22. Presley
Chapter 22
Presley
Night Hawk is bursting at the seams, just like I expected it to be. Kade is teaching an early line-dancing class while the band that played last week is here to provide live music. Later, they’re doing late-night bull rides.
I feel better equipped to handle the very enthusiastic crowd this shift, and Stu is working the other end of the bar while a new guy named Dan is on tables. He’s only here for the fall—someone’s friend from a neighboring town—and Jake roped him in to help.
Jake checks in on me now and then, but otherwise, I’m on my own and doing great. The comforting sound of the fiddle player and the smooth baritone of the lead singer’s voice helps me keep a nice rhythm. The tempo helps ease the anxiety I felt returning to work after yesterday. Thankfully, I haven’t seen Marié, though I didn’t think I would two nights in a row.
I tap my foot to the fiddle player’s version of “If You’re Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band)” by Alabama—a classic for a place like this, a fun one people like to dance to. I serve a customer their gin and tonic then pour multiple tequila shots to a group of women who are talking about Kade. His Southern drawl—which he’s laying on thick for the crowd—reaches the bar as he calls out dance moves into a microphone.
A blonde woman in the group squeals. “I stuffed my number in the back of his jeans pocket.”
Her friend whacks her on the shoulder. “Oh my god; I did, too!” They both dissolve into buzzed giggles.
“Did you see his ass in those tight Wranglers?”
“Girl, if he asked me to go out to his truck right now, I would.”
Their tinkling laughter grates on my nerves as I push the shots toward them. “Here you are. Do you have a tab?”
“Yes, under Annie.”
I nod, and they lay down some cash for a tip before she distributes the glasses to her friends. They clink their glasses and down their shots before going back out to the dance floor.
Kade is surrounded by women, but they manage to work their way back in. I expect Kade to throw his arm around one of them or shoot them a flirty gaze, but instead, his head lifts, and our eyes lock.
He winks at me, and I think my heart stops in my chest. Was he looking for me? No. Why would he? We’re just—I don’t know what we are. But I don’t think we’re seeing each other.
It’s not like we’ve had a chance to talk about last night that much. After we finished our horseback-riding lesson, Kade exercised a few more horses while I watched, then we helped with the early-evening clean and feed of the horses.
He disappeared after that while I took a shower and got ready for work, but when he came back, we rode together to Night Hawk, and he was quiet the entire ride. I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but I got the vibe he didn’t want to talk about it. I wondered if it had something to do with what he told me about his relationship with his brother. Maybe they got into an argument or something else happened when we were apart for those couple of hours.
The blonde woman, Annie, throws her arms around Kade’s neck, and his body wavers under her weight. I bite the inside of my cheek, my hand gripping the bottle of tequila as my stomach sours .
Am I jealous? That can’t be what I’m feeling. I don’t have any claim on him. I shake my head and let go of the tequila bottle, not wanting to address that thought. After I’ve sucked in a calming breath, I walk over to the POS system so I can add the shots to Annie’s tab before I forget.
“Hey, Stu, do you mind if I borrow Presley for ten minutes?” My head pops up to see Kade in front of me. He’s grinning from beneath the brim of a dark-brown cowboy hat, the white T-shirt he’s wearing instead of the usual black Night Hawk uniform clinging to his muscles. The sweat he’s accumulated from teaching line dancing for the last hour only accentuates his lean form. My mouth goes dry, and thoughts of other women hanging on him go out the window.
“Yep, I’ll get Dan to cover,” Stu yells over the noise, grinning while he looks between me and Kade.
“Come on, Lemon,” Kade says. He’s standing next to me now, holding out his hand.
“Why?”
The words are out of me before I can think it through, and Kade chuckles. “I need a dance partner.”
I scan all the women on the dance floor before my eyes land on Annie, who is shooting me evil daggers with her dark-brown eyes. “You have lots of women to choose from.”
Kade crosses his arms over his chest, and I watch the way his forearms and biceps bulge. It has me thinking of what they looked like as he spanked me, as he held me by the throat, gently squeezing. I inhale a sharp breath, as if I can feel his hands on me again right now, and my eyes close.
“Presley,” Kade says, his mouth closer to my ear now. “Are you thinking about our time in the barn loft?”
My eyes fly open, and embarrassment floods me, but I don’t step back. “No.”
He raises one eyebrow. “Hmm, another fib to pay for. Now, come on. Let’s dance. ”
This is the second time now he’s said something about paying for my little white lies, but he grabs my hand and tugs on it so I can’t think too much about it. I tug back. “Kade, I’m not a good dancer. You have other options.”
He stops and turns to face me. “I don’t want other options.”
His words freeze my heart again, and my stomach flutters. My ears don’t—can’t—believe the words that just came out of his mouth. Then the two-man band starts to play a slow song, “Something in the Orange” by Zach Bryan, and I hear a few groans.
“Trust me.” He smiles so I can see a tease of his dimples. “This will be easier than riding Big John.” I relent and mirror his joy. It’s nice to see him acting more like the Kade I know after that quiet car ride.
“Okay, fine.”
He whoops a silly holler and tugs me to the floor. There are a few couples dancing, but Annie and her friends have grouped off to the side. They’re still staring at me.
“I thought this was line-dancing night,” I say quietly, watching the couples dance around us.
“I’m done for the night. Now it’s free dance before we do bull riding at ten.”
My eyes widen. “Then why did you ask me to the dance floor?”
He pulls me to him in a confident hold, his left hand gripping my right while his other hand takes mine, placing it on his shoulder. Then he moves his arm to my hip and places his right hand on my lower shoulder so we’re in a basic dance position.
“I told you. I need a dance partner.”
I puff out a breath. When he asked me to the floor, I thought it was to help with some dance moves or something, not just to dance with me for fun.
“Kade, we’re supposed to be working.”
He shrugs nonchalantly. “You needed a break.”
“And you thought I’d want to dance on my break?”
He chuckles and pulls me closer. “You really don’t want to slow dance with me?”
My skin sings under his playful gaze. “Kade,” I try again, though my voice isn’t chiding anymore. “I don’t want to get fired.”
“For the last time, Jake isn’t going to fire you. Especially for taking a ten-minute break.”
I huff. “You’re annoying, you know that?”
“Good. I like annoying you. Now let’s dance, Lemon.”
I try to stop the anxiety curling inside me from rearing its ugly head—not just from Kade asking me to dance but from all the women who wanted to go home with him tonight and are mentally murdering me right now.
Even though we’ve just begun to dance, I’m waiting for one of them to cut in, but I hope they don’t. Because despite how obnoxious he can be, it feels nice to be in his arms. It feels even nicer that he chose me out of all these beautiful women, ones who were literally shoving numbers in his pants all night. The only time I ever felt chosen was the night I met Derek, but I think that was all a lie. He was just using me. Even then—
Kade puts pressure on my shoulder and squeezes the hand he’s holding so I focus back on him. “Stop thinking,” he reminds me. “Just feel the music. Transfer your weight from foot to foot, and I’ll lead you.”
“Okay.” I exhale and start to list off things in my head, trying to clear my mind as we begin to sway to the music. Happiness, New Zealand, eggs, baseball…spanking. My cheeks flush.
He cocks his head to the side. “Where did you just go right now?” He leads me around the dance floor as we fall into step with the other couples.
“Um…well.” Heat rises up my neck. “I kind of list things off sometimes to help me when I’m anxious or nervous.”
His face brightens as if I’ve clicked something into place for him. “Is that why I thought you were talking to yourself about groceries yesterday?”
I bite my lip. “Sort of. You list things that don’t have association with each other. It helps when you’re spiraling. Sometimes, if I’m having a hard time falling asleep, I use it then, too.”
“Does it really work?”
“Most of the time.”
Kade uses the pause at the end of my sentence to push me out gently so there’s space between us then turns me under his arm. I go off-balance a little but then he pulls me back in. I fall into his chest, laughing at my clumsiness.
He smiles down at me. “Are you thinking anything now?”
I peer into his hazel irises and find myself smiling so that my eyes crinkle around the corners. “You,” I breathe out. “I’m thinking about you.”
I know I could have lied and said I was thinking about nothing, but I’m sick of lies and being fake. I just want something real.
Kade’s features relax, and he doesn’t say anything. He just pulls me closer so our bodies don’t have space between them, and I feel his lips touch the crown of my head as he lays a kiss there. I tense and try to pull back because we’re in public—and at work—but Kade is quick to stop me.
“Don’t, Presley,” he says. Begs. “Please. Just stay for this dance.”
The pleading in his voice makes me give in, letting myself indulge in the way he clutches me like I’m a slat of wood floating in the ocean, like a life raft for him to grab onto. Nobody has ever held me like this. Come to think of it, nobody has ever danced with me like this. Or even asked me to dance. I inhale a long breath through my nose before exhaling, allowing my muscles to relax against him, to soak in his strength and to feel wanted.
“Isn’t this cute.”
I pull back from Kade at the deep, mocking male voice, and he jolts at the jerky movement. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, the turkey sandwich I ate earlier threatening to make a reappearance.
I clench my fists at my sides, anxiety licking at the base of my neck like hot flames as I stare into the slate-gray eyes I’ve come to loathe. I guess Marié saw me yesterday after all.
Eff my life.
Though I’d rather run the other direction, I turn to face my ex-boyfriend. “What the hell are you doing here, Derek?”
He smirks, the kind of slimy grin that makes my skin crawl as if it’s covered in a thousand spiders. “I’ve come to talk to you, P. We have business to discuss.”