Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Bar
“We should go back inside,” I murmured, peering up at him.
“In a second,” he said. He pulled me away from the wall and into his arms.
I pressed my cheek to his shirt, and then reared back. “You’re still wet.”
“I am. Are you?” he quipped.
My gaze met his and I grinned. “Why don’t you find out for yourself.”
He kissed my forehead, my nose, my lips. “If I start doing that, I won’t be able to stop. And I’m not fucking you against the wall of a bar. At least not right now. Maybe another time.”
“Another time?” I skimmed my lips across his scruffy jaw, marveling at the fact that touching him now came so easily. “You promise?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. I promise.”
“So, is now a good time to talk?” I asked.
“About what?”
I smirked. “You lost the bet.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I think you’ve got it wrong, tater tot. You lost the bet.”
“How do you figure? You kissed me.”
“Because you begged me to kiss you,” he pointed out.
“Hmm.” I tapped my chin with my finger. “You did say one night not that long ago that if I came to you and asked, the bet was null and void. Or am I having selective amnesia?”
“No, you’re remembering that correctly,” he agreed. “But I have another idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Seeing as that you’re highly competitive—”
“Pot meet kettle—”
“Then the only way to truly settle this, once and for all, is to say that we both lost.”
“Meaning?”
“We both lost.” He dipped his head and bit my earlobe. “Which means we each get a night of fantasy fulfillment.”
I shivered in his arms. “That would be okay with me.”
“Good.” He leaned back and stared at my face.
“We should probably get back inside.”
His fingers played with the fly of my jeans. “What a good idea . . .”
I batted his hand away. “I thought you didn’t want to do it against a wall.”
“Then let’s get out of here,” he said.
“Declan drove,” I reminded him.
“Fuck.”
I flicked the brim of his cowboy hat. “Patience bull rider. You will ride me soon enough and all will be well.”
With a laugh, he released me.
My expression sobered.
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t want them to know.” I gestured with my chin to the bar.
“You mean, you don’t want them to know that you just rode my leg like a bronco?”
“I think keeping this just between us is for the best,” I said.
He rubbed his jaw, and then eventually nodded. “Yeah.”
My heart dropped into my stomach like a stone. Part of me had hoped he’d demand we walk in there holding hands.
But rationality won. It would get too complicated if we took whatever this was public.
“It’s just easier, you know?” I asked. “It’s not because I’m ashamed of you.”
“Ashamed of me? Good to know.” He flashed a grin. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be your dirty little secret. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Other women have—”
“High school. I was good enough to sneak out windows, not good enough to be introduced to the parents.”
Though his tone was light, his words saddened me. But now was not the time to talk about it.
The bar crowd had thinned ever so slightly, and we made it back to the table.
“Where have you guys been?” Declan demanded.
“Relax,” I stated. “I had to get some air. He came with me.”
“You guys were tearing up the dance floor,” Gracie said.
Cas slid into the booth and I took the spot next to him. “Yeah. I can’t believe I remembered all the steps.”
“It’s like useless trivia,” Cole said. “Some things just stick.”
“You missed Amber’s entrance,” Hadley said, reaching for her mocktail.
“She say anything to you?” I asked.
“Congratulations,” Hadley said.
“That bitch,” I muttered.
“What am I missing?” Cas asked. “Isn’t congratulations nice?”
“Amber Winston, resident mean girl of our class,” Gracie explained. “It was snide. It’s hard to explain. She just has the perfect tone of snark and censure.”
“Amber,” Cas repeated. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
I shrugged, hoping he’d drop it.
“Wait,” Cas said, looking at me. “She’s the one, right?”
“The one what?” Declan asked.
“The one who made Hadley cry, so Salem put hair removal cream in her face wash,” Cas said, looking at me again.
The table fell silent.
“You’re the reason?” Gracie said with surprise. “You’re the reason Amber didn’t have eyebrows in her yearbook photo?”
“I plead the fifth,” I muttered, glaring at Cas.
“What?” he demanded.
“I didn’t know,” Hadley voiced. “No one knew who did it. Or why.”
Embarrassment heated the back of my neck. “She made you cry. So, I got even.”
“She made Hadley cry?” Declan demanded.
“It was a long time ago,” Hadley said, patting his arm.
“What did she say?” Gracie asked.
“It was about the Huckleberry Pageant,” I said.
“The what?” Bowman asked.
“The Huckleberry Pageant. It’s a mother-daughter thing. And the year that Amber entered with her mom, she said—”
“She said we’d never be able to enter, let alone win, because we didn’t have a mom anymore,” Hadley said, her face stricken.
She looked just like she’d looked years ago when Amber had said the worst thing in the world.
“God, she really is the nastiest human being.” Gracie shook her head.
“I had no idea you were behind that prank,” Hadley said to me.
I shrugged. “I didn’t want you to know.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t punch her in the eye,” Cole said. “That seems more your style.”
I grinned at him. “Poison is a woman’s weapon.”
Cole raised his eyebrows. “Duly noted.”
“So not only is there a yearbook photo of Amber with penciled in eyebrows and a few missing eyelashes, but the bitch lost the pageant, too,” I said with a smirk.
“How did you know about the story?” Declan asked Cas.
“We exchanged war stories,” Cas said.
“Times of vigilante justice,” I clarified.
“Let’s raise a glass to Salem,” Declan said. “Our hair-trigger defender.”
“I don’t have a drink,” Cas said.
“Me neither,” I remarked, sliding out of the booth. “I’ll get us another round, and then we can cheers to me.”
“We need another round, too,” Cole said, lifting his beer that only had one more sip. He quickly downed it.
“I’ll help you,” Cas said to me.
We headed toward the bar. “I need to use the restroom real fast. You order the drinks, and then I’ll help you bring them back,” I said.
“Sounds good.”
I wove my way through the crowd toward the bathroom at the back of the bar, but the unmistakable, grating voice of Amber Winston filtered through the noise to hit my ears.
“I mean, seriously,” she intoned. “Can you believe she got pregnant? Like, oh my God, keep your knees closed. So it’s no wonder they’re having a shotgun wedding.”
“She looks happy,” one of Amber’s friends said.
“Yeah, happy. I’m surprised he put a ring on it. He already got the milk for free. It’s not like he has to buy the cow.” Amber sniggered. “And in a few months, she’s going to look like a cow!”
Rage swept through my veins, obliterating everything—including my frontal lobe’s ability to regulate my emotions.
I marched up to the table where Amber and two of her friends were sitting. One of them widened their eyes when she saw me. The other let out a squeak.
I stood behind Amber’s chair and crossed my arms.
Her blonde friend gestured with her chin toward me.
Amber’s spine snapped straight and she slowly twisted her body and faced me. She peered up at me with cornflower blue eyes. Her hair was raven-wing black. She would’ve been gorgeous if her heart wasn’t so ugly.
She flashed a fake grin. “Hey, Salem. Long time no see.”
“Not long enough,” I remarked. “I heard what you said about Hadley.”
“I wasn’t talking about Hadley,” she lied. “I was talking about someone else.”
“Who?”
“Who?”
“You sound like an owl. Yes. Who? If you weren’t talking shit about Hadley, who were you talking shit about?”
“A girl from Silver Springs,” she said, tossing her long hair over her shoulder.
“Uh huh.” I leaned forward and pressed a finger to her eyebrow. “Your eyebrows never did grow back fully, did they?”
Anger mottled her face, turning her skin a blotchy red.
“You bitch!” she yelled, standing up so fast her chair crashed to the floor.
I grinned. “How does it feel to have peaked in high school?”
The woman lunged for me. Her nails raked down my arm, leaving long trails of red on my skin.
There was a reason it was called a bitch fight. Screaming, clawing, and hair pulling ensued.
Rage was all I saw.
I got in one good face punch, but then I felt arms wrap around me and pull me close. I breathed in, recognizing Cas’s scent. I took deep, gulping breaths.
“Easy,” Cas whispered.
Another man had Amber caged in his embrace. She glared daggers at me. “Let me go,” she commanded.
The man paused, and then released her.
“You gonna behave, tater tot?”
“Nope,” I said, shooting Amber another feral smile.
She lunged again, but Cas turned and gave her his back.
“Hey, that’s enough!” Wade yelled as he hopped over the counter. “This is a respectable establishment and if you’re going to fight, then you at least need to give us time to place our bets.”
“My bet is on the red head!” someone yelled.
“Mine too!”
I looked up at Cas. “Want to make some money tonight?”
With a sigh, he let me go, and then scooped me up over his shoulder. “You’re in time-out.”
As he carted me toward the door, I lifted myself up and looked at Amber. And while she was still spitting mad, I blew her a kiss.