Chapter Nine
Angela
This is a lose-lose situation. Brady is a distraction, and I’m a disaster waiting to happen. And now, thanks to a momentary lust-infused lapse in judgment, I left my things at his place and promised to go swimming with him tonight. What the hell was I thinking?
I was a goner as soon as he touched me. His fingers on my shoulder, his eyes looking down at me from his height, the way his shoulders and arms and chest looked in his T-shirt.
Why does he have to look so good in T-shirts?
They’re T-shirts, for fuck’s sake. And yet there I was, salivating over his body and making plans to see him after work.
I’m not sure how I’m going to fumble my way through work tonight with Brady on my mind like this.
Fortunately, it’s Saturday night and Finnegan’s is busy.
The time flies, no one manhandles me, and I make great tips.
Still, not particularly soothing thoughts of Brady swirl in my mind as I take orders and drop off drinks and food.
He’s going to forget to pick me up.
He’s funny and sweet.
He’s drunk and passed out.
He’s so hot.
He’s met a girl at his party.
You’re going to see what he looks like with barely any clothes on.
When two o’clock rolls around and the bar starts to empty without any sign of Brady, I resolve to ask Cliff for a ride home.
For the next hour, I help clean up, stacking the chairs, clearing the table, and wiping everything down with rags.
Finally, I take my last tray of dirty dishes to the kitchen and unload them into the sink.
“Hey, Cliff,” I call from the kitchen, my heart feeling like it’s been wrung out and left to dry. “Do you think you could drop me at home tonight? I don’t have my bike.”
“Pretty sure your ride is sitting right here at the bar,” he calls back.
What?! I feel my face turn red and my heart rate pick up. I smooth my hair and T-shirt and take off my apron, more as a means of calming myself than actually trying to look good. I poke my head out of the kitchen—
And my eyes land right on Brady’s.
He smirks at me.
I duck back inside, close my eyes briefly, clear my throat, and stand up to my full height. I enter the bar area with as much confidence as I can muster.
“Hey, Brady,” I say casually, grabbing the first rag I can find and wiping down the bar.
“Trying to sneak out on me, Pines?”
“No, of course not,” I say. “I just forgot you were coming.”
“Forgot, huh?”
“Yep. Totally slipped my mind.”
“Uh-huh.” He smiles and winks at Cliff. My face turns red again when I see Cliff wink back. “Mind if I borrow your girl Angie here, Cliff?”
“Take her off my hands, man,” says Cliff. “I’d pour you a Guinness first if you weren’t driving.”
“Next time,” says Brady.
They shake hands like old buddies, and I shake my head, put the rag down, and wash my hands.
“See you tomorrow, Cliff,” I say, ducking under the bar and joining Brady on the other side.
“Have a good night, you two.”
Brady and I walk out to the parking lot.
“How was work?” he asks.
“It was good. How was your party?”
“Just kicked everyone out about an hour ago.”
I laugh. “You know how to throw a party, Brady. I’ll give you that.”
“It was more fun when you were there.”
“I doubt that.”
“You seem to doubt a lot of things, Angie Pines.” He opens my door for me. “Like me saying I’ll pick you up from work.”
I climb in without saying anything, and he shuts the door.
“I had to call so many Ubers for drunk partiers that I got upgraded to like diamond status or some shit,” he says.
As I listen to him chat away about his party, I get that warm, safe feeling again, like nothing can go wrong if I’m with Brady McDaniels.
His easygoing, effortlessly happy personality makes everything seem okay in the world, even when so many things are not.
When we get to his place, he parks in the garage, and we ride the elevator up to the fourth floor. I like his apartment. It’s cleaner than I expected a boy’s place to be (sexist, I know), and it’s furnished sparsely but nicely, with matching furniture and things like accent pillows.
“Did you pick all your stuff out?” I ask, taking another look around once we’re inside.
“Nah, my ma and my sister did,” he says. “They ordered everything online, and it showed up here about a day after I did.”
“They did a nice job.”
I can just imagine what my mom would think about my place. Actually, she probably wouldn’t think. She would just have an aneurysm and a heart attack simultaneously.
“You want that sambuca now?” he asks, heading to the kitchen area.
“I thought you didn’t have any.”
“I had to do a BevMo run after dropping you at work, and I picked some up.” He pulls a bottle of sambuca and a bag of espresso beans out of the fridge and holds them up.
“You remembered the espresso beans?” I exclaim. “How can I say no?”
He pours me a glass and drops three beans into it, then cracks open a room-temperature Guinness for himself. “Go get changed and we’ll drink ’em by the pool. Your stuff’s in my room at the end of the hall.”
I go down the hall to his bedroom. It’s just as nicely furnished as the rest of the apartment. He has a desk with his laptop and books on it, a California-king-size bed (I hope because he’s so big and not because he frequently has company in it), and a dresser with a mirror.
My tote bag is on his bed. I go to pull out my bikini and realize it’s not where I thought I had packed it. I dump everything out on the bed and find it was at the bottom, even though I remember packing it last, on top of everything else. My heart freezes. Did he go through my stuff?
Stop being paranoid, Angela , I tell myself. That’s ridiculous. Why would he go through your stuff? Even if he did, it’s probably because he was being a perv and wanted to see your panties. Is it a problem that the likelihood of that scenario comes as a huge relief?
I take a couple of deep breaths to calm my racing heart and quickly change out of my beer-splashed, sweaty work clothes and into the bikini.
Navy-and-white striped with the top tying around the neck and the bottom folding over my hips, it’s a holdover from my old life that cost as much as my current monthly rent.
I tie a sheer, navy-blue sarong around my body, knotting it over my left shoulder.
There’s no way I’m just going to saunter into his living room wearing practically nothing.
“Wow, Pines,” he says when I walk in. “Looking good.”
“Thanks.” I take my sambuca from him and take a long, blessedly cold drink.
“Oh, hey, I meant to tell you,” he says. “Your bag fell off my bed, and everything fell out. I stuffed it all back in without looking, so it was probably a mess. Sorry.”
Thank God, thank God, thank God. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been worried about it until he explained what happened. “No problem. Thanks for being such a gentleman.”
“Don’t tell me I missed out on a black silk thong or something.”
I smirk. “Red lace.”
“Jesus Christ, Pines,” he mutters. He takes a gulp of his beer.
We head down to the pool with our towels.
I thought it would be trashed after what had gone on here until just a couple of hours ago, but everything appears to have been set to rights.
The jacuzzi looks inviting, gently lit with steam rising from it and bubbles murmuring.
The thought of soaking my bone-weary body in it is irresistible.
I set my sambuca down by the side of the jacuzzi and start to unknot my sarong. It’s resistant, in part because I tied it too tight but mostly because I’m nervous. I’ve just given up and started to slide it down over my shoulder when Brady appears in front of me.
“Allow me.”
I freeze and look up at him. “Sure,” I manage to say.
His long, strong fingers grasp the knot and tug at it.
I stare at him, looking at his light eyes and quick-to-smile mouth, smelling the faint scent of his sweat from having been in the sun all day.
His eyes slide over to mine, catching me mid-stare, and his mouth turns up slightly before he focuses on the knot again.
“Got it,” he says. But instead of stepping away, he unties the rest of the knot, gently pulls the sarong away from my body, and drops it on the ground.
He doesn’t even try not to touch me. He puts his hands on my shoulders and runs them down my arms, leaving a trail of fire in his wake that goes all the way down to my toes and back up, stopping somewhere south of my stomach and north of my thighs.
“Goddamn, Ange,” he says in a choked whisper, his eyes slowly taking everything in. “Shit.”
I back away from him slightly, letting our lightly entwined fingers break apart, and step into the jacuzzi.
I sit down on the ledge, grab my drink, and watch as Brady reaches behind him and yanks his T-shirt over his head.
Goddamn is right. Broad shoulders, one of which sports a Celtic cross tattoo, a broad chest, a long torso packed with abs, a thin line of coppery hair starting just below his belly button and disappearing into his board shorts…
I swallow at the glorious sight of him and take a long sip of my drink.
“Not too bad yourself, McDaniels,” I murmur, unable to take my eyes off him.
He climbs in and sits across from me, keeping his distance. That’s smart. Very smart. And very disappointing. I feel the disappointment mingle with the heat, and I can no longer tell the difference between longing and need. I’m just one hot mess of desire.
“Did you have fun at the party?” he asks.
“Yeah.” My God, those shoulders. I gulp my drink and bite into a bean. “Did you?”
“I always have fun.”
“You could probably make a funeral fun, Brady.”
“I have been known to liven up a wake or two. I mean, who wants a sad funeral, right?”