls who come in here do. Why can I flirt with Nash but not Christopher? “You know I love this dive. Have you met Dr. Lockwood?” I put my arm around him. Wow. His shoulders are kind of amazing. “He’s filling in for Dr. Anderson at the animal clinic.” I waggle my eyebrows, so Nash thinks I’m just being coy about dating him. And hopefully Christopher thinks I’m just being friendly. Probably overly friendly. Probably uncomfortably friendly.
Nash flips the bar towel onto his shoulder and holds out his hand to Christopher. “I’ve heard lots about you, man. Welcome to town. I hope you’re taking good care of our girl, Stella, here. She’s a Brazen Bay treasure.”
Well, that’s not weird.
Christopher shakes his hand. “I...well...”
“What he’s trying to say is that Stella can take care of herself. Thanks, Nash. I saw Tru at the shower today. She upstairs?”
“Yeah, she’s got homework. I’ll probably close early tonight.”
“You start closing this bar any earlier, you’ll be home in time for Jeopardy every night. Why don’t you just make this a lunch joint?”
“Because then who would serve you beer in your bunny slippers?”
Christopher tells Nash to put my beer on his tab, and I sigh with relief. Okay. Going well. That was kind of a boyfriend thing to do. Unless, you were Devon who never paid for his own beer, much less mine. But this is working.
Nash goes to deal with someone else, and Christopher pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Where are your stars?”
“What?”
“You always have stars hanging off you or on your clothes.”
“I didn’t realize you paid such close attention to what I wear.”
“It’s just noticeable. The stars. Are they your signature or something?”
“Well, I do like stars. My father used to call me his “Constellation” because...you know Stella is in the middle of the word.” I shrug. “What brings you out tonight?”
He definitely doesn’t look comfortable. “I figured I should try to get out some. Since I’ll be here awhile. I’m not very good at making friends, though.” He smiles at me. An awkward, shy smile that makes something in my chest kick.
“You’ll do fine,” I say. “If you can manage a sports conversation even a little bit, Nash will take to you pretty quickly. And Nash is the man you want on your side in town. Everyone loves him.” I expend a lot of effort executing what I hope looks like an effortless shrug. “I should get back to my friends. It’s our big night out. Thanks for the beer.” I touch him again. A friendly arm thing. Just to make it look good. Not because I am fascinated by the way his V-neck tee hugs his biceps.
“Point me to the restroom?” he asks.
I send him to the back, and I’m about to return to my table when my least favorite person in the world stops me.
“Well, hello there, sexy.”
My lip curls on its own. Like I smelled something putrid. “Devon.”
Luckily, he doesn’t see the lip thing because, as usual, his eyes are planted on my breasts. “How you been, sugar?”
“My tits aren’t going to answer you, Devon.”
He looks up into my face then. “I bet I can get them to communicate. I seem to remember—”
Yuck. “I gotta go.” I don’t want to hear where he was going with that. He’s the guy who named his dick, The Bone Ranger. Yes, I’m serious.
How had I ever thought him even remotely hot? Sure, he isn’t physically unpleasant to look at. From afar. Once you get too close, though, his vacant eyes are downright creepy. And don’t get me started on the over-gelled hair.
“Later, Devon.”
“Sure, babe. What do you say we go upstairs later? Catch up on old times.”
Gross.
The one person in town that I want to think I’m unavailable is probably the only one who hasn’t heard the rumor about me and Christopher being an item. Isn’t that just my luck? Honestly, if a girl can’t use a fake boyfriend to get an ex off her back...
“No, thanks. I’m interested in someone else now.” Which isn’t a lie. I’m interested in myself now. Which makes going upstairs with Devon a really bad idea. Not even the notion that getting back together with him, even for one night, would make an easy breakup story for me and Christopher could induce me to take Devon up on the offer.
“Right. The nerdy vet.” Devon puffs up his chest. Which isn’t scrawny. He’s always been high-school-jock cute. Just not grown-ass-man handsome. “I’m not surprised you pounced on the new guy. No one else in town is interested in you. He’ll wise up, though. And then you’ll come crawling back to Devon because we both know I’m the only one who is willing to fuck you.”
I wheeze at the surprise attack. How am I supposed to counter something like that? I know plenty of guys who will fuck me? “You’re a pig.”
He shrugs. “Despite your size, babe, you’re a good lay. So, I’m willing to ignore when people say I’m slumming. You think your new lover boy is going to be interested in you for very long when he realizes he could do better? There aren’t a lot of single women in town, but there are still a few who don’t outweigh him.”
“Go away, Devon. You disgust me.”
I’m trying not to ingest his words. I’ve spent the last six months putting his disgusting opinions out of my head. I’m pretty. I’m fun. I have a great life. I don’t want this little man’s insults to matter to me. But somehow, he always finds a place to put a new bruise.
“Christopher Lockwood doesn’t act like your boyfriend. Nobody has seen the two of you together anywhere but at the office. Are you sure you’re even dating?” Devon is belligerent now. And that makes him loud.
“Yes, of course I’m sure,” I answer. Just as belligerently. Because, fuck this shit. “He is a better boyfriend than you ever were. And you know what else? He’s a goddamned rock star in bed. He never gets whiskey dick like some people I know.” I’m saying this too loudly, aren’t I? “Christopher Lockwood is a better man than you in every way, but most especially in bed. He knows how to burn it down, Devon. Something you can’t do on your best day.”
An arm comes around my shoulder from behind. “Stella? Everything okay?”
I close my eyes, trying to shutter the world away. For just one second, I allow myself to pretend it can’t possibly be Christopher’s voice I just heard. It’s not mulled wine I smell. It’s not my world about to detonate all over the only bar in town.
This is all my fault. All of it. If it’s possible to die of embarrassment, I’m about to show the whole pub how it’s done.
I risk a look at Christopher then. He looks worried about me. How much did he hear? Is he just stepping in because this guy is harassing me? I turn so that I’m facing him. “I’m fine, Christopher.”
“I’m ready to go whenever you are,” he says.
And then he cups my cheeks, framing my face in his hands, and kisses me.
Chapter Eight
Christopher
Jesus, her mouth.
Her mouth has been driving me insane for weeks.
I don’t know what drove me to jump into the circus tent of Stella’s life and kiss her, but now that I am here, now that the momentary shock that stiffened her muscles is gone and she is melting like butter in my arms, I no longer care what got me here. I just want to stay.
I lower one hand from her velvet-soft cheek to her hip and pull her closer, all those soft curves pushing into me is driving me crazier still. She ropes
her arms around my neck and angles her head, so I take advantage and part her lips with my tongue, catching her sigh of pleasure in my mouth.
She tastes like candy. Which makes perfect sense, right? Because candy is deceptively sweet, enticing, and so, so bad for you. And I know, in the dim recesses of my mind, that no matter how good she tastes or how amazing she feels, Stella Stone is very bad for me.
A wave of heat caresses me from head to toe. The star has somehow fallen into my greedy hands, exploding the world into bursts of light and magic. Singeing the world I knew just moments ago.
I’ve never kissed anyone in public before. I prefer to display affection in a respectful way in private. And that was even before...well, before my ex. But right now, I don’t care who is watching or what they think. I only care about the way this woman tastes. The way she feels under my hands, against my body.
A thought tickles the back of my mind. That she called me her boyfriend. That the Neanderthal she was talking to was telling her she wasn’t desirable. I push the thoughts away. I’ll get to the bottom of why I am kissing her later; right now, I want to prove to Stella and the jerk just how desirable she is. Stella pulls back and looks at me, her eyes glazed with an emotion I can’t name. Like she doesn’t know where she is or how she got here. I let myself have one second to feel supremely proud that I have kissed Stella...stupid.
But logic starts filtering into my own lust addled mind. “We need to talk,” I whisper into her ear before I kiss her temple like a good boyfriend might.
I can’t feel my knees.
She nods. Her eyes are so blue I think the sea might get jealous. I didn’t know that the shade of pink on her cheeks would be so gratifying, that I could paint them that color with my kiss.
She still looks dazed. If I’d known all this time the way to shut her up was kiss her...
I better not go there.
The asshole is gone and everyone in the bar is staring. I’m coming down from the high of her candy lips and realize that I’ve made a mess messier. My instinct was to defend her honor, but instead I subjected her to more speculation.
I need to remember that she is the ringleader, and the big top she’s constructed and trapped me in is her own doing. I’m just a clapping monkey.
She brings her fingers to her lips and blinks like she just woke up. “We can talk at my place. I need to say goodbye to my friends.”
I’m coming back to myself, from wherever I went, and realize it would be better to go with her to the table where her friends are. To not let her cause any more trouble. Not let her run amok.
Her friends at the table seem to be in shock. She tells them we are heading out, as if it was something expected and normal. The woman from the grocery store makes eye contact with Stella. I don’t understand the language, but I can tell that they are communicating without saying a word. Whatever Stella tells her puts the woman at ease, and she sits back and raises a mock toast to me with her wine glass, her bangles jingling as they slide up her arm.
“Do you want me to drive?” I ask, pulling my manners out from muscle memory more than anything else.
“I live upstairs, silly,” she tells me with a fake smile. Pretending I would have known that and just forgot.
She lives above a tavern. Isn’t that just like her? Is she the life of the party every night? Does she have many men coming on to her so cruelly, like the jerk from the bar?
And before I let my caveman, the one I didn’t know I had, come back out, I remember that she lied about me. Creating a relationship we don’t have. Making me part of a gossip mill for who knows how long? Now the strange visits from family and friends make more sense. The way her sister wants me to be part of the wedding table. The cookies and the offers of golf games...
Just when had Stella started this crazy story and why?
I follow her up the back stairs, anger replacing some of the blood that had gone south a few minutes before. I don’t let myself look at her ass.
She unlocks the door and gestures me into her apartment. Leaning against the closed door, she takes a deep breath and hits her head on the wood, exposing the arch of her long neck and a thin gold chain I want to rip off her with my teeth just because I want nothing on her skin but me. The décolletage above her dress glitters, promising a path paved in stardust to her breasts.
No. Do not look directly at the breasts. That’s how good men go blind.
“What the hell is going on, Stella?”
She winces. “I can explain.”
I move deeper into her apartment, and she stays plastered against her door.
And I thought the office was bad.
Everything in her living room is shades of gold and creamy white. And sparkly. There are more throw pillows than actual couch, and all of her furniture looks flea market chic and gilded.
On the wall are hand-painted stars in various sizes. Not framed art, like normal people have, but stars painted right on the goddamn wall.
Over the breakfast bar, her kitchen is an explosion of color. It looks more like a candy store than a kitchen. I turn, having expected her to have followed me, but she is still plastered to the door.
For a moment, I forget I am mad, and I want to press myself against her in the doorway.
“Stella,” I begin calmly. “Please tell me what the hell is going on.” I sit on her couch and begin counting stars. They are everywhere in this apartment. I get to twenty when she joins me in the living area.
“How much did you hear? At the bar?”
If she thinks she’s getting out of it that easily, she’s wrong. I need to know everything. “Just start at the beginning.”
She swallows, that beautiful throat working hard around whatever emotion she’s trying to tamp down. I imagine that throat swallowing me whole. I want to touch her so badly. But I won’t. I can’t.
“Before you came to town, my sister was pressuring me to give her the name of my date to her wedding.”
I don’t know what to do, so I nod. I’ve seen enough of her interactions with her sister to realize that she really does mean pressure.
“She wanted me to bring my ex-boyfriend, Devon.”
I get a sick feeling in my gut. A premonition. Hell, a dark omen. I already know, but I ask anyway, “Is that the jerk you were talking to downstairs?”
I think she’s counting stars, too. Anything to avoid looking at me. “Obviously, I didn’t want to bring him, but she wouldn’t let up. I was disappointing her, the whole family. I wasn’t trying hard enough or something.”
“Devon is a giant ass. Why would she want him anywhere near you?”
“He cleans up well. He doesn’t always act like...like he was tonight. Not in front of people, anyway.”
Stella shrinks into herself, curling inward, and I hate it. She doesn’t actually believe that guy, does she? Not my fearless, troublemaking, giant pain in my behind Stella. For the past few weeks, I thought that all I wanted was less trouble. But not like this.
I hate this.
“I told her I met someone. It was just a throwaway line. Something to get her off my back. But she wanted details.” Stella is blushing. I liked it better when her blush was from my kiss. “I was on Dr. Rivers’ website that day. There was a fuzzy picture of their newest doctor. Your name was right in front of me, so I told her I met a man named Christopher on the internet. Of course, she made a big deal about it even though I asked her not to tell anyone, so I figured I’d just break up with him before—”
“Me.”
“What?”
“Break up with me. I was him.” I want to make sure I am following this correctly.
“It wasn’t you, yet. This Christopher was just a figment of my imagination. My friends and I made up a whole backstory for him. It was kind of fun, you know.” She worries her hands together, and I want to cover them with my own. But I don’t. “It was the best relationship I’ve ever been in. He was really nice to me. Didn’t care that I was...well, me. Thought I was perfect t
he way I am.”
“There is nothing wrong with the way you are.” I’m having a hard time holding on to my anger. Which pisses me off.
Finally, she looks at me. “Please. You can’t stand me.”
But the pretend Christopher did. The pretend Christopher is probably a better man than I am. Easier to get along with. More fun. More accepting. Less of a jerk to her. And just like that, I’m jealous of Pretend Christopher.
My life is really out of control.
“And then you showed up. In the flesh. I didn’t know what to do. So, I didn’t do ...anything.”
“I was supposed to be gone in a week.”
“Exactly.”
I hate being the center of attention. I don’t want people to talk about me or gossip. That’s one of the reasons I work with animals. This kind of escapade is probably second nature to Stella, but I don’t want to be part of it. I suffered public humiliation at the hands of my ex, and I swore I’d never go there again.
But that’s Stella for you. Since the moment she tumbled into my life, she’s been driving me crazy.
It all begins making sense. Why the people in town are so friendly. Why her family encourages me so much. They think I’m going to take this woman and all her craziness off their hands, finally.
I scrape my hands through my hair. I should be furious. I am furious.
But I can’t stop thinking about the things that Devon said to her, the way her sister makes her feel, hell, the way I probably made her feel about herself.
She’s not my problem. I’m not obligated to clean up her mess. It’s not up to me to encourage this woman to come out from the fetal position she’s tucked into on her couch. To stand up to her overbearing sister and asshole ex-boyfriend.
I’m not suited to be her knight, and I don’t have a white horse.
But every time I close my eyes, I see stars.
Chapter Nine
Stella
“Stella, people like you—”
I scramble out of the corner of the couch I’d burrowed into. “People like me?”