Chapter One #3
“Seriously?” I studied him. He was pretty enough for TV, but I suspected he might be playing along.
“I work at a news channel.” He frowned. “Or did. What about you? Do you still play the tuba?”
I guffawed and covered my mouth to stifle the outburst. Fortunately, my cup was empty or else beer might have sloshed all over. He had to be joking. Had he figured out Elizabeth’s lie and decided to gaslight her right back? Or maybe I was projecting because it’s what I’d want to do.
“Yes.” She swallowed hard. “I’m very active in the local symphony.”
“That’s exciting. Is that what you do for a living?”
I saw the wheels spinning. Elizabeth didn’t like to lie, but she loved to fabricate, creating fictional worlds, like she did with her writing. “Oh no. I earned my doctorate in zoolinguistics and travel the world giving papers on how to talk to animals.”
Basil tilted his head when I snort-laughed again. He pointed a knuckle at my cup. “Can I get you something?” And I tuned out Elizabeth’s farce.
I wanted to let him buy me a drink, then ask me if I wanted to get out of here, go to his place, and lose ourselves in each other’s flesh for a few hours. I’d be ready and willing to say yes, but I wasn’t drunk enough to forget about tomorrow.
Besides, it was my turn in the checklist hot seat.
“Thanks, but I don’t want to give you the wrong idea.
” My gaze met his, and I held my breath, steeled for the prying questions.
The answers wouldn’t be easy, but I’d meet the requirement: I’d be genuine.
I’d let him know he was flirting with a disaster.
“What wrong idea? That you like free booze?”
I chuckled. “It’s just that I’m not in the market for what it implies.”
“You have a boyfriend?” His tone was a mix of casual flirtation and real interest.
“Ha. No. Never that.”
“Never? Why not?”
I desperately wanted to throw my walls up or reach into my bag of tricks and deflect the conversation to solid ground. This was none of his business. I didn’t owe him a foothold into my defenses, but if I wasn’t open right now, I’d forfeit the dare. “You might say I have commitment issues.”
Metallic acid coated my mouth as his smile dropped and the playful light in his eyes winked out. I held my head up, daring him to walk away.
He leaned in until we were separated only by a wave of atomic energy. “What’ve you got against relationships?”
I caught Elizabeth’s eye so I’d get full credit for this. No filters. All me. I took a deep breath. “I had a mean dad.”
If you don’t count all the strangers in Al-Anon and a dozen therapists, only a handful of people knew this about me. Authentic enough yet? My throat tightened, but I mastered my emotions. I would not cry in the middle of a bar like a cliché.
“That’s. Uh.” He frowned.
In for a penny. “One therapist told me I don’t feel like I’m worthy of love and won’t trust anyone who wants to be with me.”
He scratched his chin, and his eyelid twitched. One more confession and we’d be done here. I was going to send this hot guy running for the hills before he could sink his teeth into me.
“Another told me I’m rebelling against my mother’s life choices. But I think I’m possibly a sociopath, incapable of mixing sex with emotion.”
There. That should count enough to let me check it off the list. Elizabeth couldn’t expect anything more honest than that.
He hadn’t bolted yet, but his mouth twisted with concern. “You’ve done a lot of work, huh? I find that admirable. Are you always so candid?”
“Actually, no.”
“No?” His dark eyebrows furrowed.
This was spinning out faster than even I’d anticipated. Elizabeth stepped in to spare me from drowning in sincerity. “Chelsea took a truth serum earlier tonight, and it hasn’t worn off yet.”
My belly laugh sounded like a sob unearthed from deep within. Shit, I needed to make another appointment with Dr. Rubin. Change was easier in theory.
Evan and Bas stared at Elizabeth like she’d emerged from an alien pod, and I thought for a beat they were going to call it a night and escape the clutches of the psychopaths they’d fallen in with. Then Evan’s shock melted into a chuckle, and he said, “You were always so funny, Lizzy.”
Elizabeth smiled, stiff, and said, “Yeah, class clown. That was me.”
Evan stepped in close and wrapped his pinkie around Elizabeth’s. “If we’re being candid, I want to get something off my chest.”
The horror on Elizabeth’s face had only grown starker, and I wondered if I should drop some major bullshit to give her an excuse to end this charade. I didn’t think either of us were going to make it out the other side. But she shuddered out a shaky breath and asked, “What?”
Evan looked deep into her eyes with the seriousness of confession and said, “I had such a crush on you. I’ve always regretted how we grew apart. It was my own fault. Can you ever forgive me?”
I couldn’t look away from the drama, but Elizabeth’s shoulders relaxed as though she, too, realized this whole thing had to be some kind of reverse mind fuck.
She double blinked and then sighed so heavily even I almost believed she was copping to a decade-old love. “Aw, Evan. I’ve often thought about what might’ve been. But the years passed, and here we are. I figured you’d forgotten about me. You’re probably married now.”
He held up his free hand and wiggled his ring finger. “Not even a girlfriend.”
Probably another lie. He was way too hot to be single without some complication. But tonight, no explanation would be warranted. Tonight was a freebie for all of us.
I nodded at Basil’s shirt. “So Doctor Who. You’re a fan?”
He looked down. “This? This is camouflage.”
“To hide what?”
“All this sexiness.” He jerked his head toward Evan and said, “Clark Kent over here has his fake glasses, and I have a nerdy pop culture T-shirt.”
Evan cracked a smile, and fuck, he was so radiant, I believed him. Though if Evan thought those glasses made him look any less panty melting, he actually needed to have his eyes examined. Elizabeth’s tongue nearly lolled from her mouth as she gave him a clandestine once-over.
And Bas. Lord. Everywhere my eyes fell, I discovered a new area I’d love to explore in greater detail. His neck cried out for my teeth while my fists itched to clench his glorious hair. And those lips. I’d never seen a mouth more in need of kissing. Hard.
Still, the over-the-top confidence made me groan. “So what happens when you rip off your shirt? You become a superhero?”
Bas waggled his eyebrows. “Would you like to find out?”
I burst out laughing. “That’s the worst pickup line I’ve ever heard, though points for originality.”
He grinned, and I realized he’d meant it as a corny joke anyway.
The lights flashed in the bar, and we all checked our phones. An hour had slipped by so easily, I hadn’t realized we’d reached closing time.
Bas asked, “How long does this truth serum last, anyway?”
I considered pulling the escape cord. Honestly, my challenge ended now.
But as the night filled with unspoken possibilities, I’d opened up more than I had with anyone other than Elizabeth—and my therapist. Bas had peeled back the layers and caught a brief glimpse of my true self, and yet he hadn’t fled.
Revealing my thoughts unfiltered had been oddly liberating, though terrifying.
I wasn’t exactly ready to live my life this authentically every day, but maybe for a little longer tonight.
My fists squeezed for courage as I cracked the door wider. “It’ll wear off when I go to sleep.”
He lifted his eyes to mine, all nonchalance. “If I ask you a question, you’ll tell me the truth?”
What had I gotten myself into? I briefly considered explaining that the truth serum was only a joke, but he obviously knew that. I set my empty cup on the bar and squared my shoulders, ready for an interrogation. “Shoot.”
He tapped his fingers together. “So then. Tell me…” He chewed his lip a second, then asked in a sexy, low grumble, “Do you find me attractive?”
The question caught me off guard, and I wheezed out an incredulous laugh. Seriously? “You’re taking advantage of a truth serum to ask me that?”
“Absolutely,” he said with a cocky grin that challenged me to respond in kind.
“What if you don’t like my answer?”
One of his brows arched with infuriatingly sexy confidence. “I like my odds. And I don’t like playing games. I’d rather know up front if I’m wasting my time trying to convince you to give me a chance.”
I licked my lips, weighing my options for squirming out of the admission, but drew courage from the strength of the imagined truth serum. “The answer to that is yes.”
He dragged his eyes away from my mouth, like he’d been watching my tongue slide across the crease with hungriness. “Yes, you find me attractive, or yes I’d be wasting my time?”
“Yes,” I repeated breathlessly.
A smile grew. “But you find me attractive?”
My eyes fell onto his plump lower lip, tempting enough to suck on for days. “Yes.”
“I can work with that.”
If I was being honest, and I was temporarily, I wanted a little more time with this mysterious Greek with the sexy eyes and the awful dad jokes. So instead of running for safety, I said, “Walk me to my car?”
If I played it right, maybe I could still wrangle an invitation to his place. Cheesy as he was, Basil Stavros had stoked a fire, and all I needed was for him to ask if I wanted to burn it off with him.
Just tonight, while he had access to the real me.
Tomorrow would be a different story.