Chapter 17 #2
Frankie’s words go straight through my ears.
I sense Alice before I see her. The wannabe cowboy passes by our table, looking back as I feel Alice move beside me.
That flowery perfume she wears announces her presence.
The one I’ve become accustomed to. It’s all over my damn house.
On my couch. My bed. Even my kid smells like her.
Without my telling it to, my hand shoots out, and my fingers wrap tightly around her slender wrist, halting her mid-step.
“Sutton,” she hisses, tugging lightly, her gaze fixating on our point of contact.
I am too, but for a different reason. I’m struck by how soft her skin is beneath my fingers.
“You want another drink, you get it from me. Not him,” I rasp. I stare at her face, eyes pleading.
The chirpy smile she sends him pisses me right the fuck off. “I’ll meet you at the bar. I just want to say hi to my friends.”
He tips his hat like a fucking tool, then walks to a vacant stool.
“He’s not going to do anything,” she says, pinning me with an arctic glare.
“You sure you’re safe with him?”
Her dark eyes flit to the side in that way she does from time to time. It’s like she’s hiding something, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
“What is wrong with you?” she snaps, and I can’t help it. The reaction gives me a jolt of satisfaction. At least when she’s pissed at me, she’s not indifferent. She can’t pretend that I don’t exist.
“You’ve got a way of attracting the wrong kind of attention.”
“Is that why I’m spending so much time around you?” She bats her eyelashes as she lands that bomb.
“Hey, Alice. Let me buy you a drink.” Jude interrupts our public showdown. “Frankie doesn’t drink, so it’s not often I get to buy a beautiful girl her next round.”
Both of us turn to him in time to see Frankie pull away from his neck. She gives Alice a blatant wink and a thumbs-up.
“That’s really sweet of you, Jude. Thanks. I’ll go tell my friend he can save his cash for the next one.” Alice sends me another piercing glare, effectively letting me know this battle isn’t over.
The tug of her arm suggests I let go. I loosen my grip, trailing my fingers down her wrist until my thumb lands in her palm. Her skin is like velvet, soft and warm, tempting me to hold on for a beat longer. But she’s not in the mood to stick around and takes off to the bar like her ass is on fire.
“Dude.” That comes from Jack.
“You’re fucked.” Jude’s huff is wrapped in humor.
“Were we all like that?” Lee asks.
I pin him with irritated eyes. “Without a doubt.”
But this is different. Because Alice isn’t anything but my nanny. She doesn’t have feelings for me, and I don’t want to have feelings for her.
Even if we did, I know exactly where those feelings can lead.
And for me? It’s not somewhere that I want to go. I’m not sure I’m even capable.
Alice stays at the bar to chat with her new friend.
She turns down his offer for a drink, gesturing to our table.
Probably telling him about Jude buying her a round.
When they make their way back to the dance floor three songs later, she navigates through the other side of the room, deliberately avoiding me.
Try as I might, I can’t keep my attention off her. Off them. I tell myself I’m watching my friends and family dance.
Those aren’t the first lies I’ve told myself tonight.
Maybe it’s a trick of the light. Or the distance. But I swear every few minutes, her eyes return to mine from across the room.
I polish off my beer, calling it quits. I need to be able to drive after this. By the trajectory of my night so far, I’ll be taking my leave sooner than later. Much sooner. The thought of returning to an empty, quiet home sounds pretty damn good right about now.
The people at my table come and go. Nobody attempts to engage me in further conversation, leaving me to stew in my thoughts. Fine by me.
Shania Twain’s “Any Man of Mine” filters through the speakers next.
This dance seems more complicated. Half the floor empties out.
The girls stay beside Alice, attempting to follow her sure steps.
Unfortunately, that fucker sticks close too.
He bumps into her too frequently to look like an accident.
She takes it in stride. She corrects him with gestures, pointing at her feet and which direction to go.
The song ends, and he sweeps her into his arms. Alice presses her palms into his shoulders, back arched to gain some distance, but laughs at something he says. In one practiced move, he plucks his hat off his head and buries her black curls beneath it.
The slow sound of my chair scraping across the floor is enough to turn my brothers’ heads.
“Oh, shit,” someone mutters, but I don’t catch who. I’m already on the move.
My assessing eyes are locked on the guy holding Alice at the hips. Steps sure in that deliberate measure I’ve perfected over the years. People automatically shift out of my way as I cross the crowded room, my focus entirely on her.
A new song starts, but I don’t hear it. I don’t hear anything besides the roar in my ears. I stop just inside her space, close enough that my voice doesn’t need to rise to carry.
“Take it off.”
I flick my gaze to the hat, then back to her surprised face like I’m giving her a choice.
An amused smirk quirks her lips, but it’s the hesitation that feels like a test. My jaw tenses, grinding my molars together. I set my steely gaze on the guy.
“That yours?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Then you should know better than to put it somewhere it doesn’t belong.”
He laughs it off, moving half a step back, but his hand doesn’t leave her waist. “It’s harmless.”
I regain that half step. “Not to me.” Turning my chin to my shoulder, I find Alice watching the exchange. “You gonna keep it, or you gonna hand it back?”
She scans my face, a challenge playing upon hers. Slipping the hat off her head, she holds it out to the guy. “Sorry, but my dad says I can’t play today.”
I choke on my next breath. My heart slows, relief pumping through my veins. She’s sassing me again after days of shuttered silence.
Cowboy over here shifts his gaze between us. “That’s it? Who even is this guy?”
Alice shrugs and tucks her hands in the back pockets of her shorts. “I guess so. I had fun teaching you to dance.”
“Whatever.” He slams his hat back on his head and departs through a shrinking space in the dance floor.
Alice crosses her arms and cocks her hip. “Are you going to tell me what that was about?”
“No.”
At this point, I feel like I accomplished my goal. Making sure Alice goes home. Alone.
“I don’t accept that answer.”
Spotting an exit on the rear of the building, I grab her hand. “Not here.”
The night air is cool as we burst through the door, her front nearly colliding with my back over the threshold.
The heat of the approaching summer isn’t yet lingering much past dark.
Dropping her hand, I tip my chin back and drag in a deep breath, opening my eyes to the bright brilliant stars overhead.
“You’re fucking confusing, you know that?”
I shoot her a look.
“I mean, what the hell, Sutton?”
“You didn’t seem this mad a minute ago.”
“I think I was in shock. Yeah, that’s it. It hadn’t quite hit me that you just chased off a potential hookup!”
My molars snap together. “Your… what?”
She threads her fingers through her unruly hair. “God. Never mind. It’s not like I was going to go through with it. You still had no business telling me what to do.”
I settle my arms over my chest, the corded muscles in my forearms rolling with the movement. “You’re free to do what you want. Doesn’t mean I have to like watching it.”
“So don’t watch.”
“I can’t not watch. You’re like a goddamn firecracker. Energetic, bright, and fucking impossible to ignore.”
A beat passes. “What?”
“I want to go back to the other thing.”
Her chin jerks back like I gave her whiplash. “What other thing?”
“Were you going to kiss him?”
“What does that have to do with anything? What’s it matter to you?”
“I think I should get to know who you might be bringing around my daughter.”
“You’re kidding, right? It’s a hookup, not a marriage proposal. Why would he be around your daughter?”
Hearing her spell it out again ricochets through me like a punch to the gut.
“If this is about the other day, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”
“You think I’m trying to hook up with someone to, what, get back at my boss? No, Sutton. I’m trying to find someone to hook up with because I’m horny!”
The second those words leave her mouth, it’s like the entire world descends into silence.
No longer do I hear the pulsing music from the building behind us.
Or the hum of conversation from the crack we left in the door.
The crickets in the grass and the frogs in the manmade pond seem to abruptly cease their song.
My lungs are full of air but they forget how to contract. I’m frozen, mouth open and closing as I search for a suitable response.
Alice beats me to it. Covering her eyes, she turns her back and screeches into the blackness. Her torso heaves with heavy breaths.
“You want my help?” The words reverberate from deep in my chest.
“I think I might actually hate you,” she mumbles.
Ouch.
Her rejection pricks my skin like I just angered a nest of wasps. I run my top teeth over my bottom lip. “You don’t.”
Her shoulders sag. “No, I don’t. But I’m fucking embarrassed, so I’m going to go now and forget this ever happened.
I move a step closer. “You’re leaving—”
“I meant back inside. And I don’t want you to follow me.”
I nod once. “I am sorry.”
She watches me tuck my hands into my pockets. “About what?”
“The other day. I was overprotective. You didn’t do anything wrong. If anything, it’s Nellie who needs a talkin’-to about boundaries.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes.”
She cocks a brow. “You’re not sorry about tonight?”
“No.”
“Typical,” she mutters, but her lips twitch in the corners. “See you Monday?”
“Get home safe, Firecracker.” It’s my typical farewell when she departs at the end of a long day. Tonight, it strikes me how much I actually mean it.
Gravel crunches beneath her feet as she takes two steps backward. On the third, she turns, walking into the bar. The door closes with a click of finality, locking me outside.