3 - Dan James
3
Dan James
All too quickly , I realized that I may have spoken too soon.
After our little pact was formed, Andy gave me a key to his apartment and told me to move in the next day, Saturday, and after we spent the whole day moving my stuff in (I was still kind of surprised he’d offered to help), Andy had just decided that my trial by fire should be tonight , giving me only half an hour to get mentally ready, which was how I’d ended up here, feeling like I was about to be kicked in the nuts by an exam I’d never prepared for.
We were at a nearby bar, which was full to the brim as it would have been expected on a Saturday night, the low, warm light illuminating everything but the darkened dance area, and we were perched on the bar, about to order our drinks. I stared at the crowd of strangers, feeling more than a little bit out of my element and ready to call it quits and go home for the night.
“Relax,” came suddenly Andy's voice, his lips way too close to my ear, his hand on the back of my neck. “You look like you're two days away from turning twenty-one and you’re afraid of getting carded.”
I bristled, resisting the urge to brush his hand off and instead simply glaring at him.
“I'm not afraid, and I am relaxed. I'm just taking things in.”
He gave me a disbelieving look before letting go of my nape and settling back onto the bar. He was wearing a simple t-shirt, which contrasted against my shirt (a casual one, but still), and yet I couldn’t help but notice how the fabric seemed to mold to his broad shoulders like it was made to make people salivate over him, and adding that to his considerable height, Andy was the perfect mixture of hot and intimidating that would make anyone wonder what a night would him would be like. The cherry on top was that sandy mane of his, which he was wearing down again.
I tried not to focus on the way I seemed to miss the warmth of his hand against the back of my neck.
I still felt a little out of sorts after our battle of wills yesterday, a dozen different emotions running through my body, but I was too keyed up to process them.
I needed to ace this test, I needed to leave Andy’s mouth hanging open, and this nervousness wouldn’t get the best of me.
“Just know we can go home anytime you like,” Andy murmured.
Of course he was going to say that. And of course I hated him more for it because I had already been thinking about it despite my big talk about proving him wrong, but if anything, his words only cemented my determination to get this done and do what I had set myself to do.
Let loose.
Even if I still didn’t know what the fuck that would entail.
The bartender finally made his way towards us, his eyes lighting up upon seeing Andy. “Same as usual for the gentleman?”
Andy grinned. “You know I'm no gentleman, but I’ll take the same, and Dan here will take a water.”
If I hadn't already been glaring at him, I would have glared at Andy all over again. Water? Really?
The bartender looked in my direction, surprised to see me there before sending another smile my way. He had curly dark hair cropped close to the scalp, giving everyone an uninterrupted view of the many earrings dangling from his ears. His warm brown eyes were the perfect shade to take stranger’s stories out of them before they’d even taken a sip of their drink.
He eyed me up and down. “Hot date?”
“More like a pain in my ass,” Andy said.
I restrained the urge to roll my eyes. “Rum and ginger ale will do.”
“Make it heavy on the rum,” Andy said before the bartender took a couple of steps away from us with an amused and curious grin to get the bottles for our drinks.
I watched him as I told Andy, “The more you resist, the more it's going to hurt when you lose.”
Andy let out a dry chuckle, brushing his jaw with his hand. “I guess we'll see.”
I couldn’t tell whether he wanted very badly for me to lose whatever game we’d gotten into, or if he was dying for me to make a fool of myself.
Whatever. I’d win anyway.
Drinks in hand, Andy guided me away from the bar, a strong, warm hand on my lower back burning me like a brand, and before I knew it, we were entering a small circle of people that were already chattering about.
“Everyone, this is Dan. He's trying to let loose after a break up from a six-year relationship, so I hope you won't be nice to him at all.”
My mind was stuck for a second on the fact that he knew exactly how many years I had been with my ex even though I hadn't ever told him. Had Travis been the one to tell him?
And why did my gut tighten at the thought?
I didn't get to linger on it. A woman beside me that looked to be in her mid to late twenties was quick to introduce herself as Kelly, who wore her dark hair pulled into a neat braid and gave me a once over the same way the bartender had, before sliding her arm through mine and saying, “My my, can we have him, then?”
Andy's eyes were dark for a second, his jaw tensing before he said, “First, let's see if he doesn't run home in the next ten minutes.”
Kelly raised her eyebrows.
Suddenly feeling a surge of determination, I said, “Ignore him, he’s a sore loser with an arrogance problem.”
I felt Andy’s glare on the side of my face as Kelly and the others laughed.
Now it was my time to grin.
Maybe this wouldn't be that bad after all.
***
The night went by fairly quickly, probably thanks to the fact that I was trying to take in so much information about the group. They seemed to be regulars of this place, just the way that Andy was, so it had to be his group of party buddies. They all seemed to be staring like hawks between Andy and I, probably noticing the tension between us, but I paid it no mind.
Instead, I made sure to introduce myself to everyone and sent looks to my shitty potential professor as I showed him that as much as I might have been the type of guy who went to bed early and the opposite of a party animal, I was actually capable of socializing.
More than a few of his friends kept giving me flirty stares, men and women alike grinning at me like they were imagining what I looked like without my clothes on. It was a strange sensation, one that I wasn't used to, since I had never actually gone out without having a girlfriend, and the attention felt new, making my skin tingle under their scrutiny.
After a long while, when I finally finished my first drink–I had no intention of getting drunk tonight, not when Andy was lurking nearby with watchful eyes and evil ideas– the player himself came with me to the bar at my not-so-subtle request when I dragged him by his arm.
I pinned him with my gaze. “I thought you were meant to test me?”
“And I thought I was the one in charge here, which means, I don’t take orders from you, and I’ll do what I want at my leisure.” He rested his forearm at the bar without looking at me.
My hands balled into fists.“You could at least try to teach me something.”
“What is there to teach? You seem to be doing well enough on your own.” He now turned around and pinned his eyes on me, narrowing them.“I never knew you were a charmer,” he said, throwing it at me like an accusation.
My stomach squirmed. Was that bitterness in his tone?
I shrugged. “I never said I wasn’t social. I said I didn’t know how to be single.”
“And you still won’t tell me why that’s suddenly so important.”
Now my stomach turned into knots. “I don’t know what there is to tell. I haven’t been single in a long time and am out of practice. Shouldn’t be that difficult to accept.”
“Right, it shouldn’t be, but it’s you we’re talking about and it’s me you’re asking, something I’d never have imagined you doing in a thousand years, which means there must be some very good reason in that pretty head of yours to justify it.”
Pretty . My heart thumped against my ribs, my skin way too aware of how close Andy and I were right now, the buzz of the people around us almost fading as the whole of my attention centered more and more on him.
I’d never been called pretty in my life, and never even expected anyone to do it. Maybe it was a throwaway word, but with the pointed way he was looking at me right now, I didn’t think it was. Why I would hyper-focus on that particular bit of information, I didn’t know, and in fact, I shouldn’t.
Because even if I wasn’t supposed to be a charmer, Andy very much was. All night, I had been overly aware of every single one of his movements, waiting for a barb, a pointed comment, or for his damn test to start, and all night I’d seen several people watching him like they were getting ready to strike, shoot their shot. Several had in fact tried to make a move on him, but he’d brushed them easily off, like this was an everyday thing, which it probably was.
He could have anyone. Choose anyone. He was an unreachable shooting star to someone like me, firmly planted on the ground, and I’d known this ever since the first time I laid my eyes on him.
Which was maybe part of why I’d hated him so much.
Which was something I didn’t want to look at too closely.
My nails dug into my palms.“My reasons are none of your business. We’re here because you wanted to push me through some stupid test of yours, but if you just want to admit defeat and keep us both from wasting our time, you just have to say it.”
Andy let out a dry chuckle, his hair almost glowing under the warm light here. “You think your cute boy routine counts as me losing?”
I bristled.
Cute boy routine?
It doesn’t mean anything.
“It's not a routine and it is you losing, no need to be bitter about it.”
And Andy was bitter. For the first time in my life I was seeing him as anything other than one-hundred-percent confident and irritatingly amused, and the delight at this discovery sent a shot of adrenaline through my veins, making me feel bolder and more daring.
Ready to take on any challenge he might suggest.
It felt like power.
“Are you a coward, Andy Jacobs?” I asked, feeling the dare in my words.
His eyes felt like they were burning when they settled on me. “If you're trying to rile me up, you're not going to do it. You're losing on your own.”
God , he was such an ass.
I turned to face him fully, elbow still resting on the bar as I dedicated the whole of my attention to him. “I dare you to actually teach me, no chickening out.”
Andy stared at me for a long moment.
Suddenly, the bartender— Vincent , as I’d been told—was here again, asking if we wanted one of the same as before.
“No,” Andy said. “Bring in the shots.”
At his words, it was like my skin started coming alive.
Some of Andy's friends had come closer, and they quietly watched our exchange, the way they had been watching us all night.
The bartender put shot glasses in front of us, a tequila bottle beside them.
“You want me to teach you?” Andy asked. “Then you're going to have to play in the big leagues, not just nursing your one drink for hours on end.” He leaned closer to me, breath tickling my face. “You need to prove to me that you're really committed to it.”
Andy looked at Vincent, who took that as a sign to fill in the shots.
He brought in salt as well as already-cut lime.
The weight of everyone's stare settled on me, but Andy’s was definitely the heaviest.
“I dare you to take a shot and suck the lime out of my mouth.”
It felt like the breath had gone out of me for a second.
I watched in slow motion as Andy put a slice of lime between his teeth and took my hand to put the salt on it.
He held out a shot in front of me.
This was it, this was where I took the step. This was where I could finally shut Andy up, prove to him that I could do this, and most of all, prove to myself that I could change. That I could be someone else. That I could be more than a failure, a guy stuck in a spinning wheel for the rest of my life.
I could try and be someone different, even if only for a night.
The weight of Andy's eyes felt dangerous. Too wild, too tempting, making me squirm the way they had that first time we had seen each other. His eyes were fixed on mine, the whole of his attention like a physical thing, the surety that I wasn’t going to do it basically written in big, bold letters on his forehead.
It felt like doing this would be like opening a whole can of worms, Pandora's box, and that once opened, it wouldn't easily shut and give me back my peaceful predictable life again.
In the end, none of my swirling thoughts mattered.
I licked my hand.
Took the shot.
Leaned into Andy.
I went to take the lime out of his mouth, the way that he had been meaning for me to do. I had seen people do this before, and they usually simply took the lime and sucked it once they had backed up, but I didn't.
I stayed right where I was. I sucked the lime, still between his lips, feeling the sharp sour taste of it, easing the burn in my throat, and I used my tongue, just the tip of it, to do it, catching a hint of the feeling of Andy's lips, and becoming all too aware of the way that his breath seemed to hitch at the contact.
My heart was a wild horse behind my ribs.
Then I leaned back, now taking the lime with me, and putting it on the waiting napkin on the bar.
There were several yips and cheers from behind us, from Andy's friends and strangers alike.
Power was an intoxicating drug inside my veins.
I expected Andy to look shocked, maybe even annoyed at my gesture, seeing as I had seen clear as day in his eyes that he hadn't believed for a second I would actually do it. He hadn't believed that I, Dan James, would ever even cross the line to get close enough for a kiss to the biggest player I had ever met, the bane of my existence, the guy whose presence alone managed to shake me to the core like no one had ever before.
But he was none of those things.
His eyes looked sharper than ever, dark, and his expression wasn't exactly devoid of emotion, but it was extremely serious, like a wolf that had seen its prey, and at any wrong movement, it would pounce.
I almost wanted him to. I wanted to see what he would do.
“Was that all?” I asked him.
‘Ohhs’ sounded around us.
Andy’s jaw clenched. “No. We're just getting started.”