Bar Crawl (6 page)

H
is mouth didn’t taste like cigarettes. That was at least one impression I’d had of him that was flooded away as his lips connected with mine. And, Jesus, they were soft. So soft, in fact, that I let my left eye peek open to make sure that I was actually kissing CJ.

Nothing about him was soft, I’d thought. His muscles were hard and perpetually flexed. Like an exaggerated action figure. The lines of his face were so sharp, I’d been sure you could slice bread along his jaw. And then there was his personality. There hadn’t been a soft thing about the way he barreled through the bar with a girl’s ass permanently sewn to his hand.

Yet, the softness of his lips and the way his hand moved gently from my chin to the back of my neck surprised me as we kissed.

For the second time today.

He pulled away, almost pushing me away at the same time, and I was left feeling like the idiot girl on a bad Lifetime movie. I brought my fingers slowly to my lips, dazed, checking to see if they were still there after a kiss like that.

CJ’s lip curled slightly as he clenched his jaw and held out his hands. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“I’m sorry?”

He pointed his finger a few inches from the center of my chest. “I tell you
true
stuff about me—which
you
asked for—you kiss me, then you bash me for the nine hundredth time and fucking
walk away?
So, I’ll ask you again. What the fuck is your problem?”

“Bash you?” I couldn’t recall bashing him ever, let alone nine hundred times.

He scoffed and took a deep breath as he looked to the sky for a second. “You’re constantly making snarky and smartass comments about me…or who you think I am. I’ve dealt with it because we haven’t had a lot of alone time together for me to show you otherwise. But, Jesus, Frankie, I meet you out during the day and tell you
real
stuff and you accuse me of making up some story to get in your pants? Fucking seriously?”

This would be the part in the novel where he’d turn and storm down the street, and I’d be left to decide between chasing after him to plead my case or watching him walk away and kicking myself about it later. But nothing about CJ was fitting into any formula I’d seen. He stood there, staring directly into my eyes and actually waiting for an answer.

Shit.

I went with what I knew, which meant I started spewing. “How do I know what’s real with you, anyway? I’ve seen
one
minute of you
supposedly
being honest and I’m supposed to weigh that more than the six other nights I’ve seen you over the last few months? When you’ve basically been a dick with legs?”

“Seven,” he blurted out.

“What?” I ran a hand through my hair, my heart racing in anger and anticipation. There was no script for this conversation.

“We’ve seen each other at the bars seven times. Not six. When was the first time you saw me?” His jaw relaxed, but his eyes didn’t.

I thought back. I didn’t have to think too far, because I remembered clearly the heavy metal song with the two-minute drum solo that drew my eyes to him. “Plymouth,” I finally said. “February.”

With half a grin he shook his head. “Nope.”

I threw my head back and chuckled. “Oh, so you’re going to tell me the first time I saw you was different than what it was?”

“Dunes. New Year’s Eve. I play there every New Year’s Eve, but you had
never
been there. I remember watching you walk in. The snow stuck to the ends of your hair…” he trailed off, seeming to give me a minute to catch up.

I opened and closed my mouth once, then a second time for good measure. He was right. He was
fucking
right. I had been at Dunes on New Year’s Eve. Annoyed to be traveling so far in the snow, Bradley had promised me awesome house bands and a break from the average drunk and disorderly New Year’s scene. He had been right; Dunes was far more of a local tavern than any of the other places we frequented.

“I don’t…” I cleared my throat. “I don’t remember seeing you that night.”

His shoulders fell slightly as he pointed to the bench next to me. I shrugged, rather noncommittally, and sat next to him. “I played early and spent the rest of the night hanging out with my friends.”

It still didn’t make sense that I wouldn’t have noticed him. You can’t really
not
notice CJ—even when he’s not behind a drum set. He’s such a massive figure that even if he wasn’t incredibly hot, one is likely to notice him. His shoulders were so broad that it made him seem larger than he actually was. He was probably around 6 feet tall in principle, but in practice he appeared well over 6’5”. He stood with perfect posture, had a loud voice that carried over even the strongest bar noise, and always clapped once—loudly—when he laughed. His going unnoticed by me
ever
seemed highly unlikely.

“So? CJ, I would have remembered seeing you. I’m sure of it.” I certainly wasn’t about to tell him all the thoughts about his appearance that had just run through my head.

“I hid,” he admitted, and he looked honest—if not a bit embarrassed—though I wasn’t really sure what either sounded like from him.

“You’re kidding.” I twisted my lips and looked up at him, but his face was completely humor-free.

He shook his head. “I didn’t want you to see that I kept staring at you, so I hid. And I thought Bradley was your boyfriend.”

At that, I burst into laughter.

“Hey,” CJ held up his hands, “my gaydar is shit. I didn’t know until I saw you with him that night I finally
did
hit on you. It didn’t occur to me that someone as beautiful as you would be without a boyfriend—let alone on New Year’s Eve.”

“What is that about? The whole needing to be with someone on New Year’s Eve thing? When did that even start?” My cheeks warmed at his words about my appearance but I couldn’t address them.

“Beats me.” CJ sounded exhausted.

“Why weren’t
you
with someone that night?” I challenged. “Or…were you?” I cringed at the words as they spilled out of my mouth, but they were honest. And, I could—at the very least—guarantee my own honesty.

He rolled his eyes. “No. I wasn’t with anyone because I’m not usually
with
anyone. Which, I suppose, is why you turned me down that time, huh?”

I stared at his eyes and the way they fell on his fingers as he picked at the skin on his palms.

His words and his body language typically spoke loudest for him. When I was forced to think back to the first thing I noticed about him, it had been how
honest
his eyes had looked—and how out of place they seemed of the rest of him. “Shit,” I whispered. “You’re really a fucking writer, aren’t you?”

Then—with much relief to me—CJ let out that full-throated laugh that had drawn my eyes to his back all of those months ago. “Yeah,” he gasped for air, “I am.”

Without thinking, I leaned my head on his shoulder and growled. I held out my hand. “Come on,” I mumbled.

“What?” he asked, not hesitating to take my hand in his. He paused for a minute before deciding to shift his fingers between mine.

“You’re coming to my place. Clearly, we need to get to know each other better.” I tugged his arm and started walking, but was met with resistance as he seemed to dig his heels into the sidewalk. “What?”

He wore a wry look. “You’re moving a little fast for me, Frankie.”

I chuckled, shaking my head as I resumed my walk down the warm concrete. “You’re an ass.”

CJ followed in step soon enough, and we walked in silence, holding hands the entire way to my home. Even though we’d both driven to the coffee shop.

I
t took about ten minutes to walk to her place. Neither of us spoke. I was afraid to, because I figured that the second I said anything, she’d realize whose hand she was holding, drop it, and run. She was way out of my league, and I had to play my hand carefully if I wanted even a minute more of her time.

While I wasn’t sure what motivations were working in the background of my brain, I’d surrendered to the idea that I was infatuated with her. I wanted her, sure. But, more than that, I just wanted to be around her. I’d guessed correctly that she was a teacher, but nothing prepared me for the fact that she was an English teacher; one that worked at a library on the weekends at that.

She was everything that scared me about myself. Everything I kept hidden. Still, I wanted more of her every second I was around her. She was far from a drug; there’d be no way to clear her from my system. And, I had to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do with that.

Frankie turned us onto a dead end street that looked like it was plucked from a movie about suburban life. Bright green lawns wafting that freshly cut scent and a few kids playing basketball at the end of the cul-de-sac completed the modern fantasy. I was briefly lost in the material of it all, the hundred stories I could have started from that scene alone peppering my subconscious.

“Well, here we are.” Frankie led me up a stone walk to a two-story, grey cedar-sided home with soft yellow shutters. She tentatively let go of my hand in order to dig her key out of her bag.

“Nice place,” I commented. “I can’t imagine what it rents for.” I know it’s frowned upon to talk about money, but, the way I see it is how are any of us supposed to learn anything if we don’t talk about it?

Frankie shrugged. “I can’t either. I own it.”

I did little to hide my shock. My eyes opened wider than they had in days, since I’d been pulling a lot of late-night gigs, and my mouth fell open slightly. “Wow.”

“What?” She chuckled as she held the door open for me, welcoming me into the cozy space.

“I don’t know. Most people our age rent…don’t they?” My best friend, Georgia, owned her place in La Jolla, California, but she’d inherited it from her father when he’d passed away. I couldn’t think of anyone I knew in their mid-twenties who’d bought a house. Especially alone.

Frankie talked as she led us down a short hallway, lined with framed photos of what I gathered to be her family and friends. “I don’t know. I mean, I’ve had a good job for several years and I love the area, so why give someone else the money?”

“Don’t, like, married people buy houses?” I bristled at the word. I typically worked very hard to avoid using
the
M
word
in any context around a woman. Relevant or not.

“Some of them do. Does my real estate intimidate you?” She pressed her tongue against the inside of her cheek, seeming to try to block a smile.

Yes, it does.

I shook my head definitively. “No, not at all. Congratulations, really. I have so many friends that bounce around from job to job; I can’t imagine it would be easy for them to get a home loan if they’d tried. The rest are starving artists, and, well, that’s kind of self-explanatory.”

“Want something to drink? I have seltzer, water, juice, beer.”

Beer.

“Water’s good, thanks.” My eyes settled on Frankie’s shoulder blades as they moved against her skin, bare from the black sleeveless shirt she was wearing. As she reached for a glass on the top shelf of the cabinet next to the fridge, a sliver of the skin on her lower back made an appearance. And made me thankful that I’d requested water.

I can’t explain what’s so sexy about the small of a woman’s back, but whatever it was, Frankie had it in spades.

She poured the water from her filtered tap, and turned around with a soft smile. “So, are
you
starving?”

I ran my hand down the front of my shirt. “Not really
starving.
I housed a cinnamon bun before you got to the coffee—”

“No,” Frankie laughed as she fought to keep herself from spitting out water, “I mean are you a starving artist. Like the friends you mentioned. I mean, I know you have money from that social media share thing you mentioned, but…from your music. How does that go? Since we’re talking about money.” She settled herself on a stool around a granite-topped island in the center of her kitchen, and I followed suit, sitting across from her and planting my elbows on the cool stone.

I took a deep breath. “It’s hard to say. If I didn’t have the money in the bank that I do, it’d be hard to justify what I’m doing with the drums, unless I started charging a lot more per gig.”

“You don’t make a lot? You’re awesome, though!”

I fought the grin. I knew she meant it because she certainly had no reason to puff up my ego. And she’d seen me play more than once, which is more than I can say for most of the other girls I’d ever found myself in conversation with in their kitchens.

“Thanks,” I replied. “It’s kind of a double-edged sword. I don’t
need
the money, so since we’re kind of a cheap band—price wise—we get a shitload of gigs all over the damn place. That means I get to play more. Which makes me happy. The other guys I play with have nine-to-fives. We’re ridiculously lucky to have the talent we do. There’s no time to practice anyway.” I chuckled and ran my thumb up and down the sweating glass. Normally I loved talking about myself. In Frankie’s house, though, I felt like I was bragging.

“So if you charged more, you wouldn’t get as many gigs.”

I nodded. “It’s hard to say. We have a reputation by now, and most bar managers tell us we’re under-charging, but…I don’t know. I left that fucking internet place because of the egos and the money and all of that. I don’t want that shit tainting the music, you know?”

“I get it. That’s why I volunteer at the library.” Frankie set her glass down and folded her arms across the cool stone.

“Oh,” I raised my eyebrows, “you volunteer there?”

She nodded, looking at me purposefully. “The state of public libraries is shit these days. I love a good e-book, don’t get me wrong. I love that I can have over a hundred books with me all the time with my e-reader, but people aren’t using libraries nearly as much. They’re so important. They’re great places for kids and, hello,
free books
.” Her cheeks brightened as she spoke and I found myself leaning in a bit. “The point is, I know whatever measly wage they
would
pay me to work weekends won’t save the libraries across America, but I just kind of want to do my part there. For the love of words, you know?”

I’d been so wrapped in our earlier discussion about her house, and my music, that I’d almost forgotten the connection between us I couldn’t have possibly anticipated the first night she’d caught my eye.

“Yeah, the words,” I agreed, lifting my chin so our eyes met for an almost uncomfortable amount of time.

“Listen,” Frankie started, shifting in her seat and looking down for a brief second, “I know it’s still early, but do you want to stay for dinner tonight? I bought some fresh scallops yesterday that I’m
dying
to eat.”

“Yes,” I replied before taking a moment to consider it any further. “I’d love to stay for dinner.”