Searching for Neverland (26 page)

I covered my mouth, not sure if it was okay to laugh, because they all looked so serious
,
as they tried to mimic each other’s motions, keep time with the music, and remember the lyrics. And not all of them could dance, which made the whole show that much more comical.

I didn’t think I could laugh any harder until Josh jumped off the bar and the house lights came on, and all around were my friends, who were watching the guys and laughing just as hard as I was. And I think I finally realized that Allison’s excuse and Josh’s having to work had been lies. And they’d been planning a surprise party for me all along.

In front of me, Josh stopped and continued to sing, as he grabbed me by the waist and pulled me to him. “Happy birthday, Tay,” he said breathlessly
and grinned.

And it was then that I remembered what he’d said the night he’d first kissed me, when that song had been playing. He’d said it reminded him of me. And I suddenly didn’t want to let him go. I wanted to wrap my arms around him tell him everything I was feeling for him in that exact moment. But I knew he had to finish his performance.

After a few seconds, he released me and danced
back up to the bar where he rejoined his friends who were wrapping up the song.

They finished in a flourish to massive applause and whistles.

Josh grinned at me. “Happy birthday to one of the most beautiful people I know. We love you, Taylor,” he shouted, and everyone around the bar yelled ‘Happy birthday!”

Then I was surrounded and hugged from every angle, as everyone I knew, including my brother, Trey, who’d driven down from Gainesville, wished me happy birthday. And before I knew it, my shittiest birthday turned out to be not so bad after all.

In fact, it was pretty awesome.

“Were you in on this?” I asked Alex, who had stayed by my side the whole time I was smothered by my loved ones.

He smiled. “I was. Allison called me today.”

“Thank you,” I said, as I wrapped my arms around his neck and squeezed him close. Maybe he
was
the guy I should be with. And then I saw Josh behind the bar and though, maybe not.

“Let me get you a drink,” Alex suggested, and I nodded. I could use a drink.

“For you,” a voi
ce said from behind me as a bright green
drink was pushed in front of my face just as Alex was walking away.

I spun around to see Josh standing there, a smirking grin on his face. I fought the urge to wrap my arms around his neck. “You are insane and amazing, and . . . thank you.”

Yeah, I’d almost told him I loved him, but I pulled back at the last minute. I wasn’t sure I could say it without him realizing how I felt. It would no longer sound like friendship love anymore, because it simply wasn’t.

“You’re welcome,” he said, leaning against the table behind him as I took the drink from his hand.

I took a liberal sip. “Mmm, what is this?” I asked, looking up at him expectantly.

“A Taylor.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s a new drink. I’m calling it The Taylor.”

“What’s in it?”

He winked at me. “Things I know you love that will get you nice and drunk.”

I smiled. “Just how I like to spend my birthday – drunk and blissfully out of it.”

“That drink will do just that.”

“And that’s why I love you.”

Oops.

Josh didn’t seem to read into my verbal slip. Thank God.

“So you liked the performance?”

I grinned. “J, I loved it. You guys are the best.”

“You’re our favorite birthday girl, so we went all out.”

I raised an eyebrow. “No way that’s true. How much did you have to pay them to participate?”

“A hundred buck each,” Josh said guiltily.

I shook my head. “You’re nuts.”

He shrugged. “You’re worth it.”

Oh, how I wish that was true.

“This is really too much,” I told him. “You didn’t have to
do
all this for me.”

“Yeah, I did,” he said matter-of-factly. “Are you having fun?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” I said, moving in time with the loud music pumping from overhead. “You?”

He nodded.

“So, where’s Kimmy?” I asked, for the sole reason of being polite to my friend who’d just made an ass of himself in front of all our friends just for me. And I kind of needed to know if she was there before I made my bold move.

“She’s around somewhere,” he said, but he didn’t seem all that interested in locating her.

Very interesting.

Then arms wrapped around my waist and reminded me that Josh and I weren’t alone. I could smell Alex’s cologne to know it was him. “You snakin’ my girl, Nolan?”

Josh looked up at him in surprise. “You’re staking a claim?”

Okay, this just got interesting.

“Maybe. If she’ll have me,” Alex said curtly, and I wanted to smack him.

Josh just raised his eyebrows at me, but I didn’t respond to the hidden question I saw there. As if I would answer it in front of Alex. He looked back and forth between Alex and me, but I wasn’t giving anything up, and Alex was just gripping me tighter.

“I’ll catch you later,” Josh finally said, as he pushed off the table and took long strides away from us before I could open my mouth to tell him to stay.

I turned in Alex’s arms, and he started kissing me before I could say anything, suffocating me as he captured my lips with his.

“Can we sneak back to your place,” he murmured against my lips. “I want to be alone with you.”

“No, it’s my party,” I said as sweetly as I could, but quite honestly, the fact that he was asking sort of pissed me off.

“I’ll be quick,” he promised, pressing his body against mine so I could feel his tiny erection.

“No,” I said firmly, pulling back from him, wondering why he couldn’t control himself. He was like a horny teenager. “Besides, I can’t. Not this week.”

It was that time of the month, so he wasn’t getting anywhere near that part of my body.

“Oh,” he said, sounding crestfallen, and I suddenly felt bad for being so direct. He had done a really sweet thing for me, on my birthday, no less, and he’d professed his feelings. I should have probably cut him some slack.

“But,” I said, pressing my body against the small bulge in his pants. “There are other things I can do.”

“Oh yeah?”

I moved again him just enough to tease him, but I knew he liked it.

“Absolutely. But later.”

“Later?” he asked, sounding irritated.

“Yes, later,” I said firmly. He was starting to press his luck, so my ‘later’ was laced with ‘and only if you don’t turn into a selfish prick’.

I was not going to cave and leave my own birthday party to give him a blow job. He could be patient
,
or he could sneak into the men’s room and jerk one out if he was really that desperate to get off. But if he truly loved me, like he’d alluded to, he would respect my wishes and wait until later.

“Fine,” he said, grabbing his beer and taking a big swig, obviously irritated with me.

“What is your problem, Alex?”

He glanced over my shoulder for a few beats and then focused his attention back on me. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Bullshit, you’re not fine. What’s your deal?” I asked, thinking he’d better not say a word about me telling him to wait. I was not a sex toy, nor would I ever be, and it was
my
goddamn birthday.

“Forget it,” he said, and stalked off, leaving me standing there open-mouthed.

Tiny-
dicked asshole.

“What’s wrong with your douchy ex-boyfriend?” my brother asked, coming up beside me with a beer in his hand.

“Are you driving?” I asked, my big sister instincts kicking in.

Trey wasn’t old enough to drink. He was only nineteen, but as long as he wasn’t driving, and as long as no one found out we had served him, it was cool.

He shook his head. “We cabbed it from Taryn’s apartment. So why are you back with Ex?”

I sighed. “I don’t know, Trey.”

“You can do so much better. My friends all think you’re hot.”

I laughed. Yeah, I so wasn’t going there. Cougar wasn’t something I was interested in adding to my dating resume.

“Seriously, isn’t there someone better than that dick? I can’t stand him, and you know Mom and Dad think he’s a jerk.”

Yeah, I was well-aware that my entire family hated Alex.
But they loved Josh.

“Want to do a birthday shot?” I suggested instead, appealing to my brother’s frat boy desires in an attempt to change the subject.

He grinned. “Sure.”

As we walked across the bar, I saw Josh sitting on the couch in the back corner talking to Sean and Bryce. Kimmy was nowhere to be seen, and I was glad. I hated seeing them together, and the fact that she was actually at my birthday party was tolerable at best, and only because she was Josh’s girlfriend, and he’d done a really nice thing for me by not only throwing the party, but sufficiently embarrassing himself with boy band karaoke would I not say anything.

Taryn ran up to us when she saw Trey and me approaching the bar. “Sibling birthday shots?” she asked, and I wondered if our common penchant for alcohol was hereditary.

We tipped back lemon drop shots, and Trey asked the bartender to pour us another round. I leaned against the bar and appraised my younger siblings. The three of us had always looked so much alike, but as we’d gotten older, Trey had started to take after our dad, and Taryn and I looked more like our mom.

I hadn’t seen Trey since Easter, and every time I saw him
,
I felt like
he
looked so much more like a man than a boy – more and more like my father. Since I was almost ten years older than him, he’d always been my ‘little’ brother, but he wasn’t so little anymore.

“Are you going to see Tanner while you’re in town?” I asked him.

I knew Tanner had been bummed out when he’d heard Trey was staying in Gainesville for the summer to fulfill the requirement UF had that all students had to do at least one semester of summer school. And I knew he’d be even more upset if he knew Trey was in town and didn’t go visit him.

Taryn and I were having dinner with our parents the next night to celebrate my birthday, but my mom hadn’t said anything about Trey coming. Seeing him at my birthday party had been a
complete
surprise.

Trey nodded. “Yeah, I’m heading over there tomorrow morning. He has a baseball game at eleven, and then we’re going to grab some burgers, play laser tag, race go-karts and anything else he wants to do. I’m gonna do it up right, big brother style.”

I grinned. That would completely make Tanner’s day. He’d be so happy.

“Making up for all the weekends you couldn’t be here?” Taryn asked
, and I wanted to elbow her. She didn’t need to make him feel bad.

Trey
grimaced
. “I feel like a crappy brother, so I do what I can.”

“You’re a good brother,” I said, putting Trey in a headlock and nuzzling his head with my knuckles.

“Hey, watch the hair,” he said, flipping his blond locks across his forehead as he pulled out of my grasp.

I reached over to smooth his hair back, but he ducked out of my way and ran his hand ba
ck through his thick blond hair
.

“Seriously, though, Tanner knows you have your own life. He gets it, and I know you call when you can.”

Trey looked pensive as he contemplated what I’d just said. “Yeah, but I could do more,” he sighed, running his hand through his hair again.

Crap, I hadn’t meant to make him feel bad
too
.

“He has us,” Taryn said. “He’s fine, Trey.”

She was right. The two of us made sure Tanner knew we hadn’t all abandoned him. But at the same time, two sisters did not make up for the guy he idolized.

“Okay, let’s do these shots,” Trey suggested, and I knew he was changing the subject before he got bummed out. “There’s a brunette over there who looks lonely, and I’m just the guy who can make that feeling go away.”

“Eww, gross,” Taryn and I said in unison, and Trey just grinned.

I did two more shots with my brother and sister before Allison joined us at the bar. “Can I give you your present?” she asked excitedly.

I grinned. “Sure!”

I loved presents.

“Great. It’s in Josh’s office. Come with me.” She grabbed me arm and dragged me toward the back of the bar.

The door to Josh’s office was closed. When Allison opened it, she froze and then promptly screamed at the top of her lungs. I peered around her, expecting to see a snake or something equally traumatic like a roach, but what I saw was so much worse.

“Oh, my God!” I said, my hand flying to my mouth.