17. Knox
Chapter seventeen
Knox
Fuck my life.
Fuck everything.
Throwing my head back, I emptied my—fourth, fifth?—glass of the night. I’d lost count of how many refills I’d had since I walked into the bar tonight. All I knew was that I needed to drown myself in alcohol and try to forget the look in Nina’s eyes before she ran away from me. Before I did something crazy like find that Michael asshole and beat him to a pulp.
Fucking hell. What was Nina thinking, letting him into the apartment? Into her life again? How could she not see that the idiot probably remembered how fucking great she was, not to mention generous, and decided that he wasn’t done fucking up her life? Her heart?
Does she still have feelings for him? I racked my brain, trying to think back to that night in my car when she’d bared her heart to me. I might be wrong, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about still being in love with him. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was.
Fuck this. With a hand, I signaled to the bartender, who was engaged in an animated conversation with a brunette. The guy caught my signal, grabbed the bottle of scotch, and hurried over.
“Thanks,” I muttered, gulping about half of the glass. I’d always been able to handle my liquor, but after six glasses or so, my brain was becoming fuzzy. The annoying thing was that the alcohol wasn’t even working. All I could think of was Nina.
The image of that prick holding her hand as they looked into each other’s eyes was burned into my memory. It didn’t matter if I closed or opened my eyes; it was all I saw. The pure rage that had filled me at the sight still stirred underneath the silent buzz of the scotch.
The day hadn’t even been over before I was scrambling to leave the office because I knew Nina would be at home waiting for me, just like she always was. Or rather, I’d thought she was. Sean even commented on how great my mood was. Imagine my fucking surprise to walk through the door and see her locking hands with the same man whom she’d confessed to me days ago was her first love.
I could be pissed, couldn’t I?
Are you, really? Sure, Nina wasn’t right and you’re truly being a hypocrite?
I let out a huff. I was acting crazy. Hadn’t I been the one to say that it was just sex? Hadn’t I told her I fucked other women, even if it was a lie? I hadn’t touched another woman since Claire, and that was months ago. But at the time, it seemed like the best thing to tell Nina because I didn’t want her to have expectations.
So, why the fuck was I angry? Sure, we had a fuckbuddy situationship going on, which was even more raw and complex because we were roommates, but that was about it. I didn’t owe her anything, just like she didn’t owe me anything.
I was blinded by how fucking great our chemistry in bed was. When everything was said and done, Nina wasn’t the sort of woman I was usually interested in. Take my ex, Claire, for example. She was poised, mature, driven—she was a sports nutritionist—and, most importantly, she was a fully grown woman of thirty who had her shit together. The exact opposite of everything Nina was.
I wasn’t looking to sit around and babysit in a relationship. I needed a partner who was independent and capable of making their own choices without constant reassurance. Things might not have worked out with Claire, but it didn’t change the fact that she was my ideal woman.
Nina was too young for me. She was practically a baby. I didn’t like feeling like some kind of emotionally superior predator when I was with her, even though her childishness was kind of cute sometimes.
Stop that. It’s not cute. It’s annoying.
Long story short, it was stupid of me to be jealous. Matter of fact, the best thing for Nina would be to call that piece of shit. I swallowed the remaining of my scotch with that thought and immediately felt like throwing up. It was with great effort that I made it stay down.
Of fucking course, I didn’t want her to call him. I didn’t even want her to think about the asshole. If I could erase him from her mind, I would.
I wanted her to think of just me. To miss only me, to kiss and fuck only me.
Running a hand roughly through my hair, I gathered the strands and stuffed them into a bun at the back of my head with the rubber band on my wrist. My gaze lingered on the now empty glass as I pondered the practicality of ordering one more shot.
I had to be the biggest idiot on planet Earth. Not only should I have been more concerned with my company hitting rock bottom, but I absolutely should also not have been thinking about my little sister’s best friend in such a possessive way. But the undeniable truth was that I’d fallen for Nina.
Sometime in the last few weeks, I’d come to appreciate her as a person and see that every single viewpoint I had toward her was wrong. I thought her to be fake and vain. But despite her family’s affluence, she was humble to a fault and didn’t think the entire world should bow at her feet like some of the wealthy people I’d worked with.
God, I’d been so hard on her at the beginning, and she still didn’t disparage me when she had the chance to. I had hope for my company because of her. This would have been a lot easier if she wasn’t such a nice girl. Everything was so messed up.
Fuck my life, man.
“Staring into that glass will not make whatever’s got your panties in a twist disappear, you know.”
I turned to the source of the voice, frowning at how familiar it sounded. It took a second for the blurriness in my eyes to fade into focus.
“Claire?”
It was her. She raised both brows, amusement mixed with concern dancing all over her face.
“What’s wrong, Knox?” she asked. “You look like shit.”
“How did you know I was here?” I looked around for the first time since I walked in.
Claire took the stool next to me, turning her body to face me. “I’m not stalking you, if that’s what you’re asking. You might be hot, but I have better things to do with my time.”
“Right.” I cleared my throat, swallowing copious amounts of air as if it would help the inebriation. “How have you been?”
Claire scoffed, swinging her head to the side. I realized then that she was the brunette the bartender had been talking to earlier.
“Funny that you should ask that, actually. We connected last week, remember? And you didn’t seem to care because you had a shiny new thing on your arm. What, trouble in paradise?”
I let out a sigh, suddenly exhausted. “I didn’t invite you here, Claire. You came of your volition, and I sure as hell don’t need any shit tonight. So, if you won’t answer the fucking question, then walk.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’m as good as can be, if ‘good’ is almost fucking up my entire life and career, because I can’t get over a breakup.”
I frowned. “What happened?”
She sighed dejectedly, and I could tell it was serious. “I gave the wrong medication to one of the players last weekend and just caught it today while reviewing my files. Thankfully, he never took it, but it could have been bad, Knox. Really bad.”
“How bad?”
With a tired smile that didn’t reach her eyes, Claire propped her head on her hand, leaning against the countertop. “It might’ve ruined his career.”
I felt bad for her. I knew how much Claire loved her job. I could still recall how over the moon she’d been when she got the position as the head nutritionist for the New York Jaguars, the city’s hockey team.
“That’s rough. I’m sorry, Claire.”
The smile didn’t leave. “It’s alright. It’s not your fault that I can’t stop thinking about you.”
I held her gaze for a long time, as silent words passed between us. It might have been the alcohol at play, but I thought back in time to when we were together and how good things were between us.
I loved her. I’d had girlfriends before, some I genuinely cared for, but Claire was the first woman I’d truly fallen for. Maybe it was how refined she was. Driven, beautiful, the very things I sought in the opposite sex. I’d fallen heads over heels for her in a matter of months.
Breaking up had been my choice, but that didn’t make it any less painful. There was a time when I didn’t just see Claire as a girlfriend; I saw her as a future wife. I pictured us in a sprawling house with a big porch, children running around. A life together.
But reality doesn’t care about dreams. We might have been in love, but when it came down to it, we wanted different things. Claire wanted a man who could hand her the world on a silver platter, while I needed a woman who simply understood me.
“We were great together, weren’t we?” she whispered, and it hit me then how close she was to me.
I nodded, unable to stop myself. “We were.”
Her eyes gleamed with clear lust as she trailed a perfectly manicured finger down my arm. “Don’t you miss it? Don’t you miss me?”
“I do, sometimes.”
I knew better than to keep going. Neither of us had come here tonight to reopen old wounds or tempt unfinished business. Running into each other was coincidence, not fate. And being here now, like this, didn’t mean we had any right to cross the line again, but so much shit had happened in my life lately that it felt like the control was slipping out of my hands. I needed to get a fucking grip.
So, when Claire leaned in and pressed her lips to mine, I didn’t push her away or stop her. When she sucked my bottom lip into her mouth, I didn’t make any move.
“I miss you so much, Knox,” she hushed. “I wish we could go back to how things were.”
She kissed me, forcing her tongue into my mouth, and yet I just sat there. Kissing her back would be my choice. It would be easy to take control and, knowing Claire, she would relish in it. I thought about it for a moment before Nina’s face floated into my mind.
“You’re the worst, Knox Coleman…”
Get out of my head.
And then I was kissing Claire back, taking control like I should, goddammit. If I woke up tomorrow morning with regrets, I would blame it on the alcohol. Given all that had happened in the past few weeks, living with Nina without my sister, losing the Spencer deal, the event with Dean, falling for Nina, every fucking thing… doing this—kissing Claire, felt like the one decision I’d made for myself.
Blood rushed to my head, making me high. Her soft, throaty moans spurred me on and I felt myself slowly giving in, damning it all until the sound of someone clearing their throat brought me back to my senses. We pulled apart to see the bartender smirking at us with knowing eyes. I looked back at Claire, and her eyes were brimming with unabashed lust.
Which was why I wasn’t surprised when she got to her feet, grabbed her bag, slung it over one shoulder and said, “Meet me in the bathroom in two minutes.”
I watched her walk toward the bathroom, swallowing nervously. This was my chance. If I went to Claire, I could forget everything about the redhead back at home who no doubt hated me. I could pretend that the past few weeks never happened, or that it had happened, but it meant nothing.
My heart revved like a fucking speeding car inside my chest.
“I’ll take a shot,” I said to the bartender. I needed liquid courage because it didn’t look like my ass was thinking of getting up anytime soon.
Claire was waiting for me. The first minute passed. I shot down the liquor as soon as the bartender poured, immediately requesting another.
The kiss was nice, I thought as I stared at the door to the bathroom, throwing back the second shot. My mind was hazy, but it was clear enough that I compared kissing Claire to kissing Nina and found that I liked the latter more.
Two minutes passed. I knew what would happen if I went in there. We would fuck and it would be awesome, and Claire would finally find the in she was looking for to slide back into my life. But was that what I really wanted? Was it wise to get over one woman by fucking the same one I’d fucked other women to get over as well?
Three minutes. Then four. I sucked in a breath, finding my wallet and placing a hundred-dollar bill on the counter. At the fifth minute, I stood to my feet, put one leg in front of the other and walked out the door.