After Tonight

by Erin Nicholas

  “You alright?” Kyle asked.

  He was slightly behind her, because Riley had been solely focused on Derek and had shoved in right between them. She looked over her shoulder. “Yeah. Of course. Just need to ask Derek something.”

  Are you aware of the Sex God title? How the hell did that happen? What’s wrong with you? Do you really want to only be known for that? And are you using condoms? Because that’s a really good way to get a disease that could make your miraculous cock dry right up and fall off.

  And she’d just thought of Derek’s cock as miraculous.

  No. She could not handle this. This was not okay.

  Derek headed for the back room through the swinging door behind the bar. Riley took two seconds to breathe deeply and rein in her stupid, disturbing thoughts—like the one where a plastic soldier was on his knees with his face between Barbie’s legs—and started after him.

  Okay, they were not going to talk about sex. No way. All of this was none of her business. Derek could do whatever he wanted with whoever he wanted. If his dick caught the plague and fell off, that was his own fault.

  But he had multiple kinds of coffee and body wash for his “overnight guests”? That was kind of…nice. Or something. Sure, he was booting them out as soon as the sun rose, but he was being considerate about it. Or as considerate as a guy handing a woman a disposable coffee cup that said it’s-not-you-it’s-me-don’t-call-me-and-I-won’t-call-you could be.

  And hey, Sephora hadn’t seemed upset. He’d helped her move on. He’d practically done charity work, to hear her tell it.

  “What’s up?” he asked with a frown the second Riley came through the swinging door into the kitchen area.

  “Isn’t that a health code violation or something?” she asked, gesturing to his muddy jeans and boots.

  “You’re worried about the cleanliness of my kitchen?” he asked.

  Of course she wasn’t worried about his kitchen. She wasn’t really worried about anything. Except maybe…him. Or his reputation. Or his STD status. All of which was completely ridiculous.

  “Well, I eat food out of this kitchen. I’d like to know it doesn’t have earthworms in it.”

  Derek gave her a little half smile. “You’ve eaten worse.”

  She sighed. Well, she wasn’t sure it was worse than earthworms. He’d put smashed-up ants in her peanut butter once. Then she narrowed her eyes. She knew about the ants. It was very possible that he’d done something worse that she didn’t know about.

  “I don’t want to know,” she said.

  “You’re right,” he told her with a nod.

  Well, he might have a magic cock, but he was still kind of a dick.

  “Why are you all muddy?” Riley asked, looking him up and down with her very familiar you’re-such-a-dumbass look.

  Derek had gotten that look from her probably a million times in his life. It still made him grin. “Because I fell in the mud.”

  She sighed.

  To be honest, he played up the dumbass stuff for Riley’s benefit. She’d always been a too-smart, geeky know-it-all, and he’d loved playing the big dumb buffoon who wasn’t worthy to even engage in conversation with her. She loved to spout off about politics and climate change and women’s rights and the arts. And if she got started on technology and social media, she could talk the Pope to drink.

  It wasn’t that Derek didn’t care about those things or have opinions, but the girl had always used big words on purpose—with a snotty, you’re-not-worthy tone of voice—and loved to debate and, frankly, she was exhausting.

  So whenever he’d been around her, from about age twelve to, well, now, he just played along that he didn’t have a clue. That way, Riley got to feel smart, and he didn’t have to get into a conversation that would take many, many, many precious minutes off of his life.

  Thing was, he agreed with her. On just about every point she made. So what was the point in talking about it?

  “I was out at the cemetery. Don didn’t get the new section mowed earlier so he called to see if I could do it.”

  “You fell off the lawnmower?” she asked, her tone indicating she had no trouble believing that he was incapable of even mowing grass.

  Jesus, she was a pain in his ass. “I was helping Lucy, actually.” He smiled thinking of the other too-smart geek he’d known most of his life. Unlike Riley, her best friend Lucy was sweet and quiet, and the only time she’d ever made him feel dumb was during her Valedictorian speech, when she’d quoted people he’d never heard of and said things that went right over his head. Fortunately, 99.5% of the audience in the Sapphire Falls high school gymnasium bleachers had been in the same boat, so he hadn’t felt so bad.

  But he’d realized in that moment that Lucy and Riley were out of his league. Sure, Riley got not-great grades, but he knew she was smart. Very smart. And cool and funny and beautiful. And he’d been giving her a hard time pretty much her entire life. They might have been geeks who didn’t date much and spent most of their weekends in Riley’s basement, but yeah, they were on a whole other level from Derek and the girls he hung out with.

  Not that his big-brother-ish teasing had stopped that day. He and Riley had their relationship very well established by then. And, well, clearly she didn’t need him giving her pep talks or telling her she was awesome or encouraging her to go after her dreams. So, he told himself she needed him to keep her grounded.

  “You were helping Lucy?” Riley repeated. “At the cemetery?”

  “Yep. I’d just gotten done mowing and she was there looking at headstones for some town history thing she’s doing.”

  Lucy ran the local bookstore and was in charge of the town’s archives. She also oversaw the Sapphire Falls town museum—an old house on Main that served, more or less, as a storage unit for people’s old clothes, books, photos and other “items”. Most of the stuff in there was just old, but everything supposedly had a story that tied it to the founding families. Derek wasn’t so sure about the validity of those claims, but the museum was Lucy’s headache, not his.

  Except, of course, when something leaked—like a pipe or the roof—or a big heavy bookcase needed to be moved from the third story to the first. Or when a big heavy table needed to be moved from the first floor to the third. Or when big heavy boxes needed to be retrieved from, or stored in, the attic. Or when everything needed to be moved around for the haunted house.

  The old house was the site of the traditional haunted house at Halloween and during the annual town festival every June. No one knew why they had a haunted house during the summer festival, but it was tradition, so they did. Which meant that twice a year, Derek was the main guy helping put it all together. And take it all down.

  Of course, Lucy thought the place was actually haunted and had data on whose ghosts inhabited the oldest house in town.

  Derek shook his head. Lucy was sweet and…quirky. That was really the best word for her. And she was cute. That he couldn’t deny. She’d grown from nerdy-bookworm cute into shy-librarian cute. He wasn’t sure what the exact distinction between the two was, but he was pretty sure it had something to do with her losing the baggy hoodies that hid her curves, her use of lip gloss that called attention to her very nice lips, and her increased confidence that resulted in more eye contact and smiles.

  “And you ended up in the mud how?” Riley asked.

  Derek focused on the pain-in-the-ass redhead in front of him instead of thinking about sweet Lucy’s lip gloss. “I slipped down an embankment over in the oldest part of the cemetery.” He looked down. A little mud never hurt anyone. “But I’m good with being dirty.”

  He was shocked to see Riley blush.

  For one, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Riley blush. For another…what had he said?

  “So, anyway, did you need something?” he asked.

  He stripped off his shirt and turned toward the back door. He had a duffle hanging on a hook back there that had extra clothes in it. He had extra clothes stored in a
lot of places—here, his truck, his grandmother’s house, and over at Kyle’s, since Kyle lived in town, at least right now.

  It seemed Derek was always in need of a clean shirt or jeans. He did odd jobs all over town and very few of them were actually scheduled. Or paid, for that matter. He never knew when he might get called to help someone change a tire, or pull out a tree stump, or dig their fishing boat out of the mud. He didn’t mind that everyone in town had his cell number and used it freely. He was easily bored, didn’t like to sit still, and loved not having a set schedule.

  Of course, once the pizza ovens were finished at the Come Again and they got that business up and going, he’d be busier with work there, but hey, it was pizza. It wasn’t like he was spending his days saving lives at the hospital like his best friend Kyle, or protecting the town like his buddy Scott, one of Sapphire Falls’ cops. Derek’s specialties were pizza and beer, and that was just fine with him. He was an expert in both.

  Riley still hadn’t said anything, so he turned back after he’d pulled a clean shirt from his bag.

  She was staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. He frowned and yanked the T-shirt over his head. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked, pulling the shirt into place and tucking the dirty one into his bag.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m fine. I’m…” She seemed to be searching for words. Then she frowned, planted her hands on her hips and said, “There’s a woman out front looking for you. I thought I’d warn you.”

  Riley was warning him about a woman? That was…weird. For one, Riley had never been protective of him in all the time he’d known her. For another… Nope, pretty much just that one thing. She loved when he screwed up and fell on his ass—figuratively and literally.

  And “as long as he’d known her” was a really long time. He’d been there when her parents had brought her home from the hospital. He’d only been four but he remembered it distinctly. She had been crying her lungs out when they’d carried her into the house, and he’d thought “holy shit, she’s gonna be a pain”. Okay, maybe he hadn’t thought the word “shit” at that tender age, but he did remember thinking that Riley had seemed like more trouble than she was worth from the very first minute.

  But he’d stuck around anyway. Because her grandmother had made a strawberry cake. And Ruby’s cakes had always been worth putting up with Riley. Thankfully. Because Riley had always been there. Kyle’s birthday parties, neighborhood gatherings, Super Bowl parties, Derek’s birthday parties. He hadn’t been able to get rid of her.

  Thank God for Ruby’s cakes.

  Riley’s It’s-A-Girl cake had been pink with pink frosting and one of the best things he’d ever tasted in his life. He assumed that was why he’d always associated strawberries with Riley, and why he’d called her Shortcake when they’d been growing up. It was definitely why it had amused him so much when she’d dyed her hair red when she’d turned fourteen. She’d gone from a mousy brown to a fiery look-at-me red. And the guys had definitely looked.

  He was pretty sure they hadn’t stopped looking since.

  It wasn’t just the red hair. She had several piercings in her ears, one in her nose, and one in her belly button. She had tattoos—gorgeous ones that ran up the entire length of one leg and showed off her creamy skin when she wore shorts or skirts, one on her shoulder that peeked out with certain tops, and one on her lower stomach that he hadn’t seen but he’d heard Peyton telling Scott about.

  Riley was also gorgeous, had a trim body with big boobs, and an attitude that said “I dare you”. And all of that would have made him follow her around like a puppy if it weren’t for two very important facts.

  One, he’d known her his whole life, and she was like an annoying little sister to him.

  Two, she didn’t really like him.

  She seemed like a rebel. She’d gone with the piercings and tattoos—using fake ones until she was old enough to get real ones—in order to get away from her big brother’s Boy Scout reputation. Kyle had huge shoes to fill, and Riley had grown tired of being “Kyle Ames’s little sister” very early on. So she’d started acting out and expressing herself…differently than Kyle had. Kyle’s straight A’s, perfectionistic, straight-laced habits were countered with Riley’s barely passing grades—in spite of her high IQ and giftedness in math and computer science—lots of swearing, and general antisocial tendencies. Kyle had been involved in everything. Riley had hung out in her parents’ basement with three computers and an online community no one else really knew about or understood.

  So yeah, Riley seemed to be Derek’s type, but women who didn’t like him were definitely not his type.

  “What’s she look like?” he asked of the woman supposedly looking for him.

  “Well, there are two actually. A brunette and a blond.” Riley tipped her head and narrowed her eyes. “She’s basically looking for you so you can help her friend get over a breakup.”

  Huh. Brunette and blond didn’t really narrow it down. “What did she say?”

  “That you—” Riley faltered, blushed, coughed, then said, “Apparently you two spent the night together and she never thought about her ex again.”

  Also didn’t really narrow it down, but Derek was far too distracted by Riley’s reaction to the whole thing. She was fucking blushing. Again. What the hell? And she’d dyed her hair red from brown, but she did have the pale skin of a redhead. Which made the pink staining her cheeks all the more obvious.

  “Oh,” he said, searching for something to say other than “that sounds about right.”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “About what?”

  “That her heartbreak was totally healed after one night with you, and she was able to move on, happier, more confident, and feeling good about herself.”

  He shrugged. “That’s kind of how it should work, right?”

  “How what should work?”

  “Really hot sex with someone who thinks you’re amazing.”

  Her cheeks turned a darker pink, but that didn’t completely distract from her very skeptical look. “They all think you’re amazing? After knowing you only one night?”

  Derek realized this was the most bizarre conversation he and Riley had ever had. “Well, as you can attest, I probably seem more amazing the less time you know me.”

  But instead of agreeing with him, she frowned.

  Then before she could respond, he said, “And actually, I was referring to how I make them feel.”

  Her frown deepened. “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “I want them to feel amazing.”

  “Because then they’ll go and talk about you to all of their girlfriends?”

  Derek shook his head. Why did she care? “Look, I’m like…Vegas,” he said.

  Riley’s eyebrows went up. “You’re like Vegas?” she repeated. “What does that mean?”

  “People love Vegas,” Derek said. “Vegas has the reputation of being an anything-goes, get-away-from-it all, if-it-feels-good-do-it hell of a good time, right?”

  “Okay,” Riley said slowly.

  “But no one wants to live there, you know? And even the people who go regularly don’t stay for long and go back to their real lives in between.”

  He watched Riley process all of that.

  “You understand?” he finally asked her.

  She nodded, looking slightly stunned.

  “And if you come home from Vegas and didn’t have a great time, and don’t feel a little better about facing your real life, and don’t smile thinking back on your time there, then you did something wrong,” he said.

  Again, she nodded, with a slight frown. “So…you’re like Vegas,” she repeated again.

  Satisfied that she understood, Derek nodded. “I’m like Vegas.”

  Her frown deepened. “Why do you want to be like Vegas?” she asked. “That’s about as opposite from Sapphire Falls as you can get, and you love it here.”

  He did. Definitely. But…
“Pretty much every other guy here is Sapphire Falls,” he said.

  She looked confused.

  Derek sighed. “Everyone here is about family and settling down and putting down roots and being a part of this big community. Which I love,” he added. “But the women here can basically throw a rock and hit a nice guy who wants to put up a white picket fence and start having babies. And most of the women want that. And that’s great. But sometimes they just need something else. Like a quick trip to Vegas.”

  Riley’s eyes widened and she said, “Dessert instead of salad.”

  He frowned but decided he didn’t need to understand that. “So, anyway, I’ll go out and talk to these ladies and see if they’re up for some gambling this weekend.” He gave Riley a cocky wink that he knew would annoy her.

  She frowned on cue. “It’s just the one girl who needs to get over a breakup.”

  “Well, it’s not uncommon to show up in Vegas, thinking you know which game is yours and have your mind totally changed by the lights and glitter.” He had no intention of taking two women home, but again, he loved the idea of shocking Riley a little.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t suppose any of this has anything to do with the fact that women who have just been through a breakup are easy targets, right? Their self-esteem is low so you come along, act a little romantic, and they’ll fall for anything?”

  Derek felt his own frown forming. He and Riley had always poked at each other, teased, pointed out each other’s flaws readily. But this felt more…something. More raw. More annoying. More real.

  “You know, you can be a real brat sometimes.” He pulled his hand from his pocket and started toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out of this kitchen,” he told her shortly.

  “Hey—”

  He swung back even as he knew he should just keep going. “What?”

  “Do you remember Sarah Lamb?” she asked.

  Derek frowned at the out-of-the-blue question. “Of course.”