Chapter 13 #2
But, as Daffodil Carlisle had just made clear, the men and women were on separate outings this evening. Ralphie’s just happened to be the only spot in town that could accommodate both ladies’ and boys’ nights out.
When Kenny questioned the practicality of having both events on the same night of the week, they’d all stared at her in horror and protested that two separate outings meant too much time apart.
Right.
Now that despotic Daff was certain that everybody understood and would follow the rules, she took everybody’s drink orders and gathered up her sisters, Daisy and Lia, to head for the bar.
“They only have three cocktails on the menu,” Kenny pointed out to Tina, shouting to be heard above the sound of somebody slaughtering “Living on a Prayer” on the karaoke machine.
Tina laughed.
“I know! When I first moved to town, Ralphie didn’t serve cocktails at all. The closest they came was a gin and tonic. But he’s trying to mix things up, bless. And this cocktails and karaoke thing has really taken off for him. Who knows? We may get another drink added to the menu soon.”
“Thanks for inviting me, Tina,” Kenny said, a swell of emotion catching in her throat and making her voice wobble.
Tina squeezed her hand under the table.
“I’m happy that you’re here, Kenny. I hope Smith’s presence won’t unsettle you too much. I honestly never once considered that he’d be here tonight, which was silly of me. Of course he’d be here.”
“No, don’t worry about that,” Kenny hastened to assure the other woman. “We have an understanding. And we’ll respect each other’s boundaries. It’ll be fine.”
Tina smiled and nodded and squeezed her hand again.
“Okay. Good. I’m happy to hear that. Now let’s get some songs picked so that we can get this party started.”
“Stop staring,” Harris warned, as Smith’s eyes once again drifted to the group of laughing, raucous women in the corner. “Daff catches you staring and you’re a dead man.”
The others all nodded in agreement.
Daff was the skinny brunette with the pretty smile, and shoulder-length dark brown hair. Smith had met her before and had found her quite agreeable.
Nothing to instill this level of fear in anyone.
“She doesn’t look too scary,” he scoffed with a laugh.
Her husband, the biggest, most taciturn bastard in the group, snorted and dusted his cue tip with chalk, before lining up his shot.
The guy didn’t talk much, but that sound was derisive as fuck.
Smith had only met Spencer Carlisle a couple of times before tonight.
It was hard to get a read on the man who rarely spoke and seemed to communicate with just grunts and glares.
Harris’s twin, Greyson—who could be equally uncommunicative—was good friends with him.
Smith was momentarily diverted as he tried to imagine how a conversation would go between the two.
He pictured gestures, grunts, and head movements with very few words sprinkled in.
Highly probable scenario, actually.
He shoved the absurd thought from his mind and went back to sneaking peeks at Kenna. She’d been quiet at first. But after her second drink her shoulders had inched down from their initial defensive position up around her ears into a more relaxed posture.
After that her smile had bloomed more frequently, the rarest of desert blossoms in a room full of colorful roses.
One of the reasons he was having such a hard time keeping his eyes off her was because he’d discovered that in addition to those scandalously tiny shorts she’d worn the other day, his wife—ex—also possessed a pair of skintight dark blue jeans that lovingly cupped the round, taut curve of her arse.
She’d combined it with another simple tank top—a deep turquoise color—and even from here he could tell that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
Why the fuck wasn’t she wearing a bra?
If he’d noticed, then surely others would notice as well. He cast a quick glance around the already teeming pub, trying to see if anyone else was staring at her.
A few people—men and women—occasionally glanced over at the cheerful group with indulgent smiles. But he couldn’t tell if anyone else was paying as much attention to Kenna’s perky, unfettered tits as he was.
To that end…why in the fuck was he sneaking so many peeks at them? He was starting to feel distinctly stalkery.
He’d seen the quickly disguised dismay in her expression when she’d first spotted him across the room and had immediately felt guilty about it.
But he hadn’t really known that they would wind up at Ralphie’s until they’d pulled up in front of the place. Harris picked him up, said they were meeting the guys for a night out, and the next thing Smith knew they were here.
He’d tried to convey his regret in that single exchanged glance, but she’d simply gone pale and quickly averted her gaze. Moments later, Sam Brand, another of Harris’s good friends, had informed Smith of the weird “no interacting with the women” rule.
He’d tried not to stare too much after that and sincerely hoped his presence wouldn’t stifle her enjoyment of the evening.
Kenny hadn’t interacted too much at first, speaking mostly to Tina and Libby. But the other women—especially Spencer’s take charge wife—were having none of that and she was constantly drawn into the conversation.
He’d been gratified to note that the other women had fully welcomed her into the fold and soon they were all chatting with the ease of old, familiar friends.
Smith shouldn’t care as much. It shouldn’t matter to him whether she fit in or not, but she’d looked so goddamned terrified.
Kenna’s uncertainty had twisted his heart. Had that shyness always been lurking behind her chilly reservation?
She’d been so good at hiding it. Had kept it ruthlessly locked away. Likely saw it as a character flaw. And instead of revealing that supposed weakness, she’d preferred having everyone—even him, for fuck’s sake!—believe she was anti-social, aloof…stuck up.
But here, in those tight jeans, and that simple tank top, a flimsy orange flip flop on her uninjured foot, she felt safe enough to simply be.
He tamped down the surge of resentment and fury that flowed through him like lava.
This was just more proof of how doomed their marriage had been. Would she ever have revealed this side of herself to him? He doubted it.
He swallowed down his bitterness and anger along with a gulp of ice-cold beer and determinedly turned his back on her smiling face, so attractively framed by her long, pretty hair, which had been left to flow like water over her shoulders.
He tuned out the sound of her rusty laughter, such a rarity he could count on one hand how often he’d heard it during their marriage.
It was time to stop obsessing over her.
Right fucking no—
The opening lines of Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” sung in a husky, low, trembling voice, short-circuited his thought processes and had him whipping around to face her again.
His beer bottle tilted and the cold liquid spilling over his knuckles startled him into jerking it upright. But he couldn’t wrench his eyes away from that pale, nervous face spotlighted up on that tiny stage.
Just her, McKenna, all alone and clearly terrified.
Singing the first song they’d ever danced to.
His eyes met hers. Held. She wasn’t even looking at the screen. She knew the lyrics—as he did—by heart.
Their song.
They hadn’t even known the song’s name that first time, but when that first note had hit and their eyes had met at what was supposed to be a boring work function, they’d been irresistibly drawn to each other.
They’d stopped in the middle of a crowded dance floor and flowed into each other’s arms without a word spoken between them. And they had danced slowly, sensuously, each so completely captivated by the other,
It had been the start of a long, spellbinding night. And what had followed had been unforgettable, an exchange of names, breathless conversation, soft, shy touches, and then that first astonishing kiss…
All with this song—an intimate, heart-wrenching ode to love at first sight—perfectly encapsulating every emotion they’d experienced from that first startling glance to their last lingering touches.
During those four intense months where they ate, breathed, drank each other up, this song—which they’d both looked up after their reluctant parting on that first night—had become their anthem.
And it had been glaring in its absence from their wedding.
That had been Smith’s first clue of the shitshow to come. He’d been so stupidly shocked when their wedding dance had been to a pop song that he couldn’t even recall the name of right now. Dazed, disappointed, and hurt.
She’d refused his help with the wedding plans. And he hadn’t argued, because she had already seemed so harried and distant. He hadn’t wanted to stress her further.
Even on their wedding day, she’d been so remote, and when time came for their dance, he’d gathered her close, knowing that that would be the moment everything would fall into place for them.
Only it hadn’t.
Their movements had been stiff and uncomfortable, a far cry from that first perfect night and the amazing months that had followed it. She hadn’t looked at him once. And the song she’d chosen… It had been so wrong. A total fucking affront to everything between them before.
And now she stood up there singing their song in front of a crowd of strangers, while staring straight at him. Her voice grew more confident with each word even while her hand was tightly wrapped around the mic and her body was rigid with fear.
The familiar lyrics, sung in her low, smoky voice, wrapped around him, grabbed him by the throat and squeezed the air from his lungs.
Goddamn her.
Why did she still have such a stranglehold on his emotions? How the fuck was he supposed to move on when it felt like she was lurking around every corner?
“Smith?” Harris’s quiet voice in his ear jerked him out of his dazed staring. “You okay, man?”
“Not really,” he replied, slamming his bottle down on the side of the pool table. “She’s doing a real fucking number on me.”
Harris’s eyes drifted over to Kenna, before coming back to rest on Smith’s face.
“She’s different,” the other man said after a moment, looking like he was picking his words very carefully.
“I noticed it right away, when we dug her car out of the sand. She usually has her shit together, y’know?
She’s always so cool and composed. But she seems so fragile.
Tina is worried about her. About both of you.
Before she showed up here, Tina had nothing good to say about her. Now, she’s wondering if maybe…”
The hesitation annoyed Smith, who felt like his every nerve was frayed to the point of unraveling.
“Maybe what? Spit it out, Harris,” he demanded, his words clipped with impatience. His friend’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“She’s wondering if maybe you’re not being too fucking stubborn!” Harris spat the words at him. “And I am too. Look, brother, we’re on your side. We love you and we support you. We don’t know what the fuck happened between you and Kenny—”
“That’s right, you don’t know. So maybe butt out!”
“We don’t know what happened,” Harris continued doggedly through gritted teeth.
“But she’s here, man. Clearly she thinks what you had is important enough to her for her to swallow her pride and come here to face unbridled hostility.
That can’t have been an easy decision for her to make.
How many times have you dissected and assassinated her character over the last six days?
And she’s still here. Still taking whatever the fuck you’ve been dishing out. That counts for something.”
Smith shook his head, jaw clenched as he sent his friend a scathing glare before walking out without another word.