Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hazel
Despite feeling absolutely no spark with him, I had to give Christian—who’d, much to my surprise, ended up being number Ten—some credit; he kept me laughing instead of crying as the clock neared six and Mr. Seven still hadn’t shown his face. Maybe he had been trying to tell me something when he said to follow my heart and just hadn’t wanted to hurt my feelings.
Although, apparently, I was the only one of the women who Seven had texted. Several of the others had also given him their phone number, but never heard from him. Now there was a bet over whether he’d show up. And if he did, who he’d show up for. But I guessed that would make it easier to tell him I couldn’t go on that date with him since he’d have his pick of women who’d be waiting to console him. Not that I expected him to be that devastated.
Not wanting to risk an uproar, I just quietly backed out of that discussion without a word. That was when Christian had cornered me.
Glancing at the clock again, I sighed, wishing I could just go home and curl up into a ball. Or muster the courage to sneak across the parking lot and try to talk to Reid. He had also been missing all evening. I would have expected him to be around to help with the freezer fiasco, but he had been at the distillery all day yesterday since Jayden was out of town, so maybe they needed him again.
Not that I’d know because he also wasn’t talking to me. Or I was overthinking things again, and he was giving me space to figure out what I was going to do about tonight, but my text messages had been disappointingly empty today.
“I’m sorry again that I didn’t just come out and say something before. I was afraid that maybe I’d saved your number wrong in my phone, and I was messaging some other random person.”
“It’s fine. I probably should have figured it out when you kept hinting you’d see me soon.”
He leaned in close, glancing around before he whispered in my ear. “Did you give your number to anyone else? None of these guys have come to talk to you, so I was just curious if I had any competition.”
“Um…” I fidgeted with the numbered lanyard Charley had roped around me as soon as I got back downstairs after changing into the red off the shoulder dress we’d picked out the other day.
A distorted deep voice saved me from having to answer, instead my eyes widened as a palm skimmed my side and a warm body stepped close behind me, his chest brushing against the bare skin between my shoulder blades. “Yes, she did.”
“Hey, man.” Christian chuckled, extending his hand toward my side. “Decided to keep them thirsty by making an extremely fashionably late entrance?”
“Not exactly,” his muted voice answered. Seven’s arm brushed mine as he reached around me to shake Christian’s hand, my body reacting to his proximity. Fuck. That wasn’t good. I’d come here to let him know about Reid, not become even more confused about which one to choose. “I only came here for one reason.”
“You know you can take that off, right?” Christian nodded, and I turned, bracing myself and expecting to come face to face with the man who’d charmed me through a wall, but I didn’t expect him to be wearing his motorcycle helmet into the bar. I guess that explained why his voice sounded strange.
“Yeah, I’m aware. Actually, can I steal this one from you for a few minutes? ”
“Not mine to steal, apparently, but if you screw this up, I’d be more than happy to,” Christian commented, aiming a flirty smile at me before he took a few steps backward.
I frowned, studying the details on the helmet out of the corner of my eye as Seven towered over me. The glossy black finish had a decal on the side I couldn’t make out, but it looked familiar.
As Christian turned to approach a group of women who’d been standing off to the side, talking amongst themselves, I tried to calm my thoughts so I didn’t start word vomiting all over the poor guy once he got me alone.
“Can we talk?” he asked, holding out one of his hands, still covered by a leather glove. I was pretty sure under any other circumstances, a tall, dark and mysterious man in a motorcycle helmet asking me to go with him would have been fantasy inspiring. My fingers itched with the need to draw how he looked right now, but I needed to concentrate.
“Yeah, um, I know somewhere quiet we can go.” Taking his hand, I pulled him behind me as I moved toward the back hallway. Hudson was too busy behind the bar to mind me using his office.
Charley watched with a strangely neutral expression as I towed Seven behind me, but the whispers that followed us as people noticed the giant 7 hanging from his neck had my nerves building.
Thankfully, Hudson’s door was unlocked as I twisted the knob, gesturing for him to follow me inside the quiet office.
A sense of déjà vu hit me as I took a seat in my brother’s chair behind the desk and gestured for him to sit in the one across from it. Maybe it’d make it easier for me to say what I needed to say if he was separated from me by a cluttered piece of furniture.
“Okay, so I know you wanted to talk, but I feel like I need to go first so you aren’t wasting your time,” I started, and he leaned back in the chair, nodding once in concession.
Even without being able to see his face, I was kind of kicking myself that I needed to end this. He was tall, with strong looking broad shoulders, wearing a blue dress shirt covered by a leather jacket. Dark denim clung to his legs and disappeared into a pair of worn, brown leather riding boots. It was weird to know that I had fond feelings for him without ever seeing his face, but I also knew those feelings weren’t enough to stop what needed to come next.
“When we talked at the event, I honestly didn’t think you were being serious. I’d never had an instant connection with someone like that. And I didn’t expect to flirt with you like we did, because normally I am an absolute hot mess around people, much less around men whose voices made me feel the things that yours did.”
To his credit, he just sat there waiting, not trying to interrupt me, and weirdly, also not removing his helmet. But maybe that would just make this easier. Being distracted by his face might make my resolve waver or send me into a tangent that would just make all this more confusing.
“And don’t get me wrong, I looked forward to every one of your messages. I felt like you were someone who understood me and would let me express myself without judgment, which is rare in my life.” I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who treated me like that outside of my immediate family.
“I sense a but coming,” he said, leaning forward to brace his forearms on his thighs.
“Yeah. There’s a but,” I whispered before I took a deep breath. “ But it wouldn’t be fair of me to give you a false sense of hope. Because while the timing was epically shitty, I kind of have really strong feelings for someone else. And I don’t know if he’s going to break my heart, or if it’s a terrible idea to pursue something more with him, but…”
It was harder than I thought it’d be to admit this, especially to a stranger that might have feelings for me. “But he is someone I’ve liked for a long time, and while my feelings used to be a girlish crush, they’ve turned into something I don’t think I can deny any longer. And to be completely honest, I don’t want to.”
Seven sat there silently, one of his legs bouncing nervously.
“Can you maybe say something now? I know we barely know each other, and this is probably not as big of a deal to you as it is to me… ”
He sat upright, his hands framing the side of the helmet. He hesitated, and I could hear him exhale a loud sigh before he started pulling upward. His face was covered by a black balaclava, but as his eyes came into view—even closed—a surprised gasp escaped my lips.
“But…”
“I’m sorry, kitten,” Reid’s deep voice was muffled by the fabric covering it, but it was like a punch directly to the gut.
“How? I mean, what… Oh my God.”
My pulse pounded as he reached up to drag the fabric covering off his head. His hair was sweaty and sticking up, his cheeks pink from being inside the helmet for so long, but I’d never seen him look so handsome…yet devastated at the same time.
He opened his mouth, but I held up a hand between us, trying to blink away the tears that had pooled as I sat there and stared at him. I wanted to shout at him, to scream and throw things from my brother’s desk at his face, to shock and injure him as much as I was feeling right now.
But only one sentence managed to escape my mouth.
“How…how could you?”
And then I was on my feet, running toward the bathroom across the hallway to escape from him, and this time he really could fucking keep the penis—and the jackass attached to it—because I’d apparently fallen for the biggest fucking dick on the planet.