Chapter 26. Haley
Haley
THREE YEARS AGO
The problem with living in a small town is that everyone knows exactly how old you are. That means no fake IDs, no sneaking into bars, and no ordering alcohol at the Roadhouse Bar & Restaurant.
Not that it ever stopped me from trying.
“I’ll have a double burger with home fries and a gin and tonic.
” I handed my menu to Colette. She’d been in the same grade as my brother Matt before they graduated, but I was hoping she didn’t remember me.
Paige and I had boldly walked into the “over 21” section and were still high on the fact that no had stopped us.
“We don’t serve alcohol to minors,” Colette said, sweeping her thick auburn hair back behind her shoulder.
“I have ID.” I pulled out the fake ID Paige and I had made using an illegal software program and the laminating machine at her mother’s office.
Colette studied the card. “Maria Gomez. Is that you?”
“Sí.” I kept my eyes on Colette because I knew that if I looked at Paige across the table, I’d start to laugh. I could already hear her snicker.
“You look exactly like Haley Chapman, who just had her seventeenth birthday party at Pinz Bowling Alley eight months ago,” Colette said. “I remember because I was there with my cousin. It was his birthday, too.”
Busted . I’d never liked Colette. She’d gone on a few dates with Matt and then dumped him for the captain of the football team. Karma had caught up with her though. Her new boyfriend had gone to Northwestern on a football scholarship and never looked back.
“C’mon, Colette,” I wheedled. “Just one drink. Seventeen is practically nineteen and nineteen is the new twenty-one.”
Colette tossed the fake card on the table. “We’ve got soda, water, and juice, and if you hurry you can get the last table near the window in the family section of the restaurant.”
“Her brother is about to deploy,” Paige said. “Doesn’t that count for something? Have a heart.”
“I’ll have no job if I serve you alcohol, but I do know about a big house party happening tonight…”
Paige and I leaned forward. A party would be even better than the bar. We could drink as much alcohol as we wanted, and no one would be there to stop us.
“Where is it?” Paige asked.
Colette lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t see a tip on the table.”
“We didn’t order anything,” Paige protested.
“I believe you just ordered an address.”
“Two hamburgers and two Cokes that we’ll enjoy in the family section.” I put some money on the table. “I hope that’s enough to cover all the costs.”
“Nope.”
Paige added a few more dollars and Colette smiled.
“Tyler Richards’s house. His parents are away for the weekend.
He’s invited a ton of people. I’m heading there after my shift.
Should be fun.” She scooped up the money and we went back to the restaurant and grabbed a table beside a family with two screaming kids.
“Why don’t we just forget the food and go there now?” Paige grimaced when a french fry flew over her head and landed on the table.
“We need to eat before we drink. I heard Matt and Ace talking about it one time. You’re supposed to coat your stomach so you can drink more.”
“What if they show up?”
“They won’t,” I said. “They decided to spend their last night at home gaming. I told Matt we were coming here for a meal and then going back to your place. He won’t suspect a thing.”
Two hours later, Paige and I were blitzed, and Tyler’s party was going strong. We were taking a breather at the edge of the outdoor patio overlooking the beach after a crazy hour of dancing.
“Some of Matt’s friends from high school are here.” Paige sipped her pina colada. With over one hundred people scattered throughout the house and on the beach, no one was keeping track of who was seventeen and who was over twenty-one. “His baseball buddy Lucas is checking me out.”
“If I was into girls, I’d check you out in that dress, too.” She was wearing a sleeveless lime-green dress with a plunging neckline that would have put me at risk of indecent exposure. I’d chosen a tight black dress with a sweetheart neckline that could keep my girls in check.
“He’s waving me over. He wants me to dance with him.” She stumbled back on her heels, saved from a fall by the massive potted plant behind her.
“I’ll come with you.” I was about to follow her to make sure Lucas did, in fact, just want to dance, when the crowds parted, and Ace walked through the patio door.
Damn. If Ace was at the party, then so was Matt, which meant I wouldn’t be there for long.
I moved into the shadows at the edge of the patio and took the opportunity to drink my fill of Ace.
He’d stopped coming by the house as often after the night I sat beside him on the couch, and when he did, he rarely spoke to me.
Then he’d joined the air force, and the few times he’d been home, he’d stayed at his grandmother’s place and Matt had gone to see him there.
But it was a night for indulgence. He was deploying in the morning, and I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again, so I took my time, studying every inch of him, committing him to memory.
Dark hair, cut military short. Dark eyes.
Tanned skin. He’d mentioned once that his mom was Italian, and it showed in his sensual mouth and the sweep of his thick lashes.
He was bigger than I remembered—more muscular.
He’d definitely been working out. He wore a pair of jeans low on his hips, and a black T-shirt that clung to the ridges of his broad chest and rippled abs.
He wasn’t classically handsome, but something about the way he looked always took my breath away.
Our gazes met. Locked. His eyes swept down my body and then up again. Slow and sensual, his visual caress sent tingles through my body.
My cheeks flamed, and my stomach flipped. Even if this was all I got, I would always remember the way he looked at me that night.
And then he was there, standing in front of me, his body a breath away from mine.
In the few moments we’d stared at each other, I’d imagined a dozen different things he might say: You’re beautiful. I want you. I’ve been waiting for you all my life.
“Paige is wasted,” he said. “You need to get her away from Lucas.”
I bit back my disappointment. “I’m keeping an eye on her.” I glanced over at Paige flailing in front of Lucas, lost to the music. “She’ll be fine.”
His head bent, his dark hair tickling my cheek. I inhaled deeply and the scent of his cologne sent a wave of heat between my legs. Powerful. Primal. Utterly masculine. If I were writing a song about it, I’d have called it “Killer Instinct.”
“Are you fine, too?” he murmured in my ear, the deep, rich sound of his voice curling around me like a warm blanket on a cold winter night.
I wasn’t fine. Not with Ace standing so close. Looking at me. Speaking to me. Treating me like I was a normal girl, and not his off-limits, uninteresting, last-person-he’d-ever-want-to-be-with best friend’s little sister.
“I’m good. I can hold my liquor.” I immediately regretted my words, but instead of chastising me, Ace just smiled. “I know.”
Did he know I could hold my liquor, or did he know I was good?
And if the former, how did he know I could drink like a champ and still walk a straight line home?
He’d only ever seen me drunk that one time at the high school dance, and even then, I was sober enough to understand just what was going on.
“Where’s Matt?” I figured that was why he was here, and since there was no way Matt would let me stay, I might as well get the lecture over with.
“Your mom’s dishwasher broke after dinner. He’s trying to get it fixed before he leaves.”
Of course he was. Matt didn’t care that this was his last night before his first deployment, or that he might not see his friends for a very long time.
He didn’t think about how he needed to kick back and relax or mentally prepare himself for what lay ahead.
Mom needed him. He was there. Just like he was always there for me, even when I didn’t want him.
“I thought dishwasher repair was your jam.” Ace was always fixing things around our house.
He loved to take machines apart and put them together again, much more so than Matt, who was more academically inclined.
Usually, they’d work together, with Matt reading through instruction manuals and Ace putting the information into practice.
“When Matt got a message about the party, I knew you’d be here,” he said. “You seem to have a knack for finding your way into places you shouldn’t be.”
“You and Matt went to parties when you were my age,” I countered. “No one showed up to drag you away.”
“We had more self-control.”
I snorted a laugh. “Is that what you call Matt throwing up in the bushes outside the house or being so hungover he couldn’t go to school?”
“One of us had self-control.” He glanced over at Paige. “In your case, it’s usually Paige, but tonight it looks like the roles are reversed.”
“I didn’t want to be hungover when Matt leaves tomorrow,” I admitted. “It’s been so great to have him home. He’s different now. Nicer and not so bossy. We didn’t fight once. I’m really going to miss him.” I hesitated, biting my lower lip. “What if he doesn’t come back?”
“You don’t need to worry,” he assured me. “We’ll be deployed together. I’ll watch out for him.”
“Promise me you’ll keep him safe,” I begged him. “You know what he’s like. He’ll forget about his own safety if someone is in trouble. I need him home, Ace. I need you to protect him.”
“I promise I will keep him safe, bug. He’ll come home to you.” Ace’s eyes softened and he gently tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. His hand lingered for a moment, fingers brushing the curve of my neck.
My breath hitched, and I shot a look at Paige, mentally screaming, “Ace touched me,” but she was still lost in her own world of alcohol-inspired interpretive dance.
“Do you want to go for a walk on the beach?” Ace asked.
A tremor ripped through my body. I don’t know if it was his tone, or his words, or the fact that this was D-night, but after years of crushing on him despite knowing he didn’t want me, my dreams were suddenly coming true.
“I should keep an eye on Paige.” I wanted to go with him. So desperately that I could taste it. But I got bad vibes from Lucas, and I couldn’t leave her alone.
“Then I guess we’re dancing.” He dropped his hands to my hips and pulled me close.
“We’re dancing.” I repeated the words so that I would remember them, remember how he pulled my body against his, how his hands felt on my hips, how I could feel his heat as he moved against me.
It was heaven. It was hell. It was everything in between. I closed my eyes and let the rhythm find me, dancing in time to the pulse of arousal between my legs in a magically reversed night when anything was possible.
Stay cool. Ace is dancing with you. He probably felt sorry for you because Matt’s leaving again, and you were standing here alone while Paige is having fun with Lucas.
Ace’s arms tightened around my waist, and he drew me closer. I could feel the hard muscles of his chest, the ridges of his six-pack, and the unmistakable press of his erection against my hips. I slid my arms over his shoulders and rocked gently against him.
Ace groaned so softly I almost wondered if I’d heard it. He liked the feel of me against him. He liked it enough to risk Matt’s wrath.
“Haley.” My name was a whisper on his lips, a deep rumble in his chest. The air around us was charged, liquid, like an invisible river of desire flowing between us.
“Ace?” My words fell away abruptly when his lips grazed my neck, sending electricity skittering across my skin. I didn’t understand what was going on. After all these years, when he’d barely spoken to me, when he’d explicitly told Matt I was the last girl he’d ever be with, why did he want me now?
“Could I kiss you goodbye?” he whispered.
My heart pounded so hard I thought I’d break a rib. Ace wanted to kiss me, or had I misunderstood? “As friends?”
“I don’t think I could be your friend.” His voice dropped, husky and low. “I want you too much. I’ve wanted you for a very long time.” His hand fisted in my hair and he gently tugged my head to the side, baring my neck to the heated slide of his lips.
There was only one answer. There had only ever been one answer. I didn’t care that he’d told Matt he didn’t want me, because I wanted him. “Yes, Ace. Kiss me goodbye.”
Without waiting, without warning, he cupped my nape and crushed his mouth against mine. His lips were soft, his breath sweet with whiskey, and my arms tightened around his neck, dragging him closer until we were one person, not two.
It wasn’t just a kiss. It was a joining of bodies, a melding of souls. Deep down I knew it was a mistake, but I couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, and when he groaned, something snapped inside me.
“Fuck.” He groaned into my mouth. “Haley. Jesus. Fuck.”
I whimpered in response, fisting his hair, my body taut with an urgency that wiped away every rational thought in my brain.
He lifted me against him and pushed me up against the brick wall deep in the shadows, kissing me with a ferocity that had me panting his name before we were lost again in the heat of desire.
We clung to each other, my legs around his waist, his arms around my shoulders, lips on lips and tongues tangled, kissing and kissing and kissing like we would never get another chance and once we stopped the world would stop, too.
“Matt,” someone shouted in the distance. “Glad you could make it.”
We froze mid-kiss, and Ace dropped me so quickly, I almost lost my footing.
He gave me a cursory once-over and adjusted my dress, pulling it down over my hips with a firm yank.
A chill replaced the heat that had burned between us, hitting me like a cold wave and washing away the haze of lust that had clouded my senses.
“Goodbye, bug.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead.
And then he walked away.