by Lexi Ryan
“Hey, Marston!” Kace waves me over from his perch farther down the bar.
I take the spot next to him while Smithy pours my drink. “How are you here every night? Don’t you have a kid at home?”
“Hope’s with her mom this weekend, and I don’t like an empty house,” he says, but he’s distracted by something behind me. When I turn to follow his gaze, I see Stella, laughing with a group of guys by the back hall.
When Kace turns back to me, I arch a brow. “You and Stella?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Fuck no.” There was something in the way he was just looking at her that says otherwise, but I’m not about to argue. “Her brother and I are business partners, and she’s absolutely not my type,” he adds.
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Smithy mutters as he taps an order into the computer.
Kace shifts awkwardly, so I pretend I didn’t hear Smithy. “So how’s the whole single-dad life treating you?” It wasn’t until I ran into Kace at the grocery store a couple of days ago that I even found out he has a daughter. This is what I get for avoiding Orchid Valley all these years. I totally missed out on my friends’ lives. It seemed like the only choice at the time, but now I wonder if Abraham Knox wasn’t just manipulating me to his will.
“It’s awesome in some ways, really fucking hard in others. I never expected to be a card-carrying member of the divorced-before-thirty club.”
I grunt. If Brinley has her way, we’ll both be part of that group in no time. “Can I ask what happened?”
Kace takes a sip of his beer and sighs. “I don’t know. I worked too much? She didn’t communicate enough? Whatever the reason, she was dissatisfied and didn’t believe we could fix it.” He shakes his head. “By the end, all that mattered to either of us was what was best for Hope. Amy looked at me one day and said, ‘Is this the kind of marriage you want your daughter to have? Because whatever we show her is what she’ll believe marriage should be.’”
“Damn,” I whisper. “That’s . . .”
“True,” Kace says. “And it made a hard decision easy, or easier, at least. It helps that we see eye to eye on how to raise Hope. I think we’ve been doing a stellar job of co-parenting.”
“That’s awesome.” I nod. I sometimes wonder what my mom’s lack of even a halfway-decent partner did for my perception of relationships. I hate thinking about it too much, because it never goes anywhere good.
Smithy leans over the bar. “Bro,” he says, tapping on my beer. “Don’t look now, but Brinley can’t take her eyes off you. You sure you don’t want to be spending tonight with her?”
“I never said that,” I say, turning on my stool to see Brinley.
“Dude, I said don’t look.” Smithy groans behind me. “You have zero game, I swear.”
Fuck him, it’s worth it. The moment I make eye contact with Brinley, she smiles and her cheeks turn pink. I wink at her and turn away again, even though every cell in my body tells me to go over there, even though there’s nothing I want more than to feel that smile against mine. But I can be patient. She might think I’ve given up, but she hasn’t even seen me try yet.
Two beers later, Stella wanders up to the bar on sky-high pink heels, a pink martini in one hand, and gives Kace a once-over. “Hello, gorgeous.”
He stiffens. “Hey, Stella.”
She bursts into laughter. “Oh my God, it’s like you think I’m going to jump you.” She squeezes his shoulder and whispers, “Don’t worry, Kace. If it ever comes to that, I’m pretty sure you could fight me off.”
His jaw twitches. “Quit reading something into nothing.”
“Whatever. I’m not here for you anyway.” She drops her hand and turns to me. “Brinley said you’re a pool shark.”
I slide my gaze to her table again, but this time Brinley’s busy talking to Savvy and doesn’t see me looking. “Not so much anymore.”
“But you still have some skills, right?” Stella grabs me by the wrist and tugs at my arm. “I need someone to play eight-ball with me who doesn’t totally suck at it.”
I look at Smithy. “Surely there’s someone around here who can play?”
“Nah.” He shakes his head. “Nobody like you.”
I put down my beer. “Sure, but I might be rusty.”
Stella beams. “Not a problem.” She grabs me by the wrist—I’m beginning to understand that she’s become the touchy type since high school—and pulls me away from the bar and not toward the pool tables but toward the booth with her friends.
“You know, you can let me go,” I say. “I’m not going to run away.”
She winks at me as if I just told an inside joke only the two of us would get. “Table first. Then game.”
“Whatever you say.” I don’t know why she thinks she needs to lead me by the hand, but she doesn’t release me until we get to the table.
The girls stop talking when we stop at the booth.
“Brinley, I found you a teacher,” Stella announces.
Brinley looks back and forth between me and Stella. “A what now?”
“Someone to teach you how to play pool.”
Brinley rolls her eyes. “Stella, honey, for the hundredth time, I don’t care about billiards.”
Stella snorts. “Okay, Princess Brinley, but us common folks call it pool, and it’s really just basic adulting.”
Brinley turns her skeptical gaze on me. “You came over here to teach me how to play pooooool?”
Laughing at the way she draws out the word, I shrug. “I thought I agreed to play a game against Stella, but I can teach you if you want.”
“She does,” Savvy says. “She definitely wants.”
Brinley narrows her eyes at Savvy. “Et tu, Brute?”
I shake my head and offer my hand to Brinley. “Come on. Let’s do this.”
She takes my hand and I help her slide out of the booth, but as soon as she’s standing, she pulls her hand away.
Still not a couple. Okay. Message delivered.
“You two versus me,” Stella says. She’s already headed toward the pool tables.
We follow her, and I grab a pool cue from the rack on the wall as Stella loads the table with quarters and sets it up.
“You didn’t need to have your friend ask,” I tell Brinley, chalking the end of the stick before handing it to her. “I would have been happy to teach you without the social gymnastics.”
“I didn’t. Stella’s got a mind of her own.”
“Some things never change.” I remember Stella’s antics in high school. Of all the people who hovered around Brinley all the time, Stella was one of my favorites. There was never anything fake about her.
“I’m sorry about this,” Brinley says, watching Stella set up the table.
“Why?”
“You had your own plans tonight, and she pulled you away from them, from your friends.” She drags her bottom lip between her teeth.
Damn. That’ll always be hot to me. “The guys will still be here in ten minutes. Don’t worry about it.”
Stella rolls the cue ball to our side of the table. “Brinley, you break.”
“Yay,” Brinley mutters, and I chuckle.
“Come on. It’s not that bad.” I position the cue ball and motion for her to strike it. “Just hit the white ball into the cluster of balls at the opposite end of the table.”
Brinley takes the stick and aims, but I stop her with a gentle hand on her wrist before she can take her shot.
“Hold it like this.” I adjust her hand on the stick then position my body behind hers to show her how to line it up.
We lean over the table, and I guide Brinley’s arm as she takes her shot. The cue collides with the other balls with a crack, and I look up just in time to see Stella give me a nod of approval, even though Brinley’s break was too weak to sink a single ball.
Brinley straightens and turns to me with a smile on her face. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?”
I tuck back a lock of her ha
ir, brushing the shell of her ear with my fingertips. “Not bad at all.”
Brinley holds my gaze for a beat longer than necessary before swallowing hard and turning away. “Okay, Stella. Show me what you’ve got.”
Stella takes her turn and sinks a stripe first, followed by four more, before she misses her target.
“Solids, then,” Brinley says, scanning the table. “Okay. Three ball, corner pocket.”
She lines up the shot, and I step behind her to make adjustments, too aware of the heat of her ass against my cock when I lean over her. No doubt this is what Stella was after, but she has no way of knowing this takes me back to Vegas—back to that club with the poles and Brinley’s giddy smile as she showed off her moves. Free, confident, happy.
I manage to focus enough to help Brinley sink the three, but she misses her next try. We go back and forth a couple of times before Stella’s cleared the table of stripes and sunk the eight ball.
“That was fun,” Brinley says. She turns to me. “Thank you for your help.”
I duck down and put my mouth close to her ear before whispering, “I think your friend is trying to get me to touch you.”
When she steps back to meet my gaze, she’s smiling, and I feel like I won the lottery. “I think it worked.”
“I’m gonna go grab another drink,” Stella says. “Why don’t you two play again?”
Brinley doesn’t bother to stifle her laugh. She shakes her head and watches her friend walk away. “She’s shameless.”
“A little,” I agree, “but not in a bad way.”
“She only acts like she’s still the party girl she was in high school and college. The truth is, she’s grown up a lot. Kace can’t stand her, but I think he’s too tough on her.”
Kace definitely wasn’t looking at Stella like he couldn’t stand her, but I’m not sure even he knows that. “Why doesn’t he like her?”
“He still thinks of her as the high-school girl who crashed his college party and tried to seduce him when he was drunk.”
“Oh. Shit.”
She sighs. “I know, but like I said, she’s grown up a lot since then.”
“Right. I can totally tell.” I nod solemnly, and she laughs.
“You’re lucky she hasn’t caught us together at The Orchid. She’d probably lock us in a room until we consummated our marriage.” She seems to realize what she’s said and looks up at me with wide eyes. “I mean . . . maybe consummate again or . . .”
I search her face, my chest aching at the reminder that she has no memory of a night that was so fucking important—so fucking everything—to me. “What do you remember?”
She draws in a shaky breath but keeps her eyes locked on mine. “I remember the nightclub, dancing with you, and . . . the booth?”
The memory of sliding my hand beneath her skirt in the crowded club sends blood pumping hard and fast to my dick. “Is that a question?”
“No, I definitely remember the booth. It . . .” Her cheeks flare pink, and she bows her head. “I don’t have questions about that part.”
“What else do you remember?”
Brinley
Does Marston hear the huskiness in his own voice on that question?
I swallow. “Shopping for shoes and lingerie, the booth . . .” I don’t know what’s crazier—that we’re having this conversation or that we didn’t have it sooner. In truth, I’m a little scared to remember the events of a night that led me to the altar. “And I remember the limo ride after.”
Marston’s nostrils flare and his pupils dilate. “Do you remember the next club? With Savvy and Alec?”
I close my eyes. This is where things start to get sketchy. “I have blips. Moments. I remember taking shots and laughing while Alec drooled over Savvy working the pole.” I laugh then swallow hard and squeeze my eyes shut for a long beat. “I want to remember, Marston.”
He slides his hand to the back of my neck and strokes his thumb along my jaw. “I wish you could. I want to plug you into my brain and show you everything. I want . . .” He swallows.
I don’t need him to finish that sentence to be sure I want that too. Whatever it is. “This is crazy.”
“I like crazy.” He grazes his thumb across my bottom lip, and his eyes are pleading when he says, “Are you free tomorrow night?”
“Cami’s with her dad all week. Disney World.” I sound as breathless—and possibly as desperate—as I feel. But then I come to my senses and blink at him. “Why?”
He smiles down at me. “Is it so strange to want to take my wife on a date?”
I take a step back without realizing it, but he grabs my hand before I can get far.
“Just give me a chance, Brinley. Give us a chance.”
“You live in L.A. and I live here.” I shake my head. “I won’t let you give up the life you’ve worked so hard for—the success you’ve found—to move back to Orchid Valley.”
“That’s where we got this wrong,” he says softly. “We did everything backward, and now you’re giving me all the reasons this marriage can’t work when all I’m asking for is a date. I want to take you out. Dinner, maybe a walk if the weather’s nice. No expectations, just time together . . . for us.”
For us. No expectations. When I think of saying goodbye to him next week without getting that, when I think of sending in those divorce papers and never seeing him again . . . “I want to,” I whisper. His smile turns big and broad, and warmth floods my chest.
“Good. You won’t regret it.” He holds my gaze, and I think he might kiss me again. In the space between two heartbeats, I have to have a conversation with myself about why that would be a bad thing. First, we’re in the middle of a crowded bar. And, right until last night, I was supposed to marry someone else. But finally, he nods once and backs away. “I can’t wait.”
I’m still staring after him when Savvy saunters up to my side. “Do you have the name of a good OBGYN?” she asks, waving a hand in front of her face.
I head toward the table to grab my phone. “Sure. I’ll give you mine. Why?”
“Because I think I just got pregnant from watching you two look at each other.”
I stop in my tracks and slowly spin to face her. “Bitch.”
“Hussy.”
“Troublemaker.”
“Mother Teresa.”
I prop my hands on my hips. “Mother Teresa wouldn’t call you a bitch.”
“No, but she would buy me a drink.” She angles her head toward the bar’s main room and starts striding in that direction. “Come on, Abbi and Stella are waiting, and I can’t wait to see their faces when we tell them about your date.”
I gasp. “You were eavesdropping?”
She flashes me a grin. “You think I’d miss that show?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Brinley
Savvy’s sprawled in the middle of my unmade bed, playing on her phone, when I step out of my bathroom in a just-this-side-of-appropriate little black dress.
“What about this one?” I ask.
“Super-hot. Love it,” she says without taking her attention from her phone.
“Savvy, you didn’t even look!”
With a sigh, she puts her phone down and gives me a once-over. “I didn’t need to. You look absolutely fuckable, and he won’t be able to take his eyes off you. I mean it, and I meant it for the last three outfits too.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I’m just nervous, okay?”
Standing, Savvy opens her arms. “Come here.”
I step forward and let her hug me, and after a stubborn beat, I hug her back. “I know I’m being dumb.”
“You aren’t being dumb. You’re nervous because you care, which is fucking fantastic, because I haven’t seen you really care about a date since . . . Well, I’m not sure I have.” She grips my shoulders and pulls back so she can look at me. “But you don’t need to worry about what to wear. You’re a hottie, and he’s wild about you. You could show up in a potato sack, and the boy would be
driven to distraction the whole meal as he imagined taking it off you.”
I laugh. “I somehow doubt it.”
“We both know these nerves aren’t really about your outfit.” She arches a brow. “Right? This is more about what this date means.”
I wrinkle my nose and frown. “Why do you always have to psychoanalyze me like that?”
“Because I love you,” she says cheerfully. The doorbell rings. “Sounds like Prince Charming is here to sweep you off your feet.”
I tip my face up and take a few deep breaths, then I go to the door.
Marston is dressed in dark jeans and a white dress shirt that’s rolled up at the sleeves, a single red rose in one hand. Just like prom night.
I’d gone with Roman to his senior prom at my parents’ insistence. It would shame them if I refused, they’d said. Roman was such a nice boy, they’d said. Why did I have to fight them on everything?
So I went with Roman and spent my night texting Marston from a burner phone I’d bought at the gas station. Then, about an hour into the dance, when Roman had finally given up on me acting like the date I’d told him I didn’t want to be, Marston texted and told me to slip out the back door. There he was, sitting on the hood of his aunt’s Honda Civic in a stiff white dress shirt and a pair of black jeans, twirling a single rose between two fingers. He hopped off the car and strode over to me, offering me the flower. Then, as if on cue, the muffled opening chords of James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” floated out to us from the gymnasium. Our song.
I knew that somehow Marston had planned it that way.
“Dance with me?” he asked.
I nodded and stepped into his arms. We let our bodies sway to the beat, his arms wrapped around me, my cheek against his chest.
The memory grabs ahold of me, and I can hardly breathe as Marston takes me in slowly, from my strappy black heels to the nearly inappropriate hem of my sexiest LBD. Every inch of his visual perusal feels like a caress, and by the time his eyes meet mine, I’m a live wire.
Marston
I give myself three beats to stare, to look my fill and memorize every inch of her. She’s beautiful. I’ve known this since the night we met, but seeing her dressed like this and knowing she chose to doll herself up for a night with me?