“Just leave it.”
“You’re the only person under the age of thirty who actually still reads the newspaper.”
She shrugged and slid into one of the bar stools, resting her chin in her hand. “It doesn’t feel like news when it’s on a screen.”
Hank’s was dead today. Although to be fair, it was only eleven in the morning. But still. Our alcoholic morning drinkers were very loyal. Apparently they had all decided to drink at home today. Or turn sober.
I decided to wash bar glasses. Vee watched me for a moment before finally sighing and coming around the bar to stand next to me. “Here,” she said, grabbing a towel and holding out her hand for the wet glass.
I laughed. “I didn’t ask for your help.”
“You may as well have. You look so helpless back there.”
I balked at this. “Me? Helpless? Please! I was born to wash dishes.”
She smiled and grabbed the wet wine glass from my hand, her fingers sliding against mine and lingering for just a moment too long.
And then I understood.
Wow, Alex and Lia must have really fucked me up good if I couldn’t even tell when a girl was flirting with me. Vee flashed me a smile as she dried the wine glass and hung it in the rack above our heads. I noticed how she stood on her tiptoes to reach and pressed herself toward me in an effort to slide the glass all the way down the half-empty row.
Her tiny black tank top hugged her breasts perfectly, allowing for just the slightest hint of cleavage to peek out of the top.
Her eyes caught mine as her hand came down. And she smiled.
I blinked and turned my attention back to the sink.
“So,” she said, as I handed her another clean glass. “Did you used to work there? At that place they’re auctioning off.”
“Yeah.”
She must have seen the tension in my jaw or my hands or my biceps because she immediately followed up her question with, “Whoa. Sore spot?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Kinda sad the way it’s being torn to pieces. I wonder what happened.”
I shrugged and plunged my hands back in the water. “I don’t really care, actually.”
She chuckled. “Okay, definitely a sore spot.” She threw the towel down on the counter and leaned back against the bar. “Spill.”
I eyed the abandoned towel. “I thought you were helping me.”
“I am.”
I laughed at her attempt to offer me therapy and started scrubbing another wine glass.
Vee waited. She even made an impatient gesture, wheeling her hand around in a circle.
I sighed. “There’s nothing to tell. I used to work there. It didn’t pan out. End of story.”
Suddenly the sound of breaking glass startled me and I looked down to see I had scrubbed the wine glass so hard, I’d shattered it.
Fortunately it hadn’t cut me. It was just a mess in the sink.
“Uh uh,” Vee said, pushing off of the bar, and walking back around to check on her table.
“Shit,” I swore, and started picking up the large pieces and dropping them into the trash.
“You know,” Vee said, tapping on the bar top with her knuckles to get my attention. “When you make a mess of something like that, you should probably clean it up.”
“I am cleaning it up,” I started to protest but her wry smile as she strutted away told me she wasn’t referring to the wine glass.
“I didn’t make the mess!” I shouted after her.
“I’m just saying,” she called back over her shoulder.
Twelve
Later that afternoon, I found myself reluctantly parking behind what used to be La Bella Vita and what would soon be some kind of high-end retail center.
I knew Lia was here because I saw her car in the lot. She was probably packing up and preparing for the auction tomorrow.
What are you doing? I asked myself as I cut the engine and stared at the back door.
I’m cleaning up my mess, I replied.
But it wasn’t my mess. I didn’t start any of this.
I shook my head and kicked the car door open with my foot.
Whatever. Just get it over with.
The back door beeped when I slid inside the building. Lia looked up from a giant brown packing box in the middle of the kitchen. I froze in place and stuffed my hands in my pockets.
I hadn’t seen her in weeks.
I’d almost forgotten how beautiful she was.
Forgotten how adorable she looked when she was mad. Which she clearly was now. Although it wasn’t a full-on rage. It was more of a playful irritation.
“Well, well,” she said, “if it isn’t the infamous Casanova. I haven’t seen you around here since you ditched the bar to hook up with my sister.”
My eyes widened. “Alex told you?”
I certainly hadn’t expected that. Although I did admit it made my purpose here a bit easier.
“No. You were caught in the act.” Lia pointed to another girl in the kitchen with her. I recognized her as Lia’s friend Danika. The one who completely cock-blocked me that first night I took Lia out for drinks.
I sighed. “It wasn’t my fault.”
I could tell from the look she shared with her friend that Lia didn’t buy this for a second. “Oh yeah. I’m sure she held a gun to your head.”
“No,” I tried to explain. “I mean, she called me. It was after Grayson went back to the city. I invited her over to my place and she whined about how he had lost interest in her. He didn’t like her body anymore. Some shit like that. I assured her she had a great body and then all of the sudden she was kissing me. I swear, she was the one who started it, I just…”
Lia rolled her eyes and turned away. “Yeah, yeah, we know. Same old story. Alex is impossible to resist.”
“Yeah, but then she stayed around,” I went on. “Gave some bogus excuse to Grayson about a business trip and she got, like, way too bossy. I did not sign up for that shit. I told her to just go back to the city.”
I swore I saw Lia crack the tiniest of smiles. But it was gone before I could confirm.
God, she’s cute.
I wanted to punch myself in the face for even thinking it.
And yet I wanted to run to her, scoop her tiny body into my arms, and kiss her. And not in the way I’d kissed Alex. Not in the way I’d kissed anybody. But in the way that girls like Lia deserve to be kissed.
I wanted to ask her how she was. What she planned to do now that the restaurant was closed. How she was handling it. But mostly, I wanted to ask her about Grayson.
I was so terribly desperate to find out if she had moved on.
If she would ever move on.
But I couldn’t say any of those things. Because Blake Thomas doesn’t say shit like that.
So I just grinned, opened my arms wide, and announced in my most confident, flirtatious tone, “Which means, I’m available ladies.”
Now I wanted to punch myself in the face for that.
Lia snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, I think I’ll pass.”
It felt like a stab in the heart. And yet, I had no right to hope for any other reaction from her. Not after what I’d done.
I quickly turned to Danika and waggled my eyebrows suggestively in her direction. It was the only thing I could think to do to cover the numbness in my legs.
She shook her head. “Uh no.”
I lowered my arms, pretending to appear completely dismayed. “Well, at least let me help you pack everything up. That’s why I came by.”
It was a lie.
It wasn’t why I came by.
But I hadn’t even been sure myself why I was here until the moment I saw her.
I came by to check.
To double check.
To see if there was even a smidgen of a chance Lia might see me as something else than what I’d always been.
But it was clear that there wasn’t.
To Lia Smart I would never be more than
just a flirty, playboy bartender.
“Okay,” she replied. “You can start wrapping the bar glasses. There are boxes for them out in the dining room.”
I practically ran out of the room, desperate for a change of scenery, a change of everything. “I’m on it.”
Thirteen
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Grayson Walker’s face at the front door ten minutes later. I also shouldn’t have been surprised to see Lia go white as a sheet when I told her he was there.
She walked slowly out of the kitchen, like she was counting the number of steps it took her to get there.
Then she let him in.
I took note of her stance. How stiffly she held herself. Even though she allowed him through the door, her face and body and emotions were completely shut down. No entry there.
I knew I should have disappeared into the kitchen, given them some privacy but part of me didn’t want to miss this. Part of me had already been so sucked into the Alex/Lia/Grayson drama, I had to find out what happened next.
And when I saw Danika lower herself into a chair in the dining room, like she was getting ready to watch a particularly juice reality show, I figured why can’t I stay too?
“Um, can we talk?” Grayson asked Lia, casting a glance at Danika and then me. “In private?”
You did not have to be a detective to figure out that these two had slept together. Call it bartender intuition, but it was written all over their faces. And judging from their equally awkward body language, it had not ended well.
Welcome to the Smart Girl Club, buddy.
“No,” came Lia’s flat reply.
I almost gave her an encouraging fist pump.
“Okay,” Grayson agreed and then proceeded to ramble for a good five minutes about mistakes and choices and apologies and a whole bunch of goopy romantic shit that honestly I’ve completely blocked out of my brain, because who really has room for that?
I wasn’t sure if Lia was going to buy it. Part of me really wanted to see her kick him in the crotch. But unfortunately that didn’t happen.
Instead, Alex burst in the door.
And she had clearly been crying.
Fuck, I thought to myself. Not this shit again!
Why can’t this girl just leave me the fuck alone already?
But to my surprise, she didn’t even look at me. Her gaze was entirely focused on Grayson and Lia. “Thank God,” she whimpered. “Did you talk to him? Were you able to change his mind?”
I had no idea what was going on at this point. Clearly a lot had happened on the Alex and Lia show.
Damn, you miss one episode and you’re totally behind.
But it was pretty clear from the conversation that followed that Grayson was not choosing Alex.
That Grayson was choosing Lia.
Holy shit.
I barely had time to react myself before Alex was launching herself at her sister, eyes crazed, arms outstretched like she actually meant to claw her to death.
I leapt into action, running over to hold her back. Grayson and I reached her at the same time, each grabbing onto one arm. We shared a nod over Alex’s thrashing form. It was all that was needed to convey what had to be conveyed.
We had found a common ground.
It actually felt kind of good.
Lia was crying now, begging her sister for forgiveness. Alex was having none of it. Not that I expected anything different. Insults were thrown, comparisons were made, and then Alex broke free from our grasp and stalked toward the door.
Lia collapsed in Grayson’s arms, sobbing. Danika beckoned me to follow her into the kitchen, giving them space.
Once we were out of the room, Danika whirled on me, backing me up against the door of the walk-in refrigerator.
“You know, I don’t get you.”
I blinked, surprised by her bluntness. “Um, I don’t even know you.”
“You love her.” She said it like it was an accusation. She may as well have said, “you shot him, you son of a bitch.”
I laughed and shook my head, trying to move away but she put an arm on either side of my shoulders, trapping me between them.
My eyebrows rose flirtatiously. “Oh. So that’s how you want it, huh?”
She shot me a look of disgust. “Cut the crap. I know you’re in love with her. I can see it.”
“Alex is crazy.”
It was a weak, spineless cop out and she didn’t buy it for a second.
Danika’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not talking about Alex.”
“Then I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. I was no longer able to keep the lightness in my tone. And it was starting to show.
“If you love her,” she challenged. “Why on earth would you sleep with her sister?”
The question hung in the air like stale smoke, threatening to make me cough. I tried to look away but Danika pinned me with a glare. She wasn’t going to let me go without giving her an answer.
Well, fuck her.
I didn’t owe her anything.
I didn’t owe anyone anything.
“It’s none of your Goddamn business.” I violently pushed her arm away and stormed off toward the back door. I shoved it open with my shoulder and let it slam closed behind me.
It wasn’t until I was alone in my car that I actually answered her question. Because the one person I did owe an answer to was myself.
I sighed and jammed the back of my head against the headrest.
“Because I knew she’d never love me back,” I whispered.
But there was no one around to hear it.
Fourteen
I went back to work. I didn’t even have a shift but I didn’t know where else to go. I couldn’t go home. I didn’t want to drive around aimlessly. So I went to Hank’s. I sat in the booth that Lia and I sat in that first night I took her here. When something almost happened between us.
Who am I kidding, though?
Nothing would have happened.
Even if I had managed to get her back to my apartment and get her naked, that would have been it.
Because Lia would never see me as anything more than just a player. And maybe that was because I was never meant to be anything more than that.
I certainly was no Grayson Walker. I had to hand it to that guy. Anyone willing to put up with that much sister drama, was a better guy than me.
I was definitely not cut out for that shit.
Vee kept my drink refreshed and my ego stroked as she continued to cast flirtatious glances at me whenever she walked by. I knew I could have had her if I wanted. I knew all I had to do was say the word and she would be in my bed tonight.
But what I didn’t know is if that’s what I wanted.
I didn’t know what the fuck I wanted anymore.
The jingle of the front door didn’t snag my attention. But the hand on my arm a moment later did.
My eyes widened when I looked up to see Alex Smart literally dragging me out of my seat and into the men’s room at the back of the bar.
“What the fuck, Alex?” I asked but she didn’t respond.
She flipped the lock behind her and dove for my belt buckle.
Before I could process what was happening, my pants were undone and being tugged down around my ankles. Alex pushed me up against the countertop. I felt the cold marble cut into my bare ass as she sunk to her knees and started to swirl her tongue around my cock like she was trying to keep an ice cream cone from dripping on a hot day.
“Alex,” I tried to say, “This is insane. You just...”
But she launched to her feet and shut me up with a kiss, shoving her tongue deep down my throat until I started to gag.
“Shut up,” she said as she pulled away and lifted her dress up to her waist, “and fuck me.”
She turned around and bent at the waist, holding onto the stall door and shoving her ass at me. She was not wearing any underwear.
I stared down at her. I could see the swelling, th
e wetness, the tempting promise of another earth shattering orgasm. All the blood had flooded between my legs, leaving my brain to fend for itself with no fuel and no back up.
My hands shook as I reached out and placed them on her slender, delicate hips. My stomach twisted and tightened as I pulled her body toward me, lining her up just right.
I knew exactly what this was about. And it wasn’t me.
It was about Grayson. It was about Lia. It was about Alex’s desperate need to feel wanted. All the time.
“Yes,” she egged me on, shaking her beautiful pussy at me. “Do it. Fuck me hard. Shove it all the way in.”
My fingers tangled in the fabric of her dress, gripping the material until my knuckles turned white.
Her body was so gorgeous. Her delicious inside was calling to me. I was throbbing for her.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” She backed further into me and I could feel her on me. The moistness. The warmth. My groin exploded with fire. “Fuck me, Blake. Do it, already!”
And then with one swift yank, I pulled her dress down. Like a curtain being drawn between us. I reached down, grabbed my pants, and dragged them back up my legs, buttoning the fly and then buckling the belt.
Alex whipped around. “What the fuck is the matter with you?”
“I don’t want to be that guy,” I told her, the words feeling satisfying on my tongue.
“What guy?” she spat.
“The one you use to feel better about yourself. The one you fuck to try to fill the emptiness in your life.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, Blake, but you are that guy. You always will be. Just look at you. You’re hot, you’re good in bed, you have a nice ass, and that’s about it. My advice to you: just get used to the fact that you will always be that guy.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from screaming something back at her. So she wanted to talk about what kind of people we were? Fine. I could enlighten her about what kind of person she was.
But I wouldn’t.
Because it would do no good.
And yes, maybe I was that guy at one point. Maybe I actually even enjoyed it for a while. But I was not him anymore.
I could finally be sure of that.
Caught Up in You (Smart Girls Finish First) Page 5