by Colee Firman
I ended up behind the bar serving drinks with Maybell. Livvy made a halfhearted attempt at waitressing, but once Tom showed up, she spent more time sitting on his knee doing shots than handing out drinks.
I placed two napkins down on the bar. “What can I get you?” My mouth went dry when I realized I was standing in front of Myles’ parents.
Apparently the whole town really had come out for one last drink at the pub. While I was trying to decide whether to pretend I didn’t recognize them or not, the choice was made for me by his mother.
“Hello again,” she said, holding her hand out. “We weren’t properly introduced before. I’m Lois Franco.” She motioned to her husband. “This is Martin.”
“Brantley Prescott.” I wiped my hand on my apron before reaching out and shaking the woman’s hand. “What would you like to drink?”
Martin ran his eyes across the bottles behind me. “Do you know how to make a Gimlet?
I nodded. “Gin or vodka?”
“Gin,” he said, smiling at me.
“And I’ll have a Bloody Mary,” Lois said. “Spicy.”
“Sure.” I walked away and started grabbing ingredients.
Awkward was a complete understatement for the way I felt being in the same room as Myles’ parents. They’d thrown a fit about me being alone with their son in Moore Lake. Obviously they knew I’d left because of them. With that looming over the situation, I didn’t know how to act. If his mother would’ve just pretended like she didn’t recognize me things would’ve been a lot easier.
Maybell walked up next to me while I was making their drinks. “After you finish with those, I want you on the other side of this bar. You should be enjoying yourself with everyone else.”
“I don’t mind,” I said, pouring vodka over ice in a glass. “You should be the one out there enjoying yourself.”
Maybell smiled down at Puck who was at the end of the bar laughing with a couple of guys who spent more time in the pub than they did at their own homes. “He’s having a good enough time for the both of us. Serve those and then get out of here—I’m still your boss lady for a couple more hours.”
“Alright…” I put a straw into each drink and then carried them back to Myles’ parents, deciding that maybe getting out from behind the bar wasn’t such a bad idea. “Here you go,” I said, setting one down in front of each of them. I smiled and then turned to leave.
“Hold on,” Lois said.
I turned back, feeling completely trapped. “Is something wrong with your drink?”
Lois took a sip and shook her head. “I didn’t realize who you were at Moore Lake last week.”
“Neither of us did,” Martin said, stirring his drink with the straw.
“Who I was?” I knew I was making a strange face. Their comments just caught me off guard.
“I didn’t know you were the girl who lives in the upstairs apartment in Myles’ house,” Lois said.
Martin nodded. “You’d already left by the time everything was sorted out.”
“It wasn’t a big deal.” I had no idea what else to say. I honestly didn’t understand why being the girl who lives in the upstairs apartment in Myles’ house made a difference.
“We didn’t intend to run you off.” Martin put the straw from his glass on the bar and then took a drink. “Especially not after you’d already been displaced from your home.”
My heart skipped. My immediate thought was that Myles had told them about my father being in prison and how I’d lost everything. It took a few seconds to register that he was talking about Baylor Grove and the tornados.
“Brantley, get your cute little ass over here—we need drinks!”
Livvy was shouting at the top of her lungs as she waved her hands in the air. Normally I would’ve found that sort of thing irritating. At the moment, it was absolutely fine and couldn’t have come at a better time.
“No worries about Moore Lake,” I said, backing away from the bar. “It was nice to meet you.” I wrapped my fingers around the first two bottles I could reach and cut through the crowd toward Livvy.
“You gonna work all fucking night and make the rest of us look bad?” Livvy took the bottles and held them up, reading the labels. “Johnnie Walker and Goldschläger—really?”
“Don’t bitch,” I said, snatching the Johnnie Walker from Livvy and taking a drink right out of the bottle. “They were on my escape route.”
Livvy had herself parked on Tom’s lap because the other six chairs around the table were taken by Kyle, Wyatt Dempsey, and his four younger brothers.
The Dempsey boys, also known as Wyatt, Vince, Carter, Tucker, and Maverick, had spent a lot of time at the bar since Tom and Livvy started dating. They were a pretty nice group of guys. I was going to miss seeing them.
Kyle, the guy Tom and Livvy were always trying to set me up with, scooted over in his chair. “Share your booze and I’ll share my seat.”
“Such a gentleman…” I handed him the bottle and scooted in next to him.
Kyle and I took turns passing the bottle back and forth as everyone got drunker and louder. If possible, the bar was getting even more jammed. It was turning out to be just as much of a Baylor Grove reunion as it was a retirement party for Puck and Maybell.
“Hey Brant…” Livvy leaned forward with her elbows on the table. “Can you actually feel it when he stares at you?”
I turned from the conversation I was having with Kyle. “What?”
“I guess that’s no…” Livvy cut her eyes toward the bar. “He’s been over there for the last half hour gawking.”
I looked over and saw Myles drinking a beer and talking to a group of guys. “You could’ve said something like twenty-nine minutes ago…”
“I could’ve,” she said, smiling, “it was more fun watching him watching you sitting next to Kyle. Damn I love a good drama…”
I tried not to look over at him and went back to talking. I figured if Myles had wanted to talk to me, he would’ve come over to the table. He’d said he was pissed off and slammed his door in my face again, so hanging out and having a couple drinks together probably wasn’t happening.
Having Myles there but so far away had completely killed my buzz. I realized that everything I’d thought about him in the beginning was wrong. I’d found a really a great guy hidden behind his amazing looks and terrible attitude. I wanted everything about him—inside and out.
Fifteen
Myles
I was only grabbing bits and pieces of the conversation around me as I fought to stay focused. Having Brantley across the room with her bare thigh pressed up against Kyle had me ready to crack some heads.
The bar was the last place I should’ve been. I needed to be at home working and getting packed to leave on Saturday. But when my brother-in-law brought my truck back and told me what was going on at Puck’s, like a dumbass I had to go up there. I needed to see her, to see if she was alright with what was happening.
It was pretty obvious by the smile on her face she was doing just fine. I should’ve just stayed home—I needed to go home right then before I did something stupid. As long as she was over there with Kyle, my feet wouldn’t budge.
I watched as her friend Livvy lined up shot glasses and filled them to the rim. Everyone at the table grabbed one and knocked them back at the same time.
The second Brantley slammed her empty glass down on the table, Kyle’s arm went around her and he leaned in close, whispering something that made her laugh. When she blocked her mouth with her hand and started whispering something back, the grip I had on my beer bottle got so tight I swore I heard it crack.
Fuck. This. There was no way I was standing by and watching that shit. Without a word to the guys I’d been faking a conversation with, I started moving through the crowd toward Brantley.
On my twenty second walk over there, I had to talk myself out of putting my fist straight through Kyle’s fucking face. Causing a scene probably wasn’t going to score me any points w
ith Brantley. She didn’t seem like the kind of girl who wanted guys fighting over her. That was unfortunate because that’s all I’d wanted to do since I saw Jake handing her the flowers.
There was also the fact that all five Dempsey brothers and their cousin were at the table. If I started shit they’d probably have Kyle’s back. I’d picked enough fights to know seven against one were shitty odds.
Everyone seated around the table looked over as I stopped next to Brantley. She was the last one to turn her eyes toward me. Her cheeks were pink from laughing and little wisps of her hair were hanging down in her face.
Wyatt nodded his head at me. “What’s up, Franco.”
“Hey, how’s it going?” I didn’t actually give a shit how it was going. I hadn’t come over there to catch up with fuckers I hadn’t given a second thought to since high school.
“Hey neighbor…” Brantley put her hand on the table and pushed off, standing up in front of me. “I thought you were goddamn pissed off at me?”
“I am…” I reached out, brushing a piece of hair back from her face and watched as her cheeks got even pinker. I loved that I could do that to her.
Brantley put her hands on her hips. “I’m pretty sure we filled our daily quarrel quota earlier.”
“It’s after midnight so that was actually yesterday,” I said, fighting with my eyes to keep them from moving to the perfect view I had of her cleavage.
“I’m surprised it’s been that long,” she said, smirking at me. “The sound of your apartment door slamming is still ringing in my ears.”
Kyle leaned forward and caught her eye, making her look away from me. “I’d never slam the door in your face, Brant.”
That was my tipping point. She was getting the fuck away from that asshat or I was gonna end up in jail. I leaned down close to her ear, purposely letting my lips brush against it as I whispered. “Why don’t you go grab us a couple of drinks and we can get our quarrel for today out of the way.”
Brantley turned her head just enough so as I moved away her cheek brushed against my lips. I heard her breath catch as she exhaled. I’d been fairly confident she wouldn’t say no, but the seconds ticking by as I waited for her response had me worried suddenly. If I’d been such a prick earlier that I’d fucked things up for good, I didn’t know what I was going to do.
“Why not,” she finally said, moving closer to scoot around me. “Find us somewhere to duke it out and I’ll go grab some anger-fuel.”
The entire front of her body dragged across mine as she maneuvered to get past me in the crowded bar. She just kept moving as if having no idea how being so close to her affected me. Maybe that’s why it was such a turn on.
The urge to punch out Kyle resurfaced when I caught him staring at Brantley as she walked away. My reasons for not ramming my boot through his head were starting to seem weak. I stood trying to figure out how many hits I could get on him before the guys jumped in while I waited for him to peel his eyes off her ass.
When Kyle finally turned back and realized he had my full attention, he held his hands up and leaned back in his chair. “I get it—hands, eyes, whatever else off…”
“Don’t fucking forget it.” I walked away feeling like an asshole for being so possessive of a girl who wasn’t even mine. That’s what she did to me though. She had me completely hooked and I had to do something about it before things got out of hand.
Brantley
I tried to relax as I stood behind the bar pouring liquor into glasses. I hadn’t even decided what I was making, but considering I’d just mindlessly put gin, vodka, rum and tequila in our glasses, it looked like it was going to be long island iced tea.
Whatever. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get done. Myles had my head spinning. He was like a puzzle with no solution. One minute he was saying he was pissed at me and slamming his door, and then the next he was asking me to have a drink with him. I felt like he couldn’t decide what he wanted.
Once I was done making the drinks, I took a second to get myself together and then set out to find Myles. Every table and chair in the place was taken, yet somehow he’d managed to score us a booth along the back wall.
I took a long look at him as I walked over. I decided he really was just ridiculously hot without trying—or maybe I was just so far gone that no matter what the guy looked like I was always going to find him irresistible.
The light in the bar wasn’t all that bright to begin with, and the corner he was seated in was the dimmest spot in the entire place. More than once I’d watched Puck haul people out of there for doing things they shouldn’t have been doing.
I sat the drinks down on the table and scooted in across from him. “Your battle wound looks better,” I said, running my eyes over the cut on his arm.
Myles glanced down at it and nodded.
“You didn’t have to work tonight?” I slid my glass closer and leaned down, taking a drink from the straw.
“Later.” Myles watched me as he lifted his arms and placed them along the back of the booth.
The short answers he was giving and the way he was studying every move I made me had me completely uncomfortable. I’d been nervous already and the weight of his stare was only making it worse. From a stranger’s perspective, it probably looked like he didn’t even want me at his table.
I sighed. “Myles, are you honestly still pissed at me?”
“Hell, I don’t know anymore...” He raked his fingers though his hair and let his hand rest on top his head. “Everything’s been so fucked since I got caught up in you.”
That stung a little. I let my eyes drop to my glass, watching as condensation drips made a ring around the bottom. “I’m sorry for leaving. I didn’t think you’d care…”
“You didn’t think I’d care?” He leaned forward, practically yelling at me in a hushed voice. “Why? Because I didn’t buy fucking flowers and spout off sappy shit?”
My jaw literally dropped open. “You think I want flowers just so I can watch them die?” I pulled my legs up and kneeled on the seat with my elbows on the table. “I don’t need to hear bullshit about how pretty or funny you think I am—that’s the last thing I want from you.”
I expected a quick comeback. Instead, he collapsed back against the seat and kept his eyes on me. He didn’t look angry anymore but I could tell there was still something wrong.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, “because when you walk out on me and then I find you up here with a guy hanging all over you, it’s tough to figure out.”
“Kyle is my friend. That’s all.” I grabbed our glasses and moved them to the side. “And as far as what I want goes…” I reached across the table and hooked my fingers under the edge, pulling myself over so I was leaning on my elbows in front of him. “I just want you to tell me you wish I’d stayed.”
“Brantley, I…” Myles trailed the back of his index finger along my collarbone. “I wish you would’ve stayed.”
“I do too.” I pulled myself closer until my hips hit the edge of the table. “I really missed you.”
“I missed you too,” he said, cupping my cheeks in his hands. “You’re all I thought about…” He leaned in and let his forehead rest against mine. “I couldn’t wait to get home to you.”
I felt like I’d slipped into someone else’s life. The guy I was completely hung up on was saying all the things I wanted to hear. I knew by his soft expression he meant every word of it. I never thought I’d have someone looking at me the way he was. The dim light and loud music were suddenly a blessing. If it hadn’t been for that, I was certain he would’ve been able to tell how hard my heart was pounding.
“Before we say or do anything else, you need to know something,” he whispered, closing his eyes and tipping his forehead was against my shoulder. “It’s gonna change everything...”
Now my heart was really working double time. I figured he was going to tell me about the girl at Princeton. I couldn’t just sit there and pretend I didn’t already know a
bout her. That was just like lying. I didn’t want to start off what I was trying to build with him like that.
“Myles…” I turned my head slightly to look at his face. “I already know. It doesn’t change the way I feel.”
He picked his head up and dropped his hands into his lap, narrowing his eyes at me. “What is it that you think you know?”
“I, umm…” I scooted back into my seat and let my feet fall to the floor. “I know about Princeton—the girl and the baby thing.”
Myles lowered his eyes. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I was very familiar with his angry face, and that wasn’t the one he was wearing. His breathing was quick and shallow, as if my words had knocked the wind out of him.
“Tell me what you know,” he said, looking up at me.
“Jake just told me there was a girl who got pregnant. I swear I wasn’t spying or snooping…”
Myles jaw clenched. “Nosy prick…”
“I’m sorry…” I stammered as I spoke, trying to breathe. “I’m sorry… for knowing.”
“Hey,” he said, stretching his arm across the table and holding his hand out to me. “I’m not pissed at you. Jake should’ve kept his fucking mouth shut.”
I slipped my hand into his. “So he was telling the truth?”
Myles nodded. “I was an asshole doing stupid shit,” he said, wrapping his fingers around mine. “When I wasn’t in class, I was drinking, fighting, or fucking.”
I dropped my eyes to our hands. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to enjoy the conversation.
Myles squeezed my hand. “Like I said, I was an asshole doing stupid shit. I went to a party off campus like I’d been doing since freshman year. I got wasted and passed out. The next morning I woke up and went back to school. About a month later I was studying in the library when campus security came and got me. When I was put into a cop car I just figured it was over a fight I’d been in the weekend before. I was wrong. When I got to the police station they arrested me for statutory rape.”
“You were arrested?” I took a long look at him. “Did you know the girl was underage?”