I turned to look at the guy he’d jerked his head toward. If I thought Mocking Guy was hot, his friend was Adonis. Attitude and all.
“And?” It was a good excuse as excuses went to end this public torture. I
had
to leave the bar to get back the notebook I needed in order to write my story. Even Lisbeth couldn’t argue with that.
The right side of his mouth quirked up to join the left in a full-ray smile.
“And then we go have some fun.” Mocking Guy stood up, patted me on the bottom and said, “Go get your girl. We’ll meet you out front.”
My rear tingled. Seriously, like shimmery little tingles. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had dared to touch any part of me that wasn’t a polite handshake. Not that it mattered since he was just warming up his moves for Lisbeth.
Mr. Guy (we should be on first name basis after that bottom-pat, but I liked to keep clear boundaries) cut his way through the crowd, beelining for Adonis.
I watched him go. Couldn’t help myself. I also watched the girls he passed watch him go. One reached for him as he squeezed between her and a table, her hand resting on his arm as if to test its withheld-power. Mr. Guy bent toward her, his hair flopping forward over his glasses. She, tiny little annoying-perfect thing that she was, went up on tiptoes to whisper in his ear. Mr. Guy threw back his head and laughed.
Must be nice to make him laugh with you, not directly
at
you.
Mr. Guy shook his head and kept moving, inching closer toward Adonis through the crowd. The faery girl turned and scanned the crowd, her gazing landing on me, hardening before she shrugged in a disgusted kind of way.
Yeah. I knew that look. It said “As if.” And I knew the answer too: Never. Of course, she sighted me, not Lisbeth. If she knew his real target, she’d back down, claws retracted, without another glance. Instead, I got the death-ray vision look.
Didn’t she know sidekicks were benign?
FIVE
Swallowing a sigh, I tripped my way back around to Lisbeth, pushing through the circle of men to the epicenter of beauty.
I reached between the remainder of hovering males between me and the bar. “Lis. We’re leaving.”
Grabbing my hand, she brought me through the crowd to her side. “Gentlemen, this is my friend, Jenna. She’s a world famous writer.”
The men all made the polite-humor-the-friend noises, their eyes never straying from Lisbeth.
I leaned in, desperate to get out of there and trade her for my notebook. Mocking Guy was hot, funny (at my expense) and intelligent. She wouldn’t mind meeting him. I mean, who would?
“Lisbeth, seriously. We have to go. That guy took my notebook and he’ll give it back if we go hang out with him and his friend.” I struggled not to roll my eyes. “He wants to meet you. He committed theft to do it.”
Lisbeth had a serious bad boy addiction and the idea of someone stealing to meet her had her eyes lighting up like a night game at Fenway. My stomach turned over. She was going to like him. She’d seen me talking to him and was already running her flirt-calculations behind those lit-up eyes.
Lisbeth nudged bald-bouncer guy on the way out and we slipped past the line.
“So?” She pulled out a tiny mirror and did a quadrant-by-quadrant check of her hair and make-up.
“So what?” I watched the door to make sure he hadn’t convinced me to leave and then left me trapped outside without my notebook. I glanced at Lisbeth.
He’d show.
“So, this guy. He’s obviously hot.” Lisbeth grinned. “I noticed him sliding glances over the bar at me. Hopefully he’s worth more than just getting your notebook back. I’d hate for you to go home without your security blanket.”
Sometimes I hated her. It was bad enough she got the guy without even talking to him, but referring to the handy-dandy as a security blanket – well, that was about the end of the night for me.
Sucking in a breath, I did the dance. The one we did every time we went anywhere. Only, I didn’t typically feel nauseous as I did it.
“Well, you can see he’s hot. He seems smart. He has a sense of humor if you count laughing at me.” I ran through our conversation. “Strong. He picked me up with one arm around my waist. Arrogant. He kept thinking if he said something, it must be so. Like buying me a drink and calling me Sunshine as if I’m five or something.”
“What does he do?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders so the sackcloth-dress casually fell off one. Dear God, how did she do that?
“For work?” Or for fun? Because that would apparently be
torture me.
“I don’t know.”
“Does he live in town?”
Had we discussed that? “I’m not sure where he lives.”
“Well, what’s his name at least?”
My gaze flashed back to the door, hoping he’d just walk out and answer the questions for himself. “Mocking Guy. But you can call him Mock.”
Lisbeth raised her eyes and studied me. Her words came out slowly, as if she were talking to a very small child. “You don’t know his name? You dragged me out here to meet a guy and you don’t know all the important stuff?”
“I told you, he’s smart, funny and relatively nice.”
“Jenna,” she sighed my name. “You know better than that. You’ve never let a guy through without checking his stats for me before.”
And there it was, laid out in vivid HD. The basis of our friendship. I was her gatekeeper. If Mr. Guy hadn’t had my notebook, I would have walked away right then.
Lucky for me, Mocking Guy and Adonis chose that moment to exit the bar or I may have said something to kill my chance for handy-dandy retrieval. Even with them nearing I was weighing the odds of being able to re-create the plot points I’d outlined in the notebook.
Mr. Guy’s gaze flowed over Lisbeth. I imagined him taking in every inch of well-honed girliness only emphasized by my plain waitress-looking self. His gaze turned my direction. His lips did that side-quirky smirk thing and my stomach dropped like coming over the top of a roller coaster.
This guy was too hot, too interested in Lisbeth and too likely to laugh at me, but here I was blushing and on the verge of drooling. I was even stupider than I thought.
So, I’d do the introductions, get them all hooked up, get my notebook and take off. If I ignored Lisbeth’s calls for three, maybe four, days she’d have moved on to the next post-Jeremy guy and I’d be rethinking my life, my friends and the universe.
Mr. Guy’s smirk morphed into that full-ray smile as he turned back to Lisbeth and stuck his hand out.
“Ladies.” Mr. Guy nodded one of those
if this were two-hundred years ago it would have been a bow
nods. “I’m Ben. This,” he tipped his head to signify Adonis. “Is Dane.”
Dane took my hand, shaking it lightly in an offhanded way. “And you are?”
The man was gorgeous. Like blindingly, stunningly, overwhelmingly gorgeous. The entire group was in the majors and I was in however many As signified ‘can’t catch the ball.’ I’d forever be proud that I somehow managed to stutter out, “J-Jenna.”
Lisbeth held her hand out in that half-turned way that left a person wondering if she expected him to shake it or kiss it. Ben went one better. He took her hand, sparking that smile again, and tucked it in the crook of his elbow.
Lisbeth looked from Ben – the guy who stole to meet her – to Dane – the guy who made George Clooney look dowdy. Before Dane could move away, she wrapped her other hand around his polo-clad bicep. Nudging each away from the club, not to mention me, she asked oh-so-innocently, “So, where’s this fun place we’re going?”
Ben’s head angled toward her, his profile lit by the neon bar lights behind us. His expression wasn’t quite as innocent. “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”
With a tug, he pulled the little party down the street in front of me, my notebook sticking out of his pocket. Glancing over his shoulder, he had the annoying-hot-guy audacity to wink at me.
I could seriously learn to hate this man.
“Don’t worry,” Ben tossed over his shoulder. “I’m not that bad.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth, surprised and yet not that I’d let slip my thoughts aloud.
The Beauty Brigade continued down the sidewalk in front of me, comfortable enough in their place in the world to – rudely – walk three across.
Two blocks from the bar, Ben stopped and slid Lisbeth’s reluctant hand off his arm. Leaning around her, he jerked his head at Dane, indicating the CVS we’d stopped in front of.
Lisbeth gave them her best pout as the two men asked us to wait outside. Once the doors fell shut behind them, she turned a smirk toward me.
“He’s a little too sure of himself, don’t you think?” She pulled out the little mirror and reapplied her lipstick.
I wondered who was the too-sure person as I watched her primp for a man she’d just met. Of course, she’d never been wrong before.
“What happened to wanting a guy to want you for more than your body?” I asked.
“Of course he does. I mean, he couldn’t want me dressed like this?” She waved at the dress again.
“Lis, you haven’t even talked to him. He saw you surrounded by all your admirers and that’s that.”
Lisbeth tucked her mirror back in her purse. “Just because you don’t have men wanting you from across a crowded room, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen to the rest of us.”
Ok, so now it wasn’t just her, it was all womenkind I was less attractive than. Lovely.
The guys came through the automatic doors and Ben’s gaze narrowed. Did he catch the way Lisbeth’s eyes grew round and sultry instead of narrow as they swung from me to him? He shook the bag in his hand and led us away. I couldn’t help the little internal grin I got from his not offering Lisbeth his arm again.
The music drifting from open club doorways faded as we crossed the street toward the college area. At a dark corner, Ben stopped and faced us.
Giving the CVS bag in his hand another little shake, he said, “We’re there.”
Lisbeth’s nose squished up before she caught herself. “We’re where exactly?”
“Disco Ball Bowling Alley.”
Pushing open the dark brown door, Ben grinned as the music rushed out over us.
“This is the something fun?” Lisbeth asked.
“This is the something more than fun.”
Lisbeth peeked through the door, her hand wrapping around Ben’s bicep as she leaned past him. After a moment, she pulled back and cocked an over-arched eyebrow at him.
Seeing that she had zero interest in moving, I took the lead and marched past him through the graffiti covered door. Inside, colors flashed by me off the disco balls scattered about the room, the music rivaling that of a dance club.
“I’m not going in there,” Lisbeth shouted through the door at us. “If you think I’m sticking my bare feet in used, public shoes, you’re not exactly more than a pretty face.”
“I’d never expect you to. These made me think of you.” Ben dug around in the CVS bag. With a ridiculously overly showy sweep of his arm, he brought out a little pair of black socks with hearts on them and handed them to her. “And these made me think of you.”
The next pair pulled out were Peanut M&M yellow.
“No.” I shook my head. “Why does she get little hearts and I get blind-the-crowd yellow?”
“What’d you think you were going to get, Sunshine?”
“A headache.” I snatched the socks and marched to the counter, hoping everyone was following me.
“Eight,” I said to the teenager at the register before I had a chance to change my mind. Reaching in my bag, I pulled out the money that should have been paying my cab fare away from this mess.
A large hand covered mine before the bills cleared the leather.
“There’s four of us. One lane.” Ben handed the kid some cash and scooted my shoes toward me. “Go warm up, Sunshine. I don’t want any excuses about how badly you’re going to lose.”
Lose! He’d already stolen my notebook and used me to pick up my friend, there was no way I was letting him beat me at bowling.
I mean, how hard could it be?
I glanced at the little desks in front of each alley. All you had to do was roll a ball and knock down sticks. I could knock down stuff without trying. Heck, I’d taken out that bar stool like it was a straw hut and I was the Big Bad Wolf.
Klutziness was finally going to be my friend. Roar.
SIX
I stood there, not really sure what to do with my super-Lysoled patchwork shoes as Ben slid another pair toward Lisbeth. I’d never seen anyone accept rented footwear like they were some overpriced designer I wouldn’t own.
I guess there really was a first time for everything.
“Lane eleven, ladies.” Ben cocked his head toward the alleys, pointing toward the far lane, and gave me a little shove. As I turned to go, his size twelves swatted my bottom with a dull thud. “That’s the lightest part of the butt kicking I’m going to give you tonight.”
I really didn’t like him. I mean, good-looking and cocky go together so frequently it’s basically a cliché, but he brought it to a whole new level.
At lane eleven – which just happened to be my lucky number so I was feeling hopeful – I dropped onto the bench-seat thing next to Lisbeth. She was already pulling the little metal clasp thing off her new heart covered socks.
“He isn’t subtle, is he?” Lisbeth purred…yeah, she purred. “Little hearts. Very cute in a junior-high-check-yes-or-no kind of way, don’t you think?”
I would have answered her, I probably would have even told her what she wanted to hear, but my socks weren’t as easily parted. They were fastened together with one of those plastic things that looks like a question mark. Ripping them apart didn’t work, so I’d resorted to gnawing through the plastic stem.
“But,” she continued, smirking at the fuzzy yellow material hanging from my lips, the ankle pompoms bouncing about my chin. “What’s up with the bright yellow? Is he colorblind or something?”
The stem snapped and my teeth slammed together with an inner-ear shattering clank. He had literally driven me to gnashing my teeth. What did this say about him? Nothing good. He’d probably be the perfect match for Lisbeth.