Chapter 5
Amy
Ugh. Save me from tonight.
Chris was on me and pulling me into a bear hug before I even knew he’d spotted me.
“Amy, it’s been way too long. And damn, girl, don’t you look fine tonight?”
He planted a kiss on my cheek, just like he had with his date a few minutes ago.
“Hi Chris,” I told him as I put the pool stick down and stepped away from the table.
We were still friendly with each other. The split hadn’t been a total disaster.
It had just made me feel like he’d rented me for six months before getting tired of sleeping with the same woman and choosing a different, fresher version of me.
The trouble was he’d sold me a fine vision of our future life together. The man could talk a good game. And all he had to do was bat his baby blues, and women seemed to go weak in the knees for him.
At least I had.
But those days were over.
“What are you doing here?” he asked as he reached out and touched my elbow.
I pulled back out of his grasp. “Just hanging with the girls. I didn’t know you ever came out this way.”
“Ah, well, I’m here with my friend, Mary, tonight. She lives here on Red Oak.”
“Mm. How nice. You should have brought her over so I could meet her,” I said pointedly.
Looked like my replacement had already been replaced.
And I hadn’t missed that he called the poor woman a friend even though he’d been hanging off her like the sun shined out of her ass just two minutes ago. Something told me she’d be surprised to hear that she was just his friend.
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Come on, Amy, don’t be like that. I didn’t want to make things awkward for either of you. Look, I’ve been thinking about you a lot. And I wonder if there’s any chance we could go out back and talk for a minute?”
I glanced over at his date. She’d wandered over to a table of men and was busy chatting with them. They were all laughing about something, and I got the impression she knew them.
She must be local.
Mary didn’t seem too bent out of shape to see the man she’d arrived with talking to another woman.
Against my better judgment, I told him, “Okay. But no more than five minutes, seriously. I don’t want you to be rude to your date.”
He guided me out of the bar, with his hand on the small of my back. “I told you she’s not my date. Just a friend.”
Outside, the temperature was frigid.
The bar had been so warm that I’d almost forgotten we were deep in winter.
Red Oak Mountain seemed to get chillier than Fernwood, and I wished belatedly for a jacket.
Now that we were outside, Chris gave me his best bedroom eyes. The ones that had always worked on me in the past. “I miss you. Don’t you miss me?”
I crossed my arms. “You just miss my pussy. And maybe my blowjobs.”
He looked so hurt, like I was wounding him. But I knew it was all part of his act. “No. We had something special together, Amy. No one I’ve dated since you has come close. I tried reaching out, but you weren’t very receptive. It hurt my feelings.”
It took everything in me not to roll my eyes at the man.
Chris had tried sliding back into my DMs a few times. Usually late at night when he was feeling lonely for a woman in his bed. But I’d shut that down fast.
“Seriously, Amy. Can we meet up later this week and have a talk? I’d really like to reconnect.”
Even as he said it, I saw his eyes flick behind me, and I knew he was checking out some woman walking by. And what a way to treat his date? I felt sorry for her.
I wonder if I should warn her?
But then, what if she thought I was trying to break them up to win him back myself? No, I’d better stay out of it. Hopefully, she’d be smart enough not to get too involved with him.
Shaking my head, I turned to go back inside. “Our time is done, Chris. You know it. I know it. You need to find yourself some new women to listen to your lines. Now go back to your date.”
When I made it back to the pool table I was lightly trembling. I told myself it was from the cold. But it was really from Chris reopening old wounds.
It’s not like he’d cheated on me. He’d just been very cavalier with the truth. And his eye had never stopped wandering. With a man like that, it was only a matter of time.
It still hurt, though.
Dee’s eyes were wide as she handed me my pool stick. “You’ve got all the men lining up for you tonight. Who was that?”
I told all the ladies at the table, “Trust me. He’s not worth the time.”
Dee pounced on the gossip, though. “That’s the ex who put you off men? You should go get that big, strong one who’s been looking at you all night to make him jealous.”
I couldn’t help glancing over at Dawson. Sure enough, he’d switched places with his buddy, and now he was facing the pool table watching us talk.
It would be just my luck if he could hear this conversation.
“Stop objectifying the man,” I told Dee. “And I don’t play games like that.”
Sharon craned her neck to look at Dawson again. “Mm. You should, honey. I’d like to objectify the fuck out of him.”
I spent the rest of the evening waiting for the ladies to be ready to leave and carefully avoiding looking in the direction of either of those two men.
Both of whom seemed to be taking great delight in pretending to be crazy about my fool self. I hadn’t had this much male attention in ages.
And Dee was acting like I was the world’s biggest man-killer. She wanted pointers on how I was getting so much attention from them.
To console myself, I drank a little more than usual.
My normal one-drink cutoff had been exceeded, and I was finishing drink number three right now.
The bartender had made me something called a Mountain Gold. I had no idea what was in it, but I knew it was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted before.
It was almost worth the drive to Red Oak Mountain just for that.
And now that I’d had time to think about it, Chris had my blood boiling.
I was replaying our conversation in my head, and every time I ran through it, I got more and more pissed off. I wasn’t normally the pissed-off type. But a woman scorned can hold on to a serious level of resentment.
He was slow-dancing with his date, whispering in her ear and pretending like he hadn’t propositioned me right under her nose.
I was more pissed for her sake than mine. Whoever she was, she deserved better than Chris.
Maybe it was the combination of the Mountain Golds along with the kiss he planted on her lips that had me seriously considering telling her how much of an ass he was.
That’s when Sharon suggested that I ride the mechanical bull.
I had enough of a happy buzz going that it sounded like a semi-decent idea.
Nothing in me wanted Chris back.
But I did want him to know that I had one-hundred percent moved on with my life and that I was ever-so-happy now.
In fact, I was so happy that now I rode bulls in tiny mountain bars surrounded by hot men in flannel on my Friday nights. I just wanted him to know I was over him.
Even as I thought it, I laughed. The truth was, I’d never ride that bull.
I was too chicken.
I didn’t take risks in life. I played it safe and steady. And maybe I could admit that my fun quotient had been a little bit lacking ever since Chris and I broke up.
The mechanical bull sat there teasing me.
You could ride me if you wanted to.
Look at all the pictures of people who rode me and survived.
You’d survive.
You might even like it.
I snickered into my drink while Sharon tugged me over to the bull. “Come on. Do it! Prove you’re a real rodeo cowgirl.”
“I am the furthest thing from a real rodeo cowgirl,” I told her.
Sharon was deep in her drinks tonight, and I was glad that Ann was the designated driver. She was the quiet in our group. She’d been over in the corner of the bar texting all night while she babysat the rest of us.
Right then, I made the mistake of swiveling my head just in time to see Chris whisper in his date’s ear and grab her ass at the same time he was looking at me over her shoulder, giving me his bedroom eyes.
Fuck that guy.
What an asshole.
That’s when a deep, burly voice spoke up. “I dare you.”
I whipped around to see that Dawson, the hot, hunky mountain man, had approached me while I’d been looking at Chris. “Y-you dare me?”
He nodded, with a sly glint in his eye. “Yeah. I dare you, Amy. You wear a shirt like that into a bar like this, it’s almost a requirement that you prove your cowgirl status for us all.”
“Oh,” I blushed. “I’m not really a cowgirl. I just borrowed the boots from a friend.”
Dee butted in, eyes wandering up and down his gorgeous torso. “Hi. I’m the friend who owns the boots. I’m Dee. And it’s really nice to meet you. If she doesn’t want to ride the bull, I’d be willing to take a turn.”
Dawson didn’t take his eyes off me. “Nice to meet you, Dee. So what do you say, Amy? You going to get up there and give the bar a show? I tell you what, girl. I double-dog dare you.”
I burst out laughing. That was a line from one of my favorite movies, A Christmas Story. I had no doubt that boys in playgrounds across the country had uttered that phrase thousands of times. Usually right before one of them got in serious trouble.
“Sorry, Dawson,” I told him. “I’m not the adventurous type.”
His eyes were steady on me, and I couldn’t look away this time.
His dark, dreamy eyes told me stories about mountain sunshine, and cool streams, wind gusting wildly through the woods, and that feeling of utter freedom I used to have as a child.
He took a step closer and whispered in my ear. “Are you going to make me say it?”
“Say what?” I asked breathlessly.
He chuckled, and the scent of wood smoke and spice drifted off of him, filling me with the intoxicating smell of Dawson. “I triple-dog dare you. Plus, I think you’ve got a lot of adventure in you.”
I felt myself getting swayed by this sexy mountain man.
My ex was completely forgotten as I stared up into Dawson’s eyes.