Chapter 9
LUCY
Leslie had been right.
They did think I was a sex worker.
More than ten men—all older, some much, much, much older—had hit on me tonight, buying me drinks and propositioning me.
“How much?” one had asked, and even though he’d been attractive and smelled good, I told him with a smile I was waiting for someone and watched him shrug and walk away.
I didn’t want anyone. I wasn’t turned on at all. All I wanted to do was go home and get in bed and cry over the fact that the one man I wanted didn’t want me. Was maybe even on a date with someone else. Someone age-appropriate who held my future in her hands.
Currently, I was in the women’s bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror.
A sad but determined girl looked back. It was a look I recognized, one I’d seen in the mirror many times, when my parents rejected me, when I had milestones but no one to share them with.
Until I’d met Leslie, I’d never even really had a real friend, just boys who wanted to sleep with me and girls who wanted to keep me close so I didn’t sleep with their boyfriends… as if I would.
“You can do this, Braverman,” I told my reflection. “You need to do this. What, are you going to be, an eighty-year-old virgin because of a stupid childhood crush?”
I heard laughter. In the mirror, a woman stood behind me, watching. She grinned.
“Honey, I’ve been in your position. And I promise you, the only way to get over someone…”
Yeah, yeah.
“Is to get under someone else. I know,” I said.
“Good.” She wielded her lipstick at me like a baton. “Now, you go get yourself under someone.”
“Will do.”
I squared my shoulders, fixed my lipstick, and with one confident wink I didn’t feel, turned and headed back out to the lobby bar.
The bartender, a cute dude with glasses, nodded at me when I hopped back on the barstool I’d been sitting in earlier.
“Kept it safe for you,” he said. “Kept your drink safe for you, too.”
I blinked. “My drink?”
He tilted his head. “Gentleman on the other side of the bar bought it for you. Said you seemed like a French 75 kind of woman.”
I had no idea if I was a French 75 kind of woman. I didn’t even know what a French 75 was. I was a freshman in college; my drink of choice was tequila shots with too much salt and lime.
Still, I’d try it.
Searching out the man who’d gotten it for me, my eyes widened.
Because he was hot.
Tall, broad, blond, in a clearly bespoke suit and tie, he stared back at me with green, mischievous eyes and an easy smile. They were a paler green than Coach’s eyes, thank god.
Tipping the drink at the hot man, I took a sip.
It was way too sweet, and I tried not to make a face but failed.
I saw him laugh.
Then he rose from his seat and made his way over to me.
I waited, putting the drink down. I didn’t care that he’d bought it for me, there was no way I was drinking that.
“Not a French 75 woman, I take it?” the man inquired when he reached me.
“I guess not,” I said. “Honestly, I like tequila shots.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Well, I haven’t had a tequila shot in ten years, but there’s a first and last time for everything, I guess.”
I giggled. “Then let’s do shots.”
The bartender shook his head but pulled out a top-shelf tequila and poured two shots.
“I need training wheels,” I admitted, and he added a slice of lime and held out a saltshaker.
“I’ll take this,” the man standing next to me said, and grabbing the salt, held it out. “Want to give me your hand?” he asked, and I handed it to him. Bending down, he placed a kiss on the skin between my thumb and forefinger. The tiniest of tingles ran through me.
This one.
I was barely into him, but barely would have to be enough tonight.
Then he licked my hand and poured some salt on it.
I felt nothing.
“Ready?” he asked.
I wasn’t.
I really wasn’t.
But what choice did I have? It was either this—shots and sex—or go home and mope until I got old. I was a lot of things, but pathetic wasn’t one of them.
Although, isn’t it pathetic to lose your virginity to someone who you’re barely into just to avoid your feelings about someone else?
I ignored the bitch in my head and her honest question. I didn’t need that right now.
Lifting the shot glass with my other hand, I clinked it with the nameless man, looking into his eyes as I licked up the salt, poured the drink down my throat.
Fire burned through me, heating my insides and calming me down.
Yup, I could do this.
“So, what’s a beautiful woman like you doing at a place like this?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes, sucking on the lime, delighting in the way his eyes heated. “Does that line usually work for you?”
He moved in closer, running his free hand over my bare shoulder.
I was in a red dress that was tight enough to be a second skin.
It showed everything. I’d even been tempted to take a photo of myself and send it to Coach, but his perfunctory fatherly bullshit, or more likely, silence, would’ve hurt even more.
The man appreciated my dress; it was clear by the way his eyes roved over my body.
“Well?” he prompted.
I figured honesty wouldn’t hurt. “Trying to distract myself from silly heartbreak,” I said.
That made him cough. “What kind of man would be stupid enough to break your heart?”
I shrugged.
“An idiot. A fool,” he decided. “Complete moron to let you slip through his fingers. Lucky for me though, because I’m happy to pick up where he left off.” He held out his hand. “My name’s Sam.”
Something prompted me to say, “Lacy.”
Why, I didn’t know, but giving him my real name felt way too…personal.
What’s more personal than letting him stick his dick in your vagina? that voice asked.
Shut up, I thought back.
And, doing my best to shut her up, I looked at him from under my lashes. “And where exactly would you pick up, Sam?”
“Well, if I can be this forward: I’d bring you up to my hotel room and do my best to make you come enough times to forget him.”
My eyes widened.
“That is forward.”
He chuckled. “I’m not sure if there’s any reason for us to waste time, Lacy.”
Then he was bending forward, wrapping his hand around my hair, and pulling me in to kiss me.
I felt nothing. Well, a hint of something, but compared to the way I’d felt this afternoon when Coach had thrown me over his shoulder…
The kiss turned open mouthed, urgent—on his side—and I closed my eyes and let myself fall into it. With my eyes closed, I could pretend he was someone else, and that helped.
Pulling back, he whistled.
“Yeah, that other man is a moron. What do you say?”
No.
I don’t want to go upstairs with you.
I could feel the thought in my very skin.
But I could also remember the derision in Coach’s eyes from earlier, and that settled that.
Instead of answering, I slid off the barstool and placed my hand in his.
“I say yes,” I told him, ignoring the way my body rejected each and every word.
“Lacy…” The bartender coughed, his eyes focused on something behind me.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
As Sam led me through the bar and into the hotel lobby, I swore I felt someone staring at me, burning my bare back with their gaze. But when I turned to look, no one was watching.