Chapter 5 #3
Samuel greeted Rosemary, took their drink order, and told Aleksei he could pull the Reserved sign off one of the pool tables upstairs. As Samuel laid on his full bartender charm, the light from a hanging pendant caught a scar on Rosemary’s neck, making it shimmer in rosy contrast to her pale skin.
It was probably from one of her cancer treatments.
She had battled cancer three times, and he hadn’t even had the guts to talk to Samuel after the funeral. Samuel was good people, and Aleksei had been a flaming shit. He was going to stop back later this week and catch up with the guy. Even if the memories killed him.
He passed Rosemary her fruited sour. Then, he took his chilly Guinness in one hand and her soft, now-warm hand in the other, guiding her upstairs to the pool tables. The music was quieter on the second floor, so they didn’t need to shout to hear each other.
“That was an interesting conversation you had with the bartender,” she commented as she racked the balls. “What’s the story there?”
Her question wasn’t surprising. She was smart, and with his hesitation at the door, his conversation with Samuel, and the mutterings of “sorry” and backslaps he’d received as they’d made their way upstairs, it didn’t take a genius to know there was a story. It had been stupid to come inside.
“Samuel’s a friend of mine. I haven’t seen him in a while.”
It was a non-answer. The question was, how would she respond to his obvious avoidance?
Would she be hurt? Angry? Irritated enough to decide she had way too much going for her to spend time with a guy who couldn’t answer a simple question—a guy who wasn’t willing to open up a little after she’d spoken so freely about her cancer, her family, and even her high school Of Mice and Men trauma?
He had to give her something. Not just because he was afraid she’d bolt if he didn’t.
He needed to release a little of his pain, or he might make a mistake.
Until now, he’d rebuffed every opportunity to share his heartache, because that meant facing it.
He thought ignoring it was the only way to survive, but it was impossible to hunt Phillipe’s killer and suppress the pain.
Philly held too many memories. If he didn’t find a way to control his grief, he risked it controlling him—just like it had brought him here tonight.
The crack of pool balls cut through his thoughts. The three hit the side pocket, and the seven hovered on the edge of the top right pocket before falling in.
“I’ll take solids. And for every ball I drop, you tell me something about yourself,” she said.
He arched a questioning brow at the command in her voice.
“I’m an open book, and every time I ask you a question, you give a non-answer or deflect with a question back to me. Wasn’t it Ghandi who said, ‘All compromise is give and take’?”
Rosemary quoting Ghandi in Phillipe’s favorite bar was a message from the universe.
Aleksei was a practical person. Years of military training and FBI work demanded it, but his mom was Romani.
His father’s Nordic genes dominated his appearance, but his mother always insisted that magic lived in his blood.
Right now, that magic was telling him that when the universe spoke, a practical man listened.
Phillipe had been on a mission to make it through the one hundred volumes of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi and was always dropping some random fact or quote from whatever current volume he was reading.
Aleksei wasn’t so na?ve to think that one quote meant he could trust her—but he would take it as a message that he was on the right track.
That this might be the road to bringing Phillipe’s killer to justice.
That Rosemary might be his path to atonement.
She leaned against the table, hand gripping the cue that now stood vertical to the floor, eyes daring him to agree to her proposition.
Her jeans were snug but not overly tight.
Her emerald-green blouse was plain but pretty, and her flat shoes were cute and sensible.
There were gorgeous, glossy women here tonight showing more skin than his sister showed at the beach, but they didn’t interest him.
Rosemary’s blend of easy prettiness and her feisty challenge absorbed every bit of his attention.
His gaze settled on her pert pink lips, hunger rising within him.
He didn’t know if it was the Guinness, being back in McGillin’s, the message from the universe, or just Rosemary herself, but he’d never found a woman more compelling.
The need to know how those soft, perfect lips would feel crushed beneath his own raged through him.
Just one kiss. He hadn’t had any intimate contact in more than two years. He could let himself have just one kiss.
He set the beer on the table’s edge and closed the distance between them in two long strides. He slid his hands up the warm, silky skin of her neck into her soft hair. He lowered his head toward those luscious pink lips, eager for the feel of her tongue in his mouth.
And she kneed him in the nuts.