Promise Me Forever (Top Shelf Romance)

by Kate Stewart

  “What the hell, Amir?” I push past him and barrel down the hall. “I told you to watch her. You know how Bristol and Jimmi are when they get together.”

  “Uh, I was watching her until she and Jimmi climbed up onstage with the strippers and started talking about making their asses clap.”

  I keep moving forward but glare daggers over my shoulder at him.

  “If she’s out here naked your ass is mine.”

  She isn’t naked, but pretty close. She and Jimmi are on one of Pirouette’s three stages along with a few professionals who are “coaching” them. Bristol’s blue dress lies in a crumpled mound of silk at her feet, leaving her in a nude-colored strapless bra and matching thong. She’s a hair from naked, and all the guys clustered around the base of the stage are salivating for that last hair to fall out. Jimmi isn’t much better, also in bra and panties.

  By the time Amir and I make it to them, one of the guys with a hundred dollar bill clutched in his fist has his other hand wrapped around Bristol’s leg. Fury erases caution and discretion. I grab him by the shoulder and shove him to the side.

  “Get your damn hands off her.” The guttural growl of my voice barely registers above Lil’ Wayne’s “Lollipop” blasting through the system.

  “Nigga, who you think—”

  The anger melts away from his face, morphing into a wide grin.

  “Grip!” He reaches to dap me up. “You did it tonight, dawg. And that song ‘Bruise’ you got out is deep. You telling our story, bruh.”

  “Uh, thanks.”

  With a curt nod, I reach up and grab Bristol’s hand. I can only hope Amir has made more progress with Jimmi.

  “Bristol, get your ass off that stage,” I yell up at her.

  She tugs at her hand, glazed eyes squinting down at me.

  “No.” Her other hand goes to the front closure of her bra. “I’m trying to get this thing off. It won’t . . .”

  She looks so confused by the uncooperative clasp, pouting and frowning down at her fingers that don’t seem to want to work properly.

  “I can do it,” she yells at me. “Just give me a sec.”

  “Fuck this.” I scramble onstage, pull the chambray shirt over my head, not bothering to unbutton it. “Bris, put this on. We’re getting out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she slurs, pointing a loopy accusatory finger at me. “You fired me. Asshole.”

  I pull the shirt over her head, shoving her arms through the sleeves. I bend at the knees and haul her over my shoulder, ignoring her pounding on my back. Fortunately, a few “amateurs” were onstage trying their hand at stripping, so most people weren’t paying as much attention and were focused on the main stages. Hopefully, I was able to stay under the radar as much as possible and none of this will land in tomorrow’s news cycle.

  I make my way through the crowd back toward the dressing room, Bristol still bouncing against my back. Farther down the hall, Amir has Jimmi propped up against the wall. Like me, he had to sacrifice his shirt, and we face each other, both wearing wife beaters and jeans.

  “Does Jimmi not have security with her?” I ask.

  “She said no, but she isn’t exactly reliable right now.” A tiny beaded clutch looks incongruous in Amir’s beefy hands. “I found a valet ticket in her purse, so looks like she drove.”

  “You take her home, and I’ll get Bristol to her place.”

  “You sure? I don’t know if I should leave you.”

  The skepticism on his face is like a straw breaking the camel’s back of this night.

  “I grew up same place as you, Amir.” I hitch up my wife beater to show him the nine millimeter tucked into my waistband. No way I’d be in a club like this without it. “I’m strapped, same as you. You may be on the payroll to shadow me, but don’t forget who you’re dealing with. Now, you get Jimmi home. I’m pretty sure I can make it to Bristol’s house without getting jacked.”

  He nods and starts herding Jimmi toward the private exit. By the looks of Jimmi’s face, he’ll be lucky if she doesn’t vomit on his bright white Nikes before it’s all said and done. With Bristol still slung over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, upside down with as much liquor as she’s consumed, I’m surprised she hasn’t vomited down my back already. She’s gone quiet and still. She may have passed out.

  I carefully bend and flip her back, sliding her down my body until she’s pressed to my chest, my arms folded at the small of her back to keep her upright. Her hands go to my shoulders, and she slumps against me.

  “Bris,” I say softly, saving the anger urging me to lambast her ass for later when she’ll remember it. “Let’s get out of here, okay?”

  “No.” She shakes her head, the burnished hair tangling around her shoulders and over her eyes. “It’s fun. Don’t . . . don’t wanna go.”

  “Bristol,” I say firmly, glaring down at her. “We’re leaving right now.”

  “It’s fun,” she whispers, her face crumpling and tears rolling over her smooth cheeks. “I’m having so much fun. Can’t you see I’m having fun?”

  Still in my arms, she drops her head into the curve of my neck and shoulder. Her tears rain over me, dampening my skin, and her heaving sobs jackhammer my heart. I rub her back in soothing strokes.

  Dammit, I can’t take Bristol’s tears, not even the drunk ones.

  “Hey, it’s okay.” I try to pull her back so I can see her face, but she presses closer.

  “Don’t.” Her broken whisper is muffled into my neck. “Don’t push me away again, Grip.”

  “I wouldn’t.” I palm the back of her head, rubbing the soft, wild hair. “I didn’t.”

  “You did.” Her tears come faster, her erratic breaths hiccupping her words. “You don’t-don’t want me-want me-around. You f-fired me.”

  “Bristol, you know—”

  “You just want her.” She trembles against me, folding her arms between her chest and mine. “You just want Qwest.”

  I know she probably won’t remember this tomorrow, but as much as it cuts me open to see her like this, it’s this raw, vulnerable version of Bristol that will tell me the truth. And I’m not noble enough not to take advantage of it to finally hear her confession.

  “Does it hurt you when I’m with her?” I peer down at Bristol’s face in the muted hallway light, hunting down the truth in her eyes.

  “So much,” she whispers, fat tears squeezing from under her clenched-closed-tight eyelids and leaving trails of mascara. “It hurts so much.”

  “Why does it hurt so much, Bris? Do you . . .” I swallow around the emotion clogging my throat at the sight of her tears, unsure if I really want to hear her say this knowing that tomorrow she’ll probably just deny it. “Do you have feelings for me? Do you care about me, Bristol?”

  With eyes the silver of moonlight, illuminative, so clear and unprotected, not fogged by her fears, insecurities, or questions, she tells me.

  “So much.” Another tear skids over the silk of one high cheekbone. “I care so much.”

  Something breaks free in my chest. Knowing I’m not crazy loosens a vice from around me. Knowing I haven’t imagined that the connection we had all those years ago never went away.

  “Bris, then why do you—”

  My question never makes it out. With green tingeing her tear-streaked face, Bristol doubles over, clutching her stomach and puking all over my Blackout Jordans.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Bristol

  I HAVE TO stop doing this.

  Not that drinking myself into a coma is a regular occurrence, but when the pain and pressure are too much, I find myself reaching for the same bottled oblivion my mother favors. And there’s no doubt I’ve been drinking. Demons are line dancing in my skull. My furry tongue clings to the roof of my mouth. The morning chill creeps under my duvet, and I pull the chambray shirt I’m wearing closer around me. I tug the collar up to my nose, inhaling the clean, masculine scent. It’s familiar. It smells like . . .r />
  “Grip,” I say into the quiet of my bedroom.

  “What?”

  I literally jump and screech, flipping onto my back to find Grip staring at me unsmilingly, wearing a white tank undershirt. I have no idea how I came to be wearing his shirt from last night, or how he came to be sitting in my bed, broad shoulders overpowering my tufted headboard.

  “You scared me half to death.” I clutch his shirt over my pounding heart and touch my bare legs. My dress is nowhere to be seen, and under Grip’s shirt I’m wearing only a strapless bra and a thong. I have to wonder if I did anything regrettable last night.

  “Did we . . . um . . .” I lick my dry lips, not sure how to ask this question. The same one I had to ask Parker just a few weeks ago. Shame curdles in my belly that I’m repeating this destructive cycle. “Did we have sex?”

  Grip cocks one dark brow, his lips not even twitching.

  “Do you feel like you could walk straight?”

  I nod and move my legs experimentally to check for partial paralysis. “Um, yeah.”

  “Then there’s your answer.” He shrugs. “We couldn’t have had sex.”

  “Very funny.” I drag myself up to sit beside him against the headboard.

  “Not being funny. Just stating fact.”

  His eyes remain sober. There was a time when he would have made this easier for me, allayed some of my discomfort with a joke. But there’s no levity in his expression.

  “Did you roofie me or something?” I try to lighten the heavy atmosphere since he won’t.

  “You roofied your damn self with that bottle of vodka you poured down your throat.” If anything my attempt at a joke makes things worse. A scowl forms on his face. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking.” I shield my eyes from the light intruding through my wide windows, curtains undrawn. “I was drunk, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “Yeah, what the hell were you thinking getting drunk?” He shakes his head as he lifts a knee under the duvet and props his arm on it. “In a strip club. Do you have any idea how vulnerable you were in a place like that drunk off your ass?”

  “I don’t need a lecture.” I swing my legs over my side of the bed, pausing for my head to spin. “What I need is . . .”

  The words trail off when I see the water and aspirin on my bedside table.

  “Thanks,” I mumble around the two pills before gulping down water.

  I lift a hand to touch what feels like involuntary pageant hair.

  “My hair situation seems dire.” I try to run my fingers through the nest tangled around my head, but they stall at one knot after another.

  “Yeah, your hair looks like shit. Your lipstick is smeared all around your mouth, and you have mascara running down your face like some emotionally unstable clown. You look like a circus refugee. Also, you reek.”

  I swing him an affronted look over my shoulder.

  “Why are you being so mean to me?”

  “Because I’m pissed, Bristol.” He flings the covers back and stands, facing me with my unmade bed between us.

  Even at this time of morning and under these circumstances, he looks highly fuckable in his jeans and undershirt, with a shadow coating the chiseled jawline. There isn’t enough alcohol in my system to wash the horny away. I need to have actual sex with an actual person and actually remember it. Being this close to the sexiest man I know isn’t helping.

  “If I hadn’t been there,” Grip continues, blissfully unaware that I’m mentally dry humping him. “It could have been much worse.”

  Worse than what? I try to reconstruct the events from last night. I remember still being angry at Grip for firing me. I remember drinking lots of vodka with Jimmi. We asked that nice stripper Champagne to show us how to make our asses clap. And then . . .

  “Oh, God,” I gasp. “Did I take my bra off? Like in front of people? Did I make it rain?”

  He sucks his teeth, exasperation in every chiseled line of his handsome face.

  “You were damn close,” Grip snaps. “If I hadn’t pulled you off the stage, you and Jimmi both would have been butt naked in there."

  “Where’s Jimmi?” I ask, my voice constrained by embarrassment.

  “Amir took her home.” Grip walks to the bench at the foot of my bed to grab his backpack. “You owe him an apology, by the way. You hit him in the eye.”

  “What?” I slap my forehead and close my eyes, mortified. “Oh my God, no.”

  “Oh my God, yes, and you owe me an apology.” He gestures to his shirt covering my almost-naked body. “I want that dry cleaned, by the way.”

  “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” I load the words with a double helping of sarcasm and stumble toward the bathroom. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to figure out what died in my mouth.”

  I’m practically brushing my teeth with eyes closed to avoid the road kill of my reflection in the mirror.

  “You just keep getting better and better, don’t you, Bristol?” I mutter around my electric toothbrush.

  I splash my face, but don’t even bother with my hair and the rest of my bodily disaster. I’ll shower once Grip’s gone. I walk back into my bedroom to find Grip on his knees, ass up, looking under my bed.

  And what an ass it is.

  He glances over his shoulder from the floor, one brow lifted when he sees my head bent at just the right angle to peruse his butt.

  “Um, can I help you?” he asks.

  “Oh . . . no.” Embarrassment at getting caught checking him out fires up my cheeks. “Were you looking for something?”

  “My shoes.” He stands and glances around the room. “Did I mention that you threw up on a pair of thousand dollar vintage Jordans?”

  “I’m sorry.” I walk around to the side of the bed, joining the search for his shoes. I spot the worn leather book of Neruda poems and the tarnished whistle on the floor. My heart, my thoughts, my whole body goes still.

  “Have you been going through my things again?” I snatch the book and the whistle up and cram them into the bottom drawer, which is usually locked. “How dare you?”

  “How dare I?” Incredulity widens his eyes. “I didn’t have to go through anything. That was on your pillow when I brought you in here. I just moved it out of the way so I could fall asleep.”

  Maybe he didn’t recognize it. I know it’s a feeble hope, but it’s the only one I have. He quickly disabuses me of any possibility that he doesn’t remember those items. Doesn’t recognize their significance.

  “I’m surprised you kept them.” Grip hitches his bag onto his shoulder and steadily watches me.

  “Well you kept the watch,” I say defensively before I realize this only pulls me deeper into a conversation I’m too addled to have.

  Grip’s lips thin, and his jaw clenches.

  “I kept the watch because that night at the carnival was one of the best nights of my life, Bristol. That night with you meant a lot to me.” Grip crosses his arms over the muscled width of his chest. “But you already knew that. So, why did you keep a worthless whistle from that night? Why is the book of poems I mailed to you beside your bed?”

  Anxiety prickles my scalp and heats my skin. I’m exposed, and my habit is to hide.

  “No reason. I wouldn’t throw that away,” I mumble. “That would just be rude.”

  “Not only did you not throw it away,” Grip says, walking to stand in front of me. “You highlighted. You folded down pages. You circled. You starred.”

  “You did go through my things.” I glare feebly up at him. “I knew it.”

  He tips his head toward the drawer where I stowed the book and whistle.

  “You’ve obviously handled that book, read it over and over. I’m asking you why, Bris.” His voice drops and his eyes soften. “I’ve told you what that watch and what that night meant to me. Can you tell me what that night meant to you? What it still means to you?”

  My defenses slam over my heart like a gate. He’s much too close. Much
too dangerous to someone like me who would not know how to stop loving him when he hurts me. When he cheats on me, lies to me. And he would. How could he not? I refuse to be my mother.

  “It was a long time ago.” I caress the buttons of his chambray shirt I’m wearing, fixing my eyes on my trembling fingers. “Don’t read too much into a drawer full of old memories.”

  When I glance up at him, his face has cemented into a mask. His eyes are like iced coffee.

  “Forget it.” He turns abruptly and leaves the room, tossing the last words over his shoulder. “Never mind.”

  His proximity was causing my anxiety, but seeing him walk away only increases it. I sense that if he leaves this house, if he walks out that door, that’s it. I’ll lose him forever. He’s already fired me, so we won’t have work. We can’t be in the same room for five minutes without fighting anymore, so we can’t be friends. And I’ve made sure we’ll never be lovers.

  And why the hell not?

  It’s a rebel cry from my heart. That stupid thing pounding with angry fists against my ribs, demanding attention. Demanding him. Commanding me to find a way to make him stay. I’m not sure what I could say at this point as he crosses my living room with swift strides that take him closer and closer to the front door, but I have to say something, even if it’s the wrong thing.

  “I guess Qwest is waiting for you, huh?”

  Yep, the wrong thing.

  He’s at the front door but turns to face me, irritation and disappointment on his face.

  “It wasn’t cool, Bristol, you talking about Qwest that way last night with Jimmi. She’s been nothing but nice to you.”

  He’s right, but him defending her only agitates me more.

  “Well, it’s the truth.” I assume my face is resting bitch, but I can’t fix it. “She is clingy. The girl doesn’t know how to sit unless she’s on your lap.”

  He stiffens, eyes hard and lips set in a flat line when he crosses his arms over his chest.

  “You sound jealous.”

  “Of her?” I bark out a disdainful laugh. “I don’t think so.”