Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
JENSEN
I don’t know if it’s because she’s watching me, standing there in that tight little fringe dress, but I clean house tonight.
The first guy taps out in ten minutes. The second takes a few longer, but he goes down and stays down. I bow out of the next fight because I’m getting tired. If I’m being honest, I’m worn out from staying up all night with Della. Even for me, six rounds, start to finish, is a lot.
I take her hand in my filthy one and lead her back to the table. Jack arches a brow as he tosses me a bottle of water.
“Peacocking pretty hard out there, bud,” he says.
I flip him off. Della is already flushed, but she goes darker pink. I towel off and slide my arm around her waist, sinking down on a stool. She leans into me, but there’s a faint tension in her body that wasn’t there before.
“What did you say your name was?” Jack says, leaning on the counter.
“Della,” she says, voice soft.
He doesn’t speak, but I see his eyes narrow.
It’s bothering me that he’s being such a buzzkill.
For the first time in years, I’m on cloud nine.
There’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen with my arm around her waist. Tonight, I’m going back home with her, riding the high of winning in the ring. Nothing can bring me down.
“You want to get out of here?” I say.
She nods. “Yeah, I’ll go wherever you like.”
Jack gives me a look, but I drop a twenty on the bar, take my winnings, and stand. He’s not fucking this up for me. She puts her hand in mine, and I lead her back through the crowd. Jack’s eyes follow us, like he’s trying to figure something out. Then, he disappears as we leave the building.
“That was something else,” she says.
I glance back at her, and my stomach jerks. She’s so damn pretty, hair a glowing halo in the firelight. We get to the truck, and I can’t stand it anymore. I pull her in and kiss her like I mean it, not like I’m just horny.
I want her again, slow and deep, until the sun rises.
She pulls back. “You alright there?”
“Yeah, you just look good,” I say, opening the truck and lifting her in. “You want to get a drink with me before we go home?”
I get in the truck. I’m close enough now to see her blush.
“Yeah,” she says, voice shaky. “I’d like that.”
My heart is pounding all the way to the little honky-tonk place on Main Street.
There’s no way I’m showing up at Jack’s bar tonight.
I want privacy after his attitude. She looks up at the lights, and I swerve a bit off the road staring at her.
She gasps, hand clamping on my forearm. I right the truck and pull into the city parking lot.
“Sorry,” I say. “You just look so damn good.”
She rolls her eyes. I take her by the back of the neck and kiss her again. My nerve endings tingle. There’s a feeling of coming home with her that I haven’t felt in a long time. Or maybe I’ve never felt it before tonight.
We break apart. Her eyes are huge.
“Let’s go dancing, baby,” I say.
She smiles, hesitantly. “You’re gonna dance with me?”
I nod, pushing open the door. “I can dance alright.”
“Alright,” she says. “Let’s get to it.”
We walk across the street and enter the bar. It’s pretty full, and there’s a band playing in the corner. I check my phone. It’s getting late. The music is slow and syrupy. The lights are low, and the space feels intimate. Keeping my arm around her waist, I guide her to the bar.
“What can I get you?” I ask, turning to her.
She studies the drinks, her nose wrinkling. “How about white wine?”
“So you’re not a beer drinker?”
“It’s alright, depends on the brand.” She shrugs, smiling. “I was trying to fit in.”
I laugh, leaning on the counter. “You don’t seem like the type to care.”
She leans in, sobering. We’re so close, I can count the freckles on her skin.
Her lashes are soft like a dark feather.
When she smiles, she has laughter lines on one side, but not the other.
There’s a tiny overlap between her front teeth.
The little details of her are what make her so familiar, I think, but I don’t know why.
She lifts her fingers, touching the indent on my cheek. I have one dimple, and I see her looking at it when I smile.
She’s noticing the little details too.
“You’re so pretty,” she says wistfully.
My brain goes in two directions at once. The first side makes me think of Miss Holly and her calling me pretty that day in her kitchen. How I felt kind of embarrassed, like I wanted to rub the back of my neck and look at the ground. The other side tells me it’s alright when Della says it.
The room melts away. There’s only her, looking at me with soft eyes.
She feels like grace, a break in the clouds.
Relief.
“Sorry, did I say that wrong?” she whispers.
“No,” I say, leaning in. “You couldn’t say anything wrong.”
I’m tripping, falling, sliding all the way down to the bottom of a place I can’t crawl out of. But this time, I don’t want to get out. No, I’m staying here all night, and in the morning, I’m asking her to stay with me for a while longer.
We don’t know a lot about each other, but I have a feeling that will come.
Forgetting about the drinks, I slip my hand around her waist and steer her backwards to the dance floor.
There are a few other couples, bodies close as they sway to the soft music.
I want to be like them, normal and falling for somebody I could build a future with.
I pull her near, and she goes, hesitant at first. Then, she melts and puts her head on my chest.
I feel it again.
Something new.
This time, when I think about the first time I fell for someone, it hurts less. With her body in my arms, perhaps I could move forward instead of just living in hiding. Maybe everything is alright. Maybe this is my break.
“You alright?” she whispers.
“I’m better than alright,” I say.
We don’t speak for a while. We just exist in a comfortable, golden haze.