8. CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHT
KINSLEY
J ill is talking and squealing in excitement, but I can’t grasp hold of her words. Not when my entire being is fixated on the one man I hadn’t planned on seeing here tonight. His brothers, yes, and maybe even Jill. But Ethan? No.
In my defense, Ethan’s intense gaze is hard to disengage from. It’s as if he’s drinking me in. Branding the image of me into his brain. And yet he flushes in embarrassment when he realizes I’ve caught him staring.
The sound of glass shattering breaks me from my trance. And then Ethan is stumbling backward and bumping into…oh my God. I think that’s Carter. Tall and muscular, with a wide frame and thick, wavy hair, Ethan’s little brother is not so little anymore. My lips curl upward at the sight of him. I missed out on watching both him and Jill become adults. A sense of nostalgia grips my heart, and I suddenly, so very desperately, want to go back in time.
Once again, I’m pulled from my thoughts. This time by a loud clatter.
Carter, who was wielding an armful of plates a moment ago, is glowering, empty-handed while Ethan, who must have fallen, stands upright, trying to regain both his balance and his composure. His white shirt is covered in a dark brown liquid that looks thick and soupy.
In the span of one breath, he straightens, grins, and raises one arm in triumph, a crab leg in hand and waves it at the crowd like it’s a football and he’s just won the Super Bowl.
Everybody hoots and hollers in excitement, and before I know it, my face hurts.
Jill squeezes my arm, garnering my attention again. “Find me later. I need to get back there before they burn the whole place down.”
“Are you smiling at him?” Tessa asks, waving a hand in front of my eyes.
My heart lurches. What?
“Come on, our table is over here,” she says, pulling my hand a bit too eagerly. “It’ll give you the perfect view of Ethan all night. By the way,” she teases as we reach the high-top table, “don’t think for a second that I didn’t see the way he was staring at you. Hot damn, I thought you two were going to need a room.”
With a glare, I swat her arm, but I don’t indulge in any of her nonsense. Instead, I shift my attention to Jill as she meanders her way back through the crowd. As soon as she’s behind the bar, she goes straight into work mode, taking orders and filling glasses, ignoring her brothers, who are arguing not more than two feet away from her.
Every few seconds, Ethan peeks in my direction, and Tessa’s words replay in my mind. Of course he keeps looking. I dressed up like this on purpose. Okay, the dress itself was all Tessa, but I figured that if she wanted to set me up, why not go all out? I’m even wearing a pair of her ridiculously expensive Jimmy Choos. The ones with the silver heels.
Morty, dressed in bright red slacks and a leopard-print top, enters the restaurant with Piper on his arm. Piper is sporting her own whimsical outfit. The brown babydoll dress is adorned with yellow and orange flower petals. On anyone else, both outfits would be garish, but these two can pull off just about anything.
Behind them, a few others filter in, and they chat as they make their way over. I know them all. Maybe not as well as Morty and Piper, but they’re all nice enough.
I wait and wait some more for the mysterious person that Tessa is not trying to hook me up with. Tessa herself is telling jokes, something she’s no good at, while Derrick smiles at her adoringly, not correcting her when she totally messes up the punchline.
A ping of jealousy takes form in my belly. They’re lucky to have found one another, and I’m so happy for them. But Tessa wasn’t even looking for love when she and Derrick met. She was too invested in her career to date, yet that all changed when he crashed his shopping cart into hers at the grocery store.
Instalove. That’s what they call it. They got married six months later.
Despite how much I love them both, sitting here, waiting for another random setup is more than a little uncomfortable, so I excuse myself and head to the bar.
Squeezing into the only open space, I decide to stand rather than sit. “Jill,” I call out when I see she’s alone.
Lifting her head, she breaks out into a bright smile. Her long auburn hair is pulled into a messy knot on top of her head, with long tendrils spilling down her neck. A dusting of freckles covers her nose the same way it did when she was a kid.
“What are you drinking?” she calls over the noisy crowd.
“What’s your specialty?”
She cocks her head and sinks her teeth into her lower lip. “I’ve been working on something pretty spectacular, actually. It’s rum-based. Do you want to try it?”
The idea of taste testing perks me up instantly. “Absolutely.”
Jill throws different color liquors together and splashes a bubbly substance on top. She tops it off with a lime and sticks a thin straw into the glass, then passes it down to me.
As I lean in and take a sip, her eyes dance in excitement.
I take a slow sip, savoring the way the cherry and orange flavors burst on my tongue.
“Wow,” I say, licking my lips. “This is great.”
Her smile widens for an instant before it falls. “You’re not just saying that because you’re you?”
Mid-sip, I let out a loud snort, and liquid spills from my nose. Jill and I were friends for almost our entire childhood. She knows me almost as well as Tessa does, or at least, she used to. That means she remembers the nice me. The Kinzie who avoided confrontation at all costs. That Kinzie, though, no longer exists.
“For real,” I laugh. “This is great.”
“I can’t believe you’re here.” She lets out a contagious sigh. “I didn’t think you’d show once I told Tessa that Ethan would be here.”
My chest gets tight as I process her words. “You talked to Tessa?”
“Yeah. She called to confirm this morning. I told her when Ethan’s not on duty, he’s either volunteering in Savannah with a group of his veteran friends, or he’s here, helping behind the bar.” She fills a shaker, preparing a martini for the woman next to me. “I didn’t know until then that you were the one who broke off the engagement for Victoria. Thank you for that, by the way.” She grins, pouring the drink into a martini glass. “Ethan left that part out. He only told us he saw you at Tessa’s house, but he did mention that you looked good.” She leans in close and waggles her brows.
My face flushes, but her words confuse me. If Tessa knew he’d be here, then she wouldn’t have made me come. Would she? My stomach drops. Dammit. It’s Ethan. Tessa planned this. He’s the reason I’m wearing this dress. That bitch.
I force a laugh to cover up the anger building inside me. “I’m about to be thirty. Ethan was a long time ago.” I take another sip to drown out visions of me smothering Tessa with a pillow. “Where is your brother, anyway?”
Jill points to the back hallway. “Ethan? He’s probably in the office. It’s just past the bathroom.”
With a hum, I suck down the rest of my drink. He and I need to have a conversation. I set my glass down, promising to catch up with her later, and make my way to where she directed. When I get to the door, I knock lightly, then turn the handle and let myself inside.
The room is expansive, with shelves of liquor lining one wall and boxes stacked below it on the floor. It’s dark, with the exception of a small table lamp against the back wall. There’s a faint glow escaping from under a door in the back corner, and just as I find the light switch, that door swings open.
Ethan emerges, shirtless. The sight of him pulls a sound that’s half yelp, half gasp from me.
“Kinzie?” he asks, surprised. His chest flexes, and his abdomen pulls tight, drawing attention to the defined muscles rippling against his bronze skin.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, fumbling with the switch. I turn it back off by accident and leave it that way. “I needed to talk to you about something, but it can wait.” I turn, ready to dart out the door, but freeze when his fingertips graze my arm.
“Wait,” he says. He flips the switch back on and closes the door.
I hold my breath. He’s so close that I can feel the heat from his body, and for a second, I think about what it would be like to touch him.
“I think we should talk,” he says stoically. He takes a few steps back, giving me room to breathe again, and pulls on a clean white T-shirt.
Clothed Ethan should be tolerable, right? But when the cotton clings to him like a second skin, I guffaw. It should be illegal to have muscles like his.
“Do you buy those in bulk?” I squeak. “Just in case your biceps split the seams while you’re handcuffing a bad guy?” The instant the words leave my mouth, I imagine myself in said handcuffs.
His eyes narrow, and for the briefest of moments, they heat, like maybe he’s thinking the same thing.
Shaking my head, I circle back to Ethan’s suggestion. “Yes. We need to talk. We have a problem.”
“And what kind of problem do we have?” he says, his words low and slow.
I smooth out the fabric of my dress. “This. This is a problem.”
He shakes his head, but his eyes glint in the light as he traces the path my hands make to the hem of my dress. “I don’t follow.”
I harrumph. “Tessa. She’s ruthless. She’s been trying to set me up with random guys for the past year. It used to be funny. But now she’s playing downright dirty, and it’s time for payback.”
“ Okay , but how does this involve—” His eyes go wide, and he snaps his mouth shut. “Oh.”
Good. He’s catching on.
“Exactly. Do you think this is how I dress every day?” I ask, my voice pitching with impatience.
“No, but—”
“Do you remember in high school when Trevor Johnson got Laryngitis? You had to take over as Romeo, and you nailed it. You had everyone believing you’d had the role from the start. You were so good that they gave you the role of Sherlock Holmes the following year.”
I take a step closer to him, forcing myself not to think about his sculpted body or his fuck-me eyes and instead concentrate on his acting abilities.
“Do you think you can go out there and do it again like old times?”
“Slow down, Kinzie.” Ethan places his hands up in an attempt to calm me down. That, or to put space between us. “What are you saying?”
I inhale for a beat and then release it, slowly and methodically. “I’m saying that I want you to go out there and pretend that Tessa’s plan worked so well that we can’t keep our hands off each other.”
His eyes flare, and his jaw drops open. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Does it look like I’m kidding?” I throw my arms out. “You have no idea what it’s been like this past year. She’s tried to set me up with a taxidermist who gave me a stuffed skunk when he showed up for our date.” A shudder works its way down my spine. “Then there was the racecar enthusiast. And not the kind who drives actual race cars. He was more or less the type who sits in his parents’ basement playing video games so much that during our first conversation, he was wearing a headset and talking to three other people. And don’t get me started on her surprise attacks. Dr. Tim was just one in a long line of men who keep showing up unannounced. If I allow her to do this and she fails, she’s only going to push harder.”
Shifting his weight, Ethan ducks his head, his expression thoughtful. Finally, he straightens again. “A skunk?”
“For real? You’re hung up on the skunk? Not the fact that Tessa placed a target on your back too?”
“If I do this, then we, what? Pretend to be into one another? For how long? And how does this teach her a lesson?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t had time to think it all through. But we have to start tonight. She has to see us hit it off. It has to be subtle if we want her to believe it. Living so far apart can be part of our demise, but we’ll have to end it so disastrously that she’ll never try setting me up again.”
Frowning, he takes a step closer. “Live so far away? Didn’t you just buy that house?”
My heart squeezes, and I have to fight the urge to let my shoulders slump. “No. Somebody outbid me. It was for the best.”
Ethan blows out a long and steady breath, then closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “What do you want me to do?”