Chapter 8
8
JOHNNY
I tuck my hair behind my ears and slip into Peakside. It’s hot inside, the type of muggy that makes the air stick to your skin like a tight, uncomfortable knitted shirt from your grandma that you’re too nice to tell her you hate.
A few people lift their fingers in waves from the tables I pass on the way to the bar, and I flash dimpled grins back. Saturday nights are for dimpled grins, laughing until your throat hurts, and empty beer bottles, which means I’m already a third of the way there.
The grumpy, sour-faced owner of the bar listens to me order a couple of beers and then makes quick work of serving them without so much as a hello. She’s gotta be one of the rudest people I’ve ever met, but considering her daughter is Bryce’s evil ex, our entire group of friends has been written off. It’s no skin off my back, and I know the feeling is mutual throughout all of us.
I pay and grab the glass bottles between my fingers before heading toward the table at the back of the bar. Noticing the table isn’t full yet has me whooping in victory, drawing the eyes of Bryce and Darren .
“Am I early enough for you, Brycie?” I ask while folding my body into the booth across the table from the two of them.
“Could have been earlier,” she mutters before lifting her red drink to her lips and taking a sip. “I’d have been spared the alone time with Darren.”
Darren rolls his eyes and lifts his beer to mine as we cheers. “Stop acting as if you don’t love the time with me.”
“I don’t.”
“I’ll stop bringing you ginger beef every Tuesday night, then,” he threatens.
Bryce glares at Darren, her sharp blue eyes brutal. “Don’t you dare.”
“You like ginger beef, right, Johnny?” Darren asks me, pretending he isn’t playing with fire.
“I fuckin’ love it. And I wouldn’t mind a cute date with you either,” I tease.
“Please. I’d never go on a date with Darren,” Bryce balks.
He whips his head to look at her, eyes tightened at the corners. “Do you have to sound so disgusted at the idea?”
“As if you’re not equally as disgusted.”
“I am. But at least I’m not making it obvious.”
“People are going to think you’re into each other for real with how much you bicker,” I say, my first beer pressed against my lips.
Bryce finishes off her drink before saying, “Maybe. But only those who don’t know that I’m not currently in the market for a man.”
Intrigued, I set my beer down and lean closer to her, folding my arms on the table. “Oh, do tell, Brycie.”
“No.”
Darren chokes on a laugh. “Brutal.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘bully,’” I correct him.
“I’m not a bully. You’re just snoopy,” Bryce counters.
I wave her off and settle back in the booth. “God forbid I want to know about your love life. ”
“If I wanted you to know anything, you already would, Johnny.”
“Does Darren know?” I ask before snapping my gaze to him. “Do you?”
He smirks, shoulder lifting. “Maybe.”
“He doesn’t,” Bryce says, giving Darren a rough shove. “Because there’s nothing to know other than I’m not interested in Darren. Got it?”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “I’ve got it, sunshine.”
She smiles at the pet name. “I’m going to get another drink. Let me up, you oaf.”
“A please goes a long way,” Darren mutters but lets her out of the booth without a fight.
“You’re not my daddy.”
As she walks away from the table, Darren places his hands around his mouth and yells, “I could be!”
Bryce flips him off over her shoulder before disappearing from view. I wait for Darren to settle back down before saying, “You look happier today.”
“It was a good day.”
“I’m glad. You’ve been through enough these past few weeks.”
“Abbie’s with me this week while Sasha’s out of town, and I’m just happy to be with her. She’s started wanting to make these adorable beaded bracelets, so I went and ordered three hundred dollars’ worth of materials for her,” he says, his voice light and more animated than I’ve heard it in a long damn time.
Shoving the sleeve of his shirt up his forearm, he shows off the stack of beaded bracelets on his wrist. All four of them have big, thick knots in the clear elastic and hot pink and purple beads with a few smaller gold stars and white block letters throughout. One says DADDY, and another says LUV U, while the other two have their initials.
“Those are cute, Darren. ”
He beams. “Aren’t they? She’s only five and already so good at making them. Maybe she’ll be a jewelry designer one day.”
“I’d buy from her.”
“Everyone would.”
“Ah! Are those friendship bracelets?” Poppy squeals.
Both Darren and I turn to see her and the rest of the group making a beeline for the table. Anna’s got Poppy’s hand in hers, and the two of them move the fastest toward us.
They stop at the side of the table and bend over the edge as Poppy grabs her brother’s wrist and pulls it closer to her.
“Stop it right now, D. Did Abbie make you these?” she asks, tears in her eyes.
Garrison’s behind her the moment he hears them in her voice, a stone guardian at her back. I look at him and smile, hoping it’ll help him realize there’s no need for the protectiveness right now.
“She did. Isn’t she incredible?” Darren asks.
Anna presses her fingers to her heart and sighs dreamily. “I think my ovaries have just exploded.”
“Alright, stop fawning over Darren. He’ll never let it go,” Brody grumbles, sidling up behind Anna and wrapping an arm around her stomach.
The girls ignore their men and continue to fiddle with Darren’s bracelets. I’m rolling my lips, struggling to keep my laugh inside, when I see her. Suddenly, laughing isn’t a concern for me. Breathing is.
I wasn’t expecting her to come tonight. But I was hoping she would. It’s been a long time since she was here last, and I’m already desperate to dance with her again. On the dance floor or in the aisle between tables again, it doesn’t matter. I’d even settle for a single song out back behind the bar.
I’m quick to slide out of my seat and offer it to her while the others are still too focused on Darren to notice her arrival. Her steps slow as we get closer together, and I drag my eyes down her body a single time .
I’ve never enjoyed the sight of plain blue jeans and a loose-fitted band tee as much as I do right now. Not to mention the slick-backed ponytail that I know is swishing along her spine as she moves toward me.
I grip the back of the booth and keep my body language loose and open, not wanting to spook her. It’s like approaching a wild horse for the first time. Slow, steady, calm. No sudden movements or so much as a hint of abrasiveness in your tone.
“You better take a seat before they steal them all,” I suggest.
Her eyes are wary as she looks at the empty booth and then to the crowd of people hanging over the edge of the table. I hold my breath as I wait for her answer, prepared to pull a chair over from one of the tables near us in case she says she doesn’t want me to join her. But there isn’t any of that.
She slides into the booth and then scoots all the way inside before looking at me again, waiting with a firm, curved brow. I laugh in slight disbelief before sitting beside her, making sure to keep my arm from brushing hers as I cross my hands on the table.
“They’ll be finished drooling over Darren in a minute,” I tell her.
“They don’t have to be.”
“Nah, they will be. It’s rude to ignore someone.”
“They’re not ignoring me. I snuck in behind them because I didn’t want it to be a big deal that I’m here.”
I cock my head in her direction, holding her stare as I try and dig into those deep pools of blue, desperate to learn more about her. “It’s a big deal to me that you’re here.”
She rolls her eyes, brushing me off. “What’s your play?”
“My play?”
“Yeah. The reason for the flirting and interest. Is it a bet or something?”
“I’m not a teenager, darlin’. I don’t make bets where women are involved.”
“How old are you? ”
I wrangle back a smirk at her interest. “Twenty-two.”
Her lips part, a quick inhale following closely after. “You’re a baby.”
“How does the saying go? Age isn’t anything but a number?”
“Yeah, and twenty-two is a very low number.”
“Well, how old are you? Twenty-three?” I ask slyly, shifting the smallest bit closer to her, just enough to face her more fully.
Her cheeks pinken up at my question, and my chest lurches. “Not even close.”
“It doesn’t matter either way. Twenty-three or thirty-three, my interest stands where it is,” I say, my voice thick with conviction.
“Well then. I’m forty-three,” she bluffs.
I snort a laugh and pick up my near empty beer from where I left it on the table. “Nah, you’re not. But like I said, all I hear is a number. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
She shakes her head, her throat rising with a swallow as she does a damn good job of playing off how flustered I’ve made her. I’m not a fan of beating around the bush. Not with work, my family, or women. It’s just not my style. That hasn’t changed in the presence of a woman as beautiful and complicated as Aurora.
“You’re right. I’m not forty-three. But I’m not twenty-two either.”
“Like I said, I don’t care. I’m interested in you regardless of my age or yours.”
“You shouldn’t be,” she says rigidly.
I keep my eyes on her, categorizing her every reaction and response to my statements and questions.
“There are plenty of things I shouldn’t do. Can’t say I’ve ever heeded more than a couple warnings.”
“You should heed mine. I won’t give you what you want.”
My mouth kicks up into a no-good grin as I push my second, untouched beer across the tabletop toward her. “You know that for a fact, huh? ”
“I do,” she answers, tapping a finger against the dewy bottle I’ve offered her.
I’d have preferred the cap be on so she knows it’s safe, but nobody’s touched the bottle other than the bartender when she removed it.
“And how do you know that? Because I think you’re jumping the gun. You don’t know a damn thing about me yet, and I don’t know much about you. I want to change that,” I say, putting it all out there.
“And I’m supposed to care about what you want?”
I nod. “I’d prefer that, yeah.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “It’s your funeral, then, Johnny. But don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”
It takes everything in me not to fill the bar with another obnoxious whooping noise. I settle on a wide grin instead, making sure she can see how elated I am.
“I never knew funerals could be so fucking exciting.”