Chapter 7Luke
CHAPTER 7
LUKE
Shutting the Jeep off when it comes to a stop next to Brody’s truck at the party’s location, I take in a deep breath and let it out, my head falling back to the headrest. Things with Hailey and the blind date went about as well as I expected them to.
I hate you.
The words ring in my ears, the icy storm in her green eyes seared into my mind. That was one thing I didn’t anticipate. Those words nailed me square in the chest and took my breath away. I didn’t expect her to be in love with me, but to hate me?
I almost said screw the party so I could go home and wallow with a bottle of jack from the cabinet. Heck, I had the Jeep turned in that direction. But Nate has been the one person who’s had my back the whole time, and despite Hailey’s feelings toward me, I was making progress with the rest of them. Not showing up might have dire consequences for that, so I turned the Jeep around.
Granted, I have no idea whether I’ll be able to stay at station nine permanently after this, or if it’ll be best to ask for a transfer to a different house.
There’s a crowd of people standing around the parking lot talking, some in little groups, some in bigger ones. I recognize this to be part of the plan. Nate, who owns the bar the party is taking place at, shut it down for the evening, and we’re to wait outside until he gives us the all clear that we can come in. From what I gathered, Savanna, Nate’s girlfriend, works in the office in the back of the bar and someone is keeping her there while we all pile in and get ready.
My coworkers are standing in their own little group, and I decide I’ll head over there, but before I get the car door open, I realize one integral person is absent.
Hailey is missing.
Son of a…
She should have been here by now.
If she doesn’t show up, and she tells them I’m the reason why, I’m back to square one with everyone. When she told me to have fun, I didn’t think it meant she wouldn’t show up. Just that she didn’t want me anywhere near her.
“It’s okay. Things are fine. Maybe she just needed a minute,” I mutter to myself, peering over at the group again. “You needed a minute. She’s going to show up any second.”
Getting out of my vehicle, I try to calm the pounding in my chest, slowly making my way over to the only group of people I know. As I walk over, shoving my hands in my pockets, I look up at the building in front of me.
It’s decent. Definitely the type of place I’d hit up back home. The outside reminds me of something from an old western. There’s a large porch out front that runs from one side of the building to the other, done completely in wood. Wooden beams from the ground up to the awning add to the western style, and also have my eyes moving to the big sign above.
10-42.
It makes me smile. 10-42 means ending tour of duty, and what better place to go at the end of the day than a bar where all your friends can hang out. Nate was smart as hell when he named his bar. I didn’t put the two together when he initially told me, but eyeing the place now, seeing my coworkers all standing around laughing and chatting, I get it.
“Well, well, well,” Quinn says when she spots me, opening the circle up for me to join them. “Someone certainly cleans up nice. Looking mighty dashing there, Reyes.”
The way Hailey looked at me earlier, I think she thought so too. Until she told me she hated me, at least.
And dang, did she ever look hot. That little black skirt with all the zippers and silver things attached to it. The shirt that plunged so low in the middle I could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra—at least not one I could see. It was sexy and revealing without being too much, and I had a hard time not staring.
Quinn, on the other hand, looks like a drowned rat in comparison. I’m sure she does it for plenty of men, and back in Texas, she may have been on my radar, but not today. Still, I peruse her as she did to me, giving her a once over. Black leather pants, and an oversized white sweater that shows off a large portion of her shoulder and collar bone. Plus the confidence to pull off just about anything, I think. She does ooze sex appeal.
“Back at you, Kelly,” I compliment with an appreciative smirk that is more second nature than how I’m actually feeling.
“Fuckin’ knock it off, both of you,” Liam grumbles from his spot across from me.
Quinn rolls her eyes at him, giving a dismissive wave. “Relax, Liam. I’ll still flirt with you too.”
Liam bristles. “Seriously, knock it off.”
Without warning, Quinn throws her arms around my midsection, pushing her warm body into mine. I’m a little caught off guard, so I feel awkward standing there with her hugging me like this, but it doesn’t seem to bother her at all.
“Why?” she asks in a sing-song voice, taunting Liam. “Does it make you jealous?”
“What’s going on?” A female voice comes from over my left shoulder.
I stiffen.
Hailey.
Dang it. Now I feel even more uncomfortable.
“Oh, hi Hails!” Quinn says sweetly, popping her head over my shoulder to look behind me at Hailey. There’s no embarrassment or sheepishness about her and she doesn’t even try to let me go. “Just making Liam jealous cause I’m flirting with the new guy.”
Dang it. I want the parking lot to give way into a sink hole so I can fall deep inside it. Next time I think it’s a good idea to compliment Quinn, I’ll be smart enough to remember this moment. Not only is it probably giving Hailey the wrong idea, I also had no idea that Quinn and Liam were a thing.
Not that the Hailey part should matter. It shouldn’t. Hailey isn’t mine, and she’s made it clear that she wants nothing to do with me.She hates me.
“I’m shocked,” Hailey says dryly.
Suddenly Quinn releases me, opening the circle up again so there’s a new space between her and me that Hailey can step into. I glance over my shoulder, Hailey and I connecting for a brief moment, before I turn back to the group, breathing a sigh of relief when I feel her step up beside me.
“Where’s your date?” Quinn asks from Hailey’s other side.
We glance at each other again, neither of us ready for the question, and I see Hailey’s throat bob uncomfortably. Then, like a mask goes on, she smiles and looks to her friend.
“Change of plans. He couldn’t make it.”
Before anyone can ask anything further, a loud, commanding voice shouts from the entryway of the bar. “We’re ready!”
Nate is standing in the doorway, calling for us all to come inside. I’m thankful for the interruption. It means I don’t need to try and make small talk with anyone, and I can avoid any further awkwardness of me being the date that couldn’t make it. I should thank Nate for his impeccable timing.
There’s got to be nearly fifty people piling into the bar. When I’m finally inside, I go right, following Brody’s big frame, figuring he knows where he’s going. When he finally stops, Liam and Brody are both between Hailey and me, which is for the best. The mouth and the muscle can protect her all they want.
Taking a long look around the bar, since it’s the first time I’ve been here, I like what I see upon first glance. The country and western theme continues in the interior with dark wooden floors and a barnwood style bar. The booths and tables match the wooden bar feel, and all the seating around the place is black. I’m pretty sure if Hollywood ever needed a bar for a saloon scene, they could come here, and they’d only need to make minor adjustments for it to be perfect.
“Hi,” Quinn whispers, stepping up beside me. Her arm hooks around mine as she presses into my body.
I raise my eyebrows at her audacity. I’m not sure what her game is here, but I don’t appreciate it. “What the heck are you doing?”
“What?” she looks up at me, head cocked to the side. It’s the first time I’m truly looking at her face since I got here, and I notice that her eyes are unnaturally blue. It was weird the first two shifts, but I’ve gotten used to her crazy colors now.
“If you’re trying to make your boyfriend jealous, find someone else to help you,” I tell her, though I don’t try to extract myself from her grip. We don’t need to create a scene. “I’ll do a lot of shit with women, but I draw a line at cheating, or being a douchebag to my coworker to make him jealous.”
Quinn stares at me with a puzzled expression, but it must finally dawn on her what I’m talking about because she gives a snort of laughter and smacks my chest with her free hand. “My god. Liam? Hell no. Never. Not in a million years.” Then she comes up short, her laughter pausing briefly, but shakes her head. Whatever she was going to say, she changes her mind.
It’s my turn to look perplexed. Frowning, I tilt my head, not understanding. “Then why were you trying to make him jealous?”
“Jesus, Luke. Has no one told you about me?” she asks, and I stare at her dumbly. “I’m the resident flirt. Liam is also a big flirt. We like to flirt with each other. But we will never sleep together, or be a couple. Why? Because neither of us dips into the work pool. Plus, now that I know him as well as I do, I wouldn’t let him dip his sausage into my honey pot.”
“Honey pot?” I say, one side of my mouth lifting in a half grin.
“Pink taco?” she replies, lifting a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Cream pie? Beef curtains? Pink clam?”
“Stop,” I laugh, holding up a hand.
I’m seeing a side of Quinn that I haven’t experienced yet, and I’m not sure whether to be amused or horrified. I think I’m a bit of both. I will say that she can probably hang with any of the guys and not be out of place. In fact, I’d bet she makes a lot of men feel uncomfortable. I can respect that.
There’s a low murmuring from the crowd that’s standing around waiting, with Nate talking to a girl at the double doors that probably lead to the kitchen. I suspect we’ve got a couple minutes before the show fully gets started so I look back to Quinn.
“What’s wrong with him, now that you know him?”
Her nose wrinkles in disgust, then her face smooths out and she shrugs. “He fucks random chicks more than I do. Well, except in my case I fuck dicks and the occasional chick.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I bristle. “Screwing is fun.”
It can also lead to serious complications.
“True. But I just couldn’t with Liam.” I watch as she looks around me to catch sight of him, her lips pursing out like she’s thinking deeply. “I might be trailer trash, but I’m just not into guys I work with. Maybe if it was a really lonely, desperate Christmas night I’d consider it, but it seems wrong.”
Peering down at her, not that I have to look that far down with her heels on, I wonder about her trailer trash comment. I don’t know anything too personal about Quinn, but there was an inflection of loathing when she said that, while the rest was light and airy.
“Fair,” I tell her. I can think of a few friends back in Texas that were spectacular to look at and flirt with, but I’d never be able to bring myself to fuck them. Most of them were my sister’s or cousin’s friends though. I deemed most of them off limits.
“I didn’t come over here to talk about that, though,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. We weren’t talking loudly to begin with, but now I need to strain to hear her, tilting my head so my ear is near her mouth. “I came to apologize. I should have warned you about the date she was supposed to bring.”
Surprise flows freely through me, my head whipping around to look at Quinn. She’s staring back at me intently and I know without having to ask her to repeat herself that I heard her correctly. “Why?”
“Because while everyone has been an asshole to you, I was instructed that I had to be your point person when it came to pretty much anything regarding medical. That means I’ve gotten to know you a lot more than anyone else so far,” she explains, glancing away from me towards the bar. I follow her gaze and see that Nate has moved around the bar and the other woman he was talking to has disappeared.
“Hailey is my best friend,” Quinn continues, and I’m pulled right back to looking at her. “I’ve never seen her act this way. Which means something big happened between the two of you.”
She pauses, but I keep my expression the same, refusing to give her an inch of whether she’s right or wrong.
“I’ve seen the way you look at her, hoping and wishing she would talk to you or give you even half a second of her time,” she finally says, arching a delicate eyebrow. “I’m guessing you don’t look at all your previous girlfriends that way.”
“Don’t have any,” I tell her, ignoring how close to the truth she is. Her eyes narrow at me, trying to figure me, and possibly the story, out.
“So you put those two things together, and I think what needs to happen is for Hailey to get her head out of her ass.” She holds up a finger, pauses, and then nods to herself. “Not that that would mean you two would magically fall in love and live happily ever after, but…”
When she trails off and doesn’t continue, I nod, trying to encourage her. “But…?”
There’s a wickedness in her eyes when she brings them back to mine, a devious smile curling her lips. “But I think Hailey plays it safe too much of her life and you might be the key to changing that.”
“I hate to break it to you,” I tell her with a sad shake of my head, wishing her words didn’t ease an ache between my pecs. “But Hailey hates me.”
“No,” Quinn says, clapping me on the back. “Hailey’s just scared of you.”