Best Man

by Christine Zolendz

  BEST MAN

  A CHRISTINE ZOLENDZ KINDLE FLIRT

  CHRISTINE ZOLENDZ

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Also by Christine Zolendz

  COPYRIGHT

  © 2016 by Christine Zolendz

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Formatted by Simple Digital Formatting

  Cover by Christine Zolendz

  Blurb by Blurb Bitch

  DEDICATION

  This one is for November.

  You were a shitty month.

  This was originally written in November 2015 for the National Novel Writing Month challenge. It only took me a few days to write. It gave me an idea of writing a bunch of short stories—I call them FLIRTS—and publish them in between my novels. Just fun little quick reads. I hope you enjoy them!

  CHAPTER 1

  FOUR MONTHS AGO… LUKE

  Something didn’t feel right—something deep in my gut. One of those weird burning sensations in the middle of my stomach; a churning and twisting of ‘this shit’s about to go bad’ deep inside my middle. I shook it off and scanned my eyes over the street behind us. Everything was clear. Everything was exactly as we’d planned.

  Maybe it was just the stress of the situation. I never got like this though. Never. Yeah, this was the biggest takedown we’d ever done, but that shouldn’t be a thought in my head. We were going after the largest drug cartel in the city; it’d be hard to score any of Cardarrio’s shit off the street after this. That was the plan anyway. We were going to be heroes.

  My team is around me. Men I’d give my life for; men who’d give their life for me. We were all facing the entrance—ready to bust the motherfucking door down. My shield is up and ready, NYPD issued plated glass and steel. Colt’s next to me with the ram, his knuckles white, but there’s a split second where he turns his head and looks me dead in the eye. And I see something—a slight bouncing of his leg—a quick roll of a shoulder.

  Shit, he’s feeling it’s about to go bad too.

  Before I could voice anything, the team was punching through the door—splintering shards of wood and debris out around us.

  We rushed through, one behind the other, guns drawn—as a bright light explodes around us. Voices and screams turn into smoke and chaos.

  The motherfuckers knew we were coming. Bullets blast past my head, time slows, and the air thickens with splatters of blood and loss. Pain rips up my sides as I open fire.

  Then complete darkness.

  CHAPTER 2

  PRESENT DAY…MADELINE

  “Holy shit, Maddie. Did you see who just came in?” Ava asked as she leaned her entire body over the bar top and tugged on my arm.

  I lifted my eyes through the crowd to the front door and my heart shuddered to a complete stop. Which of course made the beer I was serving slide right out of my grip and splash all over the front of Franny Donahue’s fancy new shirt. “What the hell!” she screamed in my face.

  “Shoot, Franny. I’m so…I’m so sorry,” I stammered, wiping at her shirt.

  “Get your damned hands off my tits, Madeline!” Franny yelped. Shoot, I wasn’t paying any attention to her. I was still staring at the front door and the person who had just walked in. Luke Gunner.

  “Is there something mentally wrong with you?” Franny growled.

  What? I looked down at my hands and saw that in fact, they were feeling up her chest with a dirty bar towel. Squashed up maraschino cherry guts I had just wiped off the other end of the bar were now smashed across her once pretty blouse. I threw the rag down and grabbed one of the bar’s T-shirts from out of the display case and offered it to her. “Here, Franny. I’m sorry. Don’t know what happened.”

  She grabbed at the shirt, held it away from the mess I made, and headed to the restrooms. “Don’t think I’m paying for this shirt, either!”

  “Whatever,” I called to her, my eyes making their way back to the front of the bar and Luke Gunner. I leaned my hands heavily onto the counter and took a deep breath. It still hurt to look at him.

  I hadn’t seen him in a few years. Not since he and my brother graduated. Not since the night of my brother’s graduation party. Not since the night I’d given him my virginity and he destroyed my heart.

  We had been close friends in high school once, but after that night, he was gone. But that was a lifetime ago, wasn’t it? I hadn’t even heard he was back. I wonder if he was just visiting his mom. She didn’t tell me anything, but then again, she doesn’t talk much these days and she never ventures out anymore. If she did get a day out of the house, she definitely wouldn’t be coming to a bar to talk to the likes of me. I shouldn’t even be working here, being me.

  “Hey girl, you okay.” Ava nudged me.

  “No. But I will be, no worries,” I tried my best to smile back at her, pretending it was no big thing. “Shit, he’s not back for my brother’s wedding, is he?”

  “I heard he came back to recuperate. Staying at his mom’s old place,” she explained.

  “Recuperate? Wait, you knew he was back in town?” I asked, jamming my hands on my hips.

  Ava leaned away from the bar top and folded her arms over her chest. “You cannot be pissed off at me for not telling you. You made me swear to never mention his name again. He’s your very own Voldemort.”

  “Really? That’s what you’re going with? You’re blaming me for not telling me?”

  “Yes. It’s all your fault.” She smiled.

  I sighed loudly. “Fine. Whatever. What did you mean by recuperating anyway?”

  “The way I heard it, he was in a shooting. Lost a few of the guys on his team,” Ava whispered, placing the beers I offered on her tray.

  The words made my chest ache. A shooting? He got hurt? Clenching the towel as hard as I could, I wiped down the bar. Stop. Stop feeling things you should not be feeling for someone you don’t even know anymore. Just erase the man from your brain. It’s not like he’s even going to remember…

  “Holy shit, here he comes,” Ava hissed, her eyes wide.

  “What? No!” I said, wrestling with the stupid towel and my apron. Okay, I’m just going to run out the back door. Definitely. He probably hasn’t even seen me yet; just wants to order a Guinness or whatever his stupid favorite drink is now. My pulse sped up as I untangled myself from my apron strings.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Ava asked under her breath.

  “Nothing. I’m just going to run out the back door,” I said, fumbling with the god forsaken knotted apron strings. My fingers were all sticky from the damned dirty towel I kept grabbing.

  “You are acting mental! Why?”

  “Seriously? You think
I want him to see me standing here behind a bar, my life at some standstill since he left me here flat. No-fucking-thank-you.” My eyes glanced in his direction and sure enough, the son of a bitch was headed straight for me with a cocky grin on his stupid gorgeous face. My heart slammed up against my ribs. Shit. Shit. Shit. Now there was no way I could run. No way. Because now I was just standing there gawking at him like an idiot with my apron dangling off my hips.

  But, jeez, he was nice to gawk at—with his confident swagger, jet-black hair, and a pair of bright blue eyes that, at that very moment, were piercing mine. “Good God, I can’t stop staring at him,” I said between clenched teeth.

  “Me neither,” Ava whispered. “But, close your mouth, you look a little like you’re drooling.”

  “I think I am,” I said, wiping the back of my hand across my face. “I really want to run, Ava.”

  “Don’t, babe, that’s silly. He’s just a guy.” She shrugged at me like it was no big thing.

  Yeah, but he was the guy. He was the guy for me and then he left.

  His hands leaned heavily on the bar and his smile was wide. He bumped his chin up in a sexy hello and said, “Hey, can I get a Guinness?”

  That’s it?

  My eyes darted over to Ava, who stared up at him in shock. Her hands were folded across her chest again and she thumped her hip against the bar.

  “Yeah, Guinness, sure,” I said without moving.

  His eyebrows furrowed in the middle of his forehead as he watched me stand still and stare up at him. “Today? Can I have one, like now?” he asked.

  What an ass. He didn’t remember me at all.

  CHAPTER 3

  LUKE

  M adeline Cross. That was her name. She was the kid sister of my best friend growing up. And damn, did I have a thing for her. Now, here she was glaring at me from behind a bar like I’d killed her puppy.

  Yeah well, I was standing in front of her pretending like I didn’t remember her at all. I remembered all right. I remember how she turned from a little bit of a thing with scraped knees into a full-blown knockout. It was so hard back then, keeping my scrawny, teenaged hands off her. Then there was that one night—graduation night. She’d worn that short, red sundress and a pair of matching cowgirl boots. The swell of her breasts peeked out the top and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She blushed a deep crimson when she caught me staring and pulled me by the hand down the stairs into the basement. Her hands were soft and warm and her mouth was sweet and wet. She sat me down on an old blue couch and rode me slow until she was gasping out my name—to this day, I still haven’t come so hard.

  She slid the drink across the bar quickly as I pulled up a stool and made myself comfortable. “Thanks…Maddie,” I said low.

  She stilled and fixed her eyes on mine, her eyebrows hitting her hairline comically. “Sorry, do I know you?”

  I took a long, deep gulp of my beer and placed it back on the counter heavily.

  “Guess we’re both going to pretend that night didn’t happen, huh?”

  Her eyes narrowed as she leaned her elbows against the counter. “Wasn’t much to remember, honestly.” I’d always loved her attitude; she could talk any guy I knew under the table.

  I nodded and raised my glass back up to my lips. “Good to know. Then it’ll be fine, you seeing me around and all?”

  “Perfectly fine.”

  “Great, because I think we’ll definitely be seeing each other again.” I hoped like hell we would.

  “Really, why’s that?”

  “Your brother’s wedding,” I said.

  “Oh, you were invited?” she said nonchalantly, wiping the counter with a dirty towel.

  “I’m in the wedding party,” I said, trying not to laugh. “I’m the best man.”

  CHAPTER 4

  MADELINE

  He was the worst man. The worst.

  What the hell was my brother thinking? Probably nothing because he had no clue I’d ever slept with his stupid best friend when I was seventeen, but still. Does he have no regard for the friends he has now? Why did he have to go and make someone he hasn’t seen in a few years one of the most important people in his wedding party? I mean, come on. I was the maid-of-honor. That meant I’d have to walk down an aisle with him and do that first dance crap with him. He’d be lucky if he lived through the rehearsal dinner with the attitude he gave me at the bar. Asshole. Prick.

  “Do you think Luke will be around tonight?” Ava asked as we were getting ready to go out. I glared at her reflection in the mirror we were sharing. She did some weird duck face and applied a dark layer of purple across her lips.

  “Why are you even here?” I asked.

  “Because you have the best clothes to borrow,” she laughed and gave me a little poke in the shoulder. “So…you think Luke will be around tonight?”

  “How the hell would I know? And why would I care?”

  “I’d care big time if I were you,” she said, flickering her eyes back to her reflection in the mirror and primping her hair a bit. “I’d just about give my right arm for that man to look at me the way he looked at you last night.”

  I slammed my flat iron on the sink and fumbled with the wire, yanking it out of the wall. “He was rude and obnoxious. He didn’t look at me like anything more than just a bartender who was a long forgotten one-night-stand.”

  “Yeah, he looked like he wanted you to remind him how—”

  “—Don’t say it,” I said, holding up a finger and waving it in her face. “I have no time for arrogant little boys like Luke Gunner when there are so many other single men in this shitty little town.”

  “Uh huh, sure,” she laughed. I laughed too, because seriously, there was nobody left in this shitty little backward town. Nobody left but Ava and me.

  HOLLOW HILLS WAS A MILLING TOWN. Everybody and their daddy worked in one of the mills, even the women. The town had a perfect scenic main street and during the autumn months, it was packed with older tourists sitting in trendy little eateries along the strip. There was only one bar; the one I tended, aptly called The Miller’s Brew.

  Sunday nights were my only ones off, and I spent them at the bar, just on the other side of the counter. It was the only thing to do in the town at night if you were single, unless the county fair was going on, and that only arrived with the warmer weather. It was a proud town of factory workers, one I never felt like I fit into, even though I came from a straight-shooting milling family. I felt more at home in the miles of forests and moss-draped woods that surrounded our little slice of earth, where no one could judge me for all my horrible mistakes. And man, I had so many.

  Ava and I were sitting out on the back patio in the Adirondack chairs that circled the stone fire pit, sipping our beers. Crisp cold air pressed down around us, and the smell of burning wood and pine mixed with late autumn cinnamon drifted past. Six o’clock was Miller’s Happy Hour and the place would be packed with everyone who was anyone in town.

  I looked down at my watch and sighed. “Six on the dot. You ready to have some fun?”

  Ava turned her head to the back patio doors and squinted her eyes. “Looks pretty crowded already. What kind of trouble are you going to get me into this week?”

  I lifted up my glass and winked. “Girl, I’m not the one who always picks up the married ones. You have some sort of a fetish for them.”

  “Yeah, well at least I know where I stand. They wouldn’t profess their love for me and run off. A few drunken dances and getting called beautiful isn’t hurting any wives.” She waved her hand at me and shrugged. “I bet they even go back home to their pretty little wives and have the best sex—all because of me shaking my ass and grinding myself all over them. It’s all innocent.”

  “Jeez, Ava. You need to get laid.”

  “Yeah, look how that turned out last time.” She smiled sadly at me.

  Before I could even start to protest her nonsense, the crowd inside spilled out, and we were surrounded by loud people and even
louder music. Ava climbed to her feet and smiled down at me. “Enough talking, it’s our day off! You wanna go dance?”

  “I’ll catch up with you in a few,” I said then watched her bounce away through the crowd and grab some random guy to dance with. The girl beside him huffed and stomped her foot, but Ava just kept pulling him until she got him where she wanted him. She was grinding her ass into him a second later, and he was smiling like a fool.

  “Your friend sure works fast.”

  Just the sound of his voice made my heart ping painfully in my chest. The deep silkiness of it slid over me, and I raised my head up to see Luke standing just behind my chair, holding a beer to his lips.

  I got up off the chair slowly, ready to go inside and find my own random guy. The idea was to turn my back on him really slow and have him watch me sway my ass as I walked away from his arrogant face.

  He took a step closer though, and stood there watching me in his ripped up blue jeans and tight gray Henley that molded around all the muscles hidden behind the material. His eyes sparkled like he found me funny, yet I hadn’t even said a word. Then, his cold blue gaze dropped down to my feet and dragged up my entire body, slowly taking me all in. I watched as one hand fisted at his side and the other white knuckled his drink. His lips straightened, tightened in a sharp line across his face, and it made a rush of warmth surge through my chest. He was looking at me like he either wanted to kill me or devour me—both thrilling and terrifying at the same time. Five years ago, I would have given anything for this man to look at me that way. But I wasn’t seventeen any longer, and he wasn’t ever going to be allowed to hurt me again.