From the corner of the room, his eyes claimed me, all of me-my eyes, my neck, my legs…making me feel like he was touching my skin… The heat that spread over every inch of where his eyes looked had me dizzy, like an acute case of vertigo, and I wanted to spin in it, spiral out of control and drown in it. Sitting on a bar stool, I let my skirt ride a bit further up my legs to watch his eyes widen and his breath quicken. I was swept up in a frenzy. I wanted to make him look at me; I needed him to.
“I really need to talk to you,” Fran slurred behind me, practically pinning me to the edge of the bar.
“Maybe later, Fran. I need to use the restroom,” I lied, squeezing my way around him and rushing into the back hallway. Glancing back over my shoulder, I smiled at Kade, hoping he’d find his way to talk to me.
Locking myself in the stall, I heard the bathroom door open and footsteps squeak in. I opened the stall door thinking that Kade would be there, his face, smirking at me, but it wasn’t. The muscles in my shoulders tightened when I stepped out to see Francis. Drunk on either the wine he was guzzling, or some sort of nontoxic environmentally safe fumes of maybe, I don’t know, bacon grease or something. My thoughts were quick and precise. He had me cornered by the sheer luck of me thinking about another man, and I was going to need to fight him. “I think you’re in the wrong bathroom,” I said. He just laughed condescendingly, as if I should know better.
“I think I made a terrible mistake about us,” he slurred, stepping forward. I sidestepped him, squeezing my body around him without ever touching him. When I was the one closer to the door, my shoulders slumped a bit with relief. “Please hear me out,” he mumbled.
Before I could get out an answer, Fran’s body catapulted onto me. His mouth was on mine, bitter wine breath, strong body order and I swear I smelled one of those old-fashioned evergreen car fresheners. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had one in his pocket. Revulsion quaked in my belly and I shoved him off me quickly. “Fran, don’t make me have to kick your…”
With a loud thud, the bathroom door flew open and smashed up against the wall, splintering one of the white tiles with a web of cracks. Natalie stomped into the bathroom, hands on hips and her usually cheerful expression twisted into rage.
“What the fuck is this?” She screeched, looking from me to Fran, eyes narrowing. “Are you fucking kidding me? My kids asked to call you daddy!” In five days, she let her kids meet him and want to call him DADDY?
Fran’s hands dropped from my arms, his pleas were whines and lies, and it made me sick to listen. I couldn’t look at the hurt in Natalie’s face. I couldn’t take the heartbreak, because it was like looking in a mirror and I knew just how she felt.
I ran out of the bathroom, tears stinging my eyes for Natalie for having feelings for a jerk like Fran. Running down the hall, I slammed head first into a solid chest, and looked up into the stormiest eyes I’d ever seen. With my stomach twisted into knots, I swallowed thickly and sucked in a sharp breath. Kade.
“Lainey, what’s wrong?” he asked, eyes narrowing. There was tightness in his jaw, the muscles flexed and clenched. His hands instantly cupped my face, big, thick, warm hands. I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted his lips on mine, because I wanted to matter and make a difference to someone, and I wanted to stop this lethal game of hide and seek I was playing. I just wanted to be Samantha Matthews again. Hell, I wanted to tell Kade that I was just like him.
Natalie stormed out of the bathroom, and pushed between Kade and me. “Don’t worry, hon. I know that was all him. I hate him so much right now, because my kids were crazy about him. What am I going to tell them now?” She sighed heavily, and looked up at Kade as if she just realized he was standing there. “But,” she purred like a cat, “Revenge is sweet.” She winked and grabbed Kade by the hand and shoved him into Dylan’s office. “Take out that cock, Kade, I want to dance on it,” I heard her say as the door slammed shut.
Instantly, I was sick. Desperation ripped through me, and I wanted to bang on the door and throw her off him. Though, what right did I have to do that? Because he stared at me for a few weeks? Because he took me for a coffee when he saw Fran treating me like a child? I was nothing to him; I was just a goddamn waitress in a God forsaken strip bar in the middle of nowhere. And what was he to me? Nothing but my boss’s brother who lived a tragically lonely life. There was nothing between us but a simple attraction. Nothing to put hope in.
Nothing.
Yanking off my apron and crumpling it up in my hands, I walked into the bar and threw it under the counter. Then I walked out the door and right home to the shitty little trailer I lived in. Heading straight for the bathroom, I rummaged through my bag, grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills, and swallowed two dry.
Tossing myself fully clothed on my bed, I grabbed my iPod and jammed my earbuds in my ears. Pressing play, I was instantly surrounded by the haunting voice of Amy Lee and the heavy rhythms of Bring Me To Life by Evanescence, and waited until the magic of my pills worked. The night chilled my bones as small drafts of the cold winter winds drifted through that old tin trailer. I wrapped myself in a soft fleece blanket to keep myself warm and pretended I was lying in Kade Grayson’s arms. Sleep lumbered slowly over my body as I thought how preposterous of a fantasy it was. I had enough scars on my body from the last man that held me in his arms, raised stains that read like Braille across my flesh, so I shouldn’t desire another violent one. However, he wasn’t the same man as the last; he was a far better one, were the last thoughts before sleep took hold of my mind. I didn’t wake up until the next morning.
Armed with an entire pot of coffee, I walked through the dense evergreens that crowded this little part of the world, until I reached the bar. An early morning slideshow of images flashed through my imagination of the carnage and chaotic state of mess the bar must be in, and I cringed, hoping there were latex gloves I could use to clean. Darker images clawed at the back of my brain, juxtaposing themselves against the chaos, thoughts I didn’t want to be thinking, despite the clarity of them. Twisted white sheets, guttural moans and whimpers of two lovers; I didn’t want to visualize them, but visions of Kade and Natalie wrapped around each other were screaming in my mind.
Dylan already had the front door unlocked, and was standing in the middle of the barroom holding a mop in one hand, a bucket in the other, wearing a sheepish smile across his lips. “Morning, love. Where did you get off to last night?”
I wanted to grab the filthy mop out of his hands and sanitize it, but instead, I just slid my jacket off, hung it over a stool and started collecting the strange clothes and debris that was strewn around the bar. Feathered boas. Tassles. A riding crop. I completely passed over picking up the dirty looking G-strings. “Ugh. I hand a run in with an extremely drunk Francis and an angry Natalie, so I thought it better if I just left. Sorry.”
“No worries. Did Kade get to see you?”
“I bumped into him in the hallway last night, but I didn’t speak with him. Natalie needed him for something, I think.”
A strange smile played at the corner of his lips, “He was looking for you most of the night. He slept on the couch in my office.”