8. EIGHT
EIGHT
GARRETT
The first thing I thought was that I couldn’t believe she was actually doing it. The second thing was that not only was she doing it, but she could actually dance. Not in the drunken way that instilled even the most rhythmless of people with the ability to dance, or in the typical “girl in a bar” way. No, she danced as if her blood heard the music and harmonized with her body, her muscles and bones every bit the instruments that made up the melody.
Her long, dark hair flew over her shoulders as she finished sliding across the bar on her knees, somehow managing to avoid the glasses of the patrons sitting there. Playing the air guitar should’ve looked ridiculous, but the way her teeth bit into her full lower lip as she strummed fake chords, only had my pants growing uncomfortably tight. Shifting did nothing to ease the situation.
Scanning the room and taking note of how many men were in the bar, I suddenly regretted ever daring her to do this. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that she wouldn’t back down from it. Her confidence was one of the things I found most attractive about her.
As I watched her get down from the bar with impossible grace, I felt Kinsley and Hayes at my side, the former of whom just clucked her tongue with a knowing smirk.
“Bet you didn’t know she could dance.”
I shook my head and took a sip of beer, my eyes tracking Cory’s every movement. She was straddling a chair and singing into a ketchup bottle, her hand wrapped firmly around the glass, and I wasn’t sure which I wanted to be more, the chair or the ketchup bottle.
I’d been quiet for too long apparently, Hayes just whistled under his breath while Kinsley was grinning like a blonde Chesire cat.
“Welcome to the club, buddy.” Hayes clapped me on the shoulder.
“What club?”
A grin and then an answer.
The answer which I already knew on some deeper level, but didn’t know was so obvious to everyone around me. An answer I needed desperately to not be true, even as it very much was. “The Lovesick Club.”
“I’m not lovesick.” I tried not to sound too defensive. Hayes was a human lie detector after all, and his wife was just as good. Or as bad, as my luck would have it.
“Maybe.” Kinsley smirked, her blue eyes sparkling with amusement. “But even if you aren’t, which you totally are, you will be. ”
The song came to an end and Cory returned the ketchup to the table she’d stolen it from. The bartender passed her phone back to her along with another drink.
Grabbing her pool cue from where I’d rested it against the table, she turned those warm eyes on me. “Does that satisfy the dare?”
I tried to play it cool, especially with Kinsley and Hayes’s remarks still taking up residence in my head, even as they slinked back to the table. But watching the quickened rise and fall of her chest, everything about her in this moment wild and carefree, I had to fight the urge to take her face in my hands and kiss her senseless.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, that’ll do.”
She rolled her eyes. “Great, then it’s my turn.”
We were about halfway through our game. Cory had just three balls and the eight ball remaining, where I had four and the eight.
Her gaze assessed the table as she walked slowly around it, mentally lining up her next shot, and likely the one after that. She set her drink down on the wooden edge framing the felt, and bent over the table.
I’d been fighting the urge to look at her ass the whole evening, trying to be a gentleman, but those jeans were made for her. Visions of coming up behind her and bending her even further over until her chest was flat against the table, her hands clasped above her head in one of mine raced through my mind. The breathy moans that would escape those perfect lips as I slipped a hand down the front of her pants—
I looked away. Asking her to play pool with me was a terrible idea. It was testing the self-control that I was desperately clinging to while I tried to figure out where Cory’s hesitation was coming from. She’d made it perfectly clear that our night two years ago was a one time thing. I just didn’t understand why when our chemistry had been explosive. I didn’t have to do drugs to know that she had been addicting in a way no substance would ever compare. But I was determined to find out.
She took her shot, the green striped ball she’d been aiming for sinking into the pocket.
“Why’d you decide to become a police officer?”
Her questions were at odds with the way she seemed to want to play this game. She didn’t want to get to know me, or for me to get to know her, yet she asked incredibly personal questions, almost as if she was at war with herself.
“I’ve just always wanted to help people, and this was the best way I knew how.”
“It’s got to be a tough field to be in nowadays.” She paused, hesitating. It was clear she wasn’t sure if she should say the next part, but I never knew Cory to hold back, and she didn’t. “A lot of people hate cops.”
I sipped my beer and nodded, contemplating it. “I’m okay with that.”
“Why?” Surprise lit her features. “Why would you be okay with that?”
“Because people only hate us until they need us, and I hope all the time that no one has to need us. ”
Her lips parted slightly, and she just blinked at me for a moment. “That’s incredibly selfless.”
I shrugged. “It’s not all that selfless. The uniform is a huge bonus.” I threw her a wink, knowing she’d appreciate me diffusing the seriousness of the moment.
She snorted a laugh and took her next shot, but missed.
And unfortunately for her, she’d set me up perfectly.
The first shot I took I could’ve done blind-folded, but now for a question. It was a balancing act. Push too far on the wrong topics, and she’d choose a dare, as was evident by my previous three balls.
I thought for a calculated moment and then decided on, “So, you can dance?”
“Is that your question?” She quirked an eyebrow and leveled me with a look from across the table.
“All right, wise ass. I mean how do you know how to dance like that? What’s the story?”
I watched it all play out on her face, the debate on whether this was safe for her to tell me or not. In the end, I’d finally won out.
“I did ballet for fourteen years, but I hated it. I mean, I was good, but I had to be. My mother wouldn’t accept anything less than perfection. Anyway, I quit when I was seventeen. It’s actually where Kinsley and I met. Right, Kins?” She shouted the last part so Kinsley could hear it.
“Right! Whatever it is, right!”
We all laughed.
“You know you two could come back over here instead of sitting and watching from all the way over there, right?” I called, but in all honesty I wanted them to stay over at the table. Close enough to make Cory comfortable, but far enough away so that I didn’t have to share her attention.
“Nah, we’re good over here!” Hayes called back, pulling Kinsley closer to him, and I hated the look on his face. The one that said he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Okay, but just so you guys know, it’s not that dark of a corner, so keep it PG,” Cory called before returning her gaze to me. “You’re up again.”
The next shot was almost as easy as the first.
“Your mom sounds like a piece of work. Is she really that bad?”
The question was pushing it, and not unlike the others I’d asked before. Actually, this was even more direct, but there was something there, and I felt like it was the key to unlocking a big part of who Cory was.
She actually looked around the bar, as if she could spot what might inspire my next dare, and determine if it was worth it or not. Then she shocked the hell out of me.
“Yes. She’s really that bad.” And maybe it was the drinks loosening her up, or maybe she finally realized I wasn’t going to use whatever information she shared against her, but she continued.
“I’m an only child. My parents got lucky with me, but they were never able to have any other children.” She took a deep breath and continued. “Which would’ve been fine if I turned out exactly as my mother wanted, but I didn’t, and she resents me for it. Hate might actually be a better word. ”
I thought of my own mother. How unconditionally she supported, loved, and cared for me and my sister. “She can’t hate you. You’re her daughter.”
A bitter scoff left her as she said, “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. She hates me because I’m her daughter.” She toys with the straw in her now empty glass. “I was accepted to Juilliard. Had a full ride, actually. Not that I applied. My mother filled the application out for me on her own, and I had no idea until a woman from Juilliard called me for a callback audition. I turned it down. That was the day I told her I was going to be a tattoo artist. I had already gotten a tattoo at that point, but turning down Julliard, a potential life of prestige, for tattooing? It was the last straw for Annette.”
“Where was your dad in all of this?” I wasn’t about to point out that this was technically a second question. If she was going to keep answering, I was going to keep asking.
“Oh, he’s around. He travels for work a lot, but he just goes along with my mother. Happy wife, happy life and all that.” She waved a hand through the air, trying to make light of the deep conversation.
“Bullshit. Your mom needs a leash.”
I must’ve said that a little too loudly because Kinsley’s laughter rang out behind me. But it was Cory’s laughter, her genuine, unguarded, happy laughter, that held my attention.
She shook her head. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Did I overstep?”
“God no! I actually think I like you more now. ”
I grinned, walking toward her side of the table. “Good, because our date would be terrible if you hated me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “The game isn’t over yet.”
“No, but it’s about to be.”
I sunk my last two balls in quick succession, bringing my questioning to lighter topics. What was her favorite dessert? Ice cream. Specifically, Moose Tracks. If she could only play one board game or card game for the rest of her life, what would it be? Monopoly, the little psychopath. But then I missed my shot on the eight, and forfeited my streak over to her.
She was good, I’d give her that. She sunk her last two balls, tying us up, but it was clear she was nervous. Her questions lacked the depth and thought of her previous ones. What was my favorite candy? Cookies and Cream chocolate bar. If I could only use one utensil for every meal, which would I choose? Undoubtedly a fork.
Kinsley and Hayes had finally joined us at the table, suddenly very interested in the outcome, and I knew it had nothing to do with a love for pool.
She lined up her shot on the eight ball. “Eight ball, that pocket.” She gestured to the side pocket closest to me. It was an interesting choice, and not the one I would’ve made, but I held my breath all the same, as she pulled her cue back and then sent it into the cue ball. The eight ball shot toward the pocket, and bounced off the corner.
“Shit!” She groaned.
“Eight ball, that pocket.” It was going to be a tricky shot, but it was the only one I had, and I wasn’t going to miss it.
I made eye contact with her for a moment from across the table. The confident persona she wore all evening had slipped. If the way she tugged at her bottom lip and restlessly spun the cue between her fingers was any indication, I’d say she was nervous.
I pulled my cue back and then shoved it forward into the cue ball. The satisfying sound of ball-hitting-ball resonated from my called pocket, and I smiled up at her.
Walking around the table, I placed my hand on the back of her neck, squeezing lightly, and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I look forward to our date.”
She looked over her shoulder, her face suddenly very close to mine. The lush pink of her lips parted on an inhale, and I couldn’t look away. Music played through the bar’s speakers, loud conversations were taking place all around us, and yet, all I could hear, all I could see, was her. The breathiness of her inhales, the fanning of her eyelashes as they roamed my face, the blush rushing to color her ivory cheeks. I felt my body moving closer, but I was helpless to stop it. She shifted slightly, her ass brushing up against my thigh.
“Fine, but you’ll find that I’m a very sore loser.” Her eyes darted to my mouth, as if she could sense I was going to kiss her.
“And you’ll find that I’m a very generous winner.”
Heat filled her gaze and she wet her lips before pressing them together, and I wanted to kiss her, right there in the middle of that dingy bar. But if I did, she’d spook and all chances of us going on a date, bet or otherwise, would go right out the window.
I managed to pull away against my body’s will, and smiled down at her. “Name a date and time, and I’ll pick you up. I know exactly what I’m going to do with you.”