“No, you don’t. You love me. And just so we’re clear, you’re the one who brought it up in the first place.” I grimace. “I can’t believe you just pictured Mom and Dad—you’re so disgusting.”
“And now, I totally get it.” Both our heads veer. Vince’s girlfriend who stopped a little less than five feet away is eyeing us meticulously.
“Leah, hey.” My brother steps in, suddenly nervous as hell. “I’d like you to meet my sister—”
“Aubrey.” I extend my hand. “A.k.a. the smart twin.”
Vince’s upper lip lifts as he shakes his head.
“I am soooo happy to finally meet you.”
My eyes slant Vince’s way, wondering just how much she knew about me, since I knew absolutely nothing about her.
“Everything,” she answers to my silent inquiry. “Trust me when I tell you that you mean the world to him. To be honest, I was about to find a way to track you down in New York and bring you back home myself.”
Vince eyes the exchange between Leah and me with concern. He’s nervous. ‘Not sure why though, even after just a couple of minutes I can tell this girl is perfect for him.
I glance his way and throw him a reassuring wink. And just as if it’s what he needed, his hand moves to take hers.
“So, listen, Aubrey, I know you just got here, but do you think you could give the stud and me two minutes?” Leah asks.
“Sure thing. Just point out which direction you’re heading and I’ll get my brother out of your hair for you,” I tease.
He crosses his arms over his chest. “Remember when you were gone for nine months?”
“Yup. Apparently, you missed my delightful personality so much you couldn’t shut up about me.”
He puffs a snort. “You wish! Get your ass inside and don’t talk to anyone.”
“What am I, twelve?”
“I’m not kidding, Aubrey. No talking to anyone until I’m with you.”
I arch a brow.
“Please.”
“Fine.” I side-smirk. “I won’t talk to anyone until you’re with me. But if you find me on a dude’s lap with my tongue down his throat, remember that I didn’t say a word, and these tits did all the talking for me.”
“You’re an ass.”
“Again.” I climb up the first step and look over my shoulder. “You’re my twin, Bankes, so what would that make you?”
“Oh, Aubrey, wait a sec—” Vince pulls something out from the back pocket of his faded jeans. I study the plastic card he gives me and toss it back to him. “You’ll need it, Aub. Micah says the bar owner is cool and shit, but he’ll most likely ask for it when he sees you.”
“Thanks, but my out-of-state fake ID is a thousand times better than this one.” I shrug off the stunned look on his face with a wink and a smirk. People change. He above all should know. “I’m good.”
The Devil’s Gate might have seemed old and neglected on the outside, but inside it’s the complete opposite. Smoky tinted wooden panels, black painted walls and light reddish-brown bricks complement the furniture surrounding me. It’s dark, cozy, elegant, and while I had mocked the poor music choice when I was on the other side of its doors, anything else blasting through the speakers would ruin the feel.
Before shutting the door behind me, I sneak one last quick glance back. My brother has Leah locked in an embrace that makes my heart swell. There might have been many things that have changed in the few months I haven’t been home, but he’s happy and that’s the only thing I’d ever want for him.
I venture inside to the sound of Three Day’s Grace and take a seat on one of three empty stools surrounding the wooden counter. Scanning the room, I’ve come to understand why my overprotective brother didn’t want me to be on my own; about ninety percent of The Devil’s Gate’s customers are male.
“What can I get you?” the bearded man tending the bar asks me.
“Do you have any Blue Moon?”
His stern blue-eyes skim my face before giving me a tight-lipped nod. He reaches inside his fridge, grabs a Bud and walks in the opposite direction.
Stopping in front of the customer wearing a tight washed-out black hoodie at the right end of the U-shaped bar, he slams the bottle on the wooden counter and watches with a narrowed glare. They’re arguing. I can’t tell what it’s about since the guy’s face is hidden by the hood of his sweatshirt and the music is too loud to hear their conversation, but whatever their disagreement is about, it seems to be more affectionate than business-like. No matter how many times the bartender tries to say something, the guy with the hoodie cuts him off, pushing back the envelope the older man refuses to accept.
I have no idea why I’m so transfixed by them. Maybe it’s the cuts and bruises I notice on Hoodie’s knuckles when he tips his beer to his lips, maybe it’s what looks like blood and dirt staining his low-rise jeans that pique my curiosity. Or maybe I’m just bored because Vince has been gone for what seems like forever.
After a ten-minute span, the hushed dispute between young and old, turns into an altercation. Growls and curses are thrown around, and they’re drawing even more attention to themselves. I can tell the bartender isn’t happy about it because he steps down, grabs the papers and set of keys that are extended to him and angrily stuffs them in his pocket.
“Hey.” The chair beside mine moves and I jolt back as if I’ve been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to. An amused shimmer glints in the chocolate brown eyes of the stranger who takes a seat beside me.
I return his smile, wondering if my brother will believe me when I tell him that I truly had tried to abide by his rule of not talking to anyone. “Um, hi.”
“Are you here with someone?”
I muffle a laugh. Subtleness is definitely not this guy’s strong suit. “Actually, I’m waiting for my brother, Vincent.”
His eyes grow wide. “No shit! Bankes never told us he had a little sister.”
“That might be because he doesn’t have a little sister.” I brush a strand of hair away from my face and grin. “I’m older than him by twenty minutes.”
“No fucking way. Yo, Lambert,” he calls out. The guy I’ve been unashamedly staring at lifts his head, taking a break from the hushed conversation he’s still having with the bartender. “Did you know Bankes had a twin?”
He runs his splintered hand over the rough stubble of his square jaw and locks eyes with me. Lambert. As in Micah Lambert. As in my brother’s newfound best friend. As in oh-my-fucking-god he has to be the hottest guy I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
He gives me nothing.
Not a nod.
Not a lip twitch.
Not a glimmer of recognition.
Only a cold, hard, icy glare that sucks the air right out of my lungs.
His contempt stings almost as much as the fact that Vince hid my existence from his friends.
“He isn’t always a dick,” the guy sitting beside me defends when Micah slights me off and goes back to his conversation. “He just doesn’t like people all that much. I promise he’ll warm up to you after a few drinks.”
I offer a thin smile in response. Almost as much.
“So—um—anyway, the guys from our class are sitting on the other side of the wall over there if you want to join us. I’m sure your brother will be here in a minute or two.”
“Thanks for offering—”
“Jake.” He extends his hand, and with the friendliest smile I’m able to muster, I shake it.
When Lover-boy Bankes walks through those bar doors, he and I are going to have a little chat. “Thanks, Jake, but I think it would be best for all of us if I stayed here.”
He looks disappointed by my rejection, but leaves my side without insisting. I take out my cell phone, and as I start to scroll through my messages, a bottle of water magically appears in front of me. Still waiting on my Blue Moon, I’m ready to decline the drink, but as I lift my eyes from the screen, a familiar pair of blue eyes are staring back at me. “S
o, no beer for me, huh?”
“I’m afraid not, kid,” the bartender replies in an amused husky voice. He winks and before I can say thank you, he goes back to tending to his customers.
“Vincent shouldn’t have let you come in here alone.” The deep almost threatening voice behind me sends a wave of shivers down my spine.
I don’t need to look back to know who it is. I felt him. I felt him before he opened his mouth. His piercing stern eyes, his scrutinizing gaze, I was afraid of looking back because my body—my heart—being attuned to a complete stranger is perplexing.
Micah is close. Too close. He smells like gas, Valvoline and soap; a scent I’m more than familiar with. One I loved more than I cared to admit.
Not close enough…
He takes another step forward.
Fucking hell… “Yeah, well, knowing my brother, he’s in the back of one of these guys’ pick-up trucks with his dick buried deep inside some girl named Leah,” I retort before glimpsing over my shoulder.
He smiles. I almost fucking die.
Micah Lambert is the kind of man women will spend hours stalking the internet for, and the kind of guy every man on earth is jealous of. He towers my five feet four by at least six inches, and even wearing a hoodie, I can delineate the chiseled lines that define his chest and abs.
My eyes trail down his body. I study the blood spatter on his jeans and the bruises on his knuckles with curiosity, and when I look up, I pause on his torso. Again. My mind wanders, picturing what Micah looks like naked. I don’t realize I’m licking my lips until I meet the glint in his darkened gray orbs.
I am so fucking busted.
He doesn’t say anything, but a shadow of a smirk tugs at the corner of Micah’s lips. He’s used to the attention, and if I’m not mistaken, he kind of likes it.
Micah takes a last step to lean against the empty chair beside mine and stuffs his free hand in the front pocket of his shirt. A cute frown is pinched between his eyebrows as he studies me thoughtfully. “I didn’t know Bankes had a twin.”
Something I am painfully aware of, unfortunately. I force a smile. “Well, if it’s any consolation, up until three hours ago, I didn’t know about you either.”
He lets his hoodie down and runs his hand through his short blond strands, making a bigger chaos of his already messy hair. “Why would he keep you a secret?”
I snicker. “Do you have a sister, Micah?”
His lips twitch as he shakes his head.
“Well my brother, he’s a little overprotective of me. And by a little, I mean a lot.”
“It’s a brother’s job to protect his sister. Especially when it comes to preventing their heart from getting hurt by guys who only think with their dicks.”
“Well, not to be mean or anything, but that’s kind of an insult to you.”
A boyish grin tugs at the corner of his lips. I wish I had the power to press pause on life for that simple moment because something tells me this is a vulnerability he doesn’t expose all that often. “How can that possibly be an insult to me?”
I lower my eyes to make a point and I swear the sight of his dimples and the way his head falls back when he starts laughing are the sexiest things I’ve seen in my entire life.
“I am so happy your brother isn’t here to introduce us right now.”
So am I, but I’ll definitely be keeping that fact to myself. “And why would that be?”
He scratches his scruff and his mouth curls into a sexy smirk. “Because I don’t think you would have done what you just did there if Vincent was here.”
“You seem pretty sure of yourself.”
“I tend to see more than meets the eye when it comes to certain things. And right now, I’m definitely getting a side of you that your brother knows nothing about.”
I pop a challenging brow and cross my arms over my chest. “How do you figure that?”
I try to hide the fact that I’m getting flustered under his piercing gaze. And flustered I am. Heart beating so fast I can barely conceal my heaving chest, hands so sweaty they’re nearly slipping off the chair I’m desperately clutching onto, thighs clenched so tight I’m probably cutting off my own blood flow.
“Call it a gut feeling.” He tips his beer to his lips and winks. Cocky bastard. “And trust me, Firefly, whatever you’re searching for down there, you won’t find it here.”
“Firefly?”
The playfulness in his eye shifts, turning dark the second I repeat the weird nickname I’ve somehow earned. He stares at me for the longest time, never drifting his attention from mine. I wait for more, but Micah is gone someplace only he can see. When he seems to have found whatever it was he was looking for, he blinks, smirks, and backs away.
He didn’t explain. He didn’t smile. He just turned around and left me hanging.
“Oh, hey, um, Micah?”
His step falters. I pull out the black gift bag I had hidden in my hobo bag and extend it to him. His suspicious eyes move from me to the platinum blonde standing by a table near the back door. Two motorcycle helmets dangle from her hands as she shifts impatiently from one combat boot to another.
She looks like a girl who is ready to bolt, and from where I’m standing, sooner is better than later.
Micah holds up a finger to warn her he needs an extra minute and turns around to face me. I don’t miss the glaring eye roll she throws my way, but do choose to ignore it. I have nothing on the girl, she’s all kinds of beautiful.
“Girlfriend?” The question tumbles out of my mouth before I’m able to stop it. I can feel the blush creeping up on me even before he cocks an amused eyebrow. It takes me so much self-control to not face-palm myself. “Dude, please don’t answer that. It’s obviously none of my business.”
“Obviously.” His voice is husky, rattling things inside me I know it shouldn’t. He swallows the last mouthful of the bottle he’s been nursing and places it on the counter behind me. “But to answer your inquiring mind: no, Aaryn is not my girlfriend. She’s one of a few long-time childhood friends. And by a few, I pretty much mean the only one.”
“Huh,” I answer, surprised.
“Huh?” he repeats, arching an eyebrow. The corner of his mouth lifts, amused.
“Yeah, um—anyway, here take it, it’s for you.” I shut my eyes and shake off whatever is going on in my mind. When I reopen them, Micah’s face is completely unreadable. “Vince told me it was your birthday, so, I—um—” Wow, get a grip, Aub. “Okay, whatever. Just, happy twenty-first birthday.”
His brows pinch together, tracing an even deeper frown. “Do you normally buy gifts for people you don’t know?”
I shrug. No witty comment, no logical answers… nothing. And telling him that offering a present to my brother’s new friend seemed like a great idea before I found out he was hot as fuck is completely out of the question.
I extend the gift bag, and he studies it. His attention shifts from me to his present, and the uncomfortable silence he seems to be keen on keeping is getting pretty damn intolerable. “Well come on, Micah. Don’t just stand there, open it—or something…”
He doesn’t. He takes it, but only after I release another impatient growl.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?”
I swear that side-smirk will be the death of me. I press my lips together, preventing the words ‘what do you think’ to be blurted out.
“Good.”
Good? Good? Cocky asshole. I snatch the bag out of his hands and his eyes grow wide.
Micah takes a step closer, closing the remaining distance between us. As he reaches out for the gift I’ve strategically placed on the counter beside me, the inside of his thigh rubs against my knee. I’m pretty sure he hears the sharp breath I’ve just sucked in because his smirk grows even wider. “Did you just steal my birthday gift?”
“Technically, I paid for it, so it’s not stealing.”
“That’s kind of rude.”
“I’m a rude person,” I argue.
He puffs a snort. “Sure. The girl that brings a birthday gift to her brother’s friend, someone she she has never met before today, is rude. Try something else, Firefly.”
“First off from what I’ve heard, you’re one of his best friends, it’s a given.”
“How in the world can it be a given?”
“It’s a twin thing, you wouldn’t get it.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
“Exactly, which brings me to reason number two: I’m taking it back because it was a very stupid idea.”
“I disagree. I think this is a fantastic idea. Now if you don’t mind—” He places one hand over mine to hold me still, no need since I’m pretty much already frozen in place, and claims his gift bag back.
Micah takes his sweet time unwrapping his gift. He pulls out the black tissues one by one and stacks them neatly on the counter behind me. Every once in a while, he sneaks a glimpse my way and chuckles. It’s more than obvious that he’s enjoying every tortuous and awkward minute he’s putting me through.
I let out another impatient groan.
“You know, some people say that the best part of a present is the gift itself.”
“And let me guess, you disagree.”
“Completely. Unwrapping is the best part. It shouldn’t be rushed, it should be savored. Enjoyed.” He reaches the bottom of the bag and stares at his gift for what feels like an eternity.
I get nervous. Not sure why since the thing cost me less than twenty bucks. I mean, if he hates it, he can either chuck it or re-gift it to someone else. But Micah has a look in his eye, a mixture of consternation and shock that makes me feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff rather than just waiting to see if he appreciates the stupid gift or not.
After an entire minute of silence, he takes his New York Yankees cap out and with the widest grin, he places it backward on his head. “Well, Miss Bankes.” He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear and lowers his face to place a delicate kiss on my cheek. “For the first time in my life, I’m not sure if I should be delighted or fretted to meet my best friend’s sister.”
I exhale a shaky breath. “Why’s that?”
“Because.” His lips trail up my jawline to whisper in my ear. “No matter how breathtaking I think you are, I know for a fact that there’s no fucking way I’m going to break your beautiful heart.”
Broken Promises (Burning Mistakes Book 1) Page 2