“We got here about twenty minutes ago.” Taryn gestured between herself and the man beside her, ordering drinks, and it wasn’t until he looked her way that Kimber registered the man as Jay. Her heart halted like a needle scratching to a stop across a record, her mind white at his transition from her daydreams to standing right in front of her.
To make matters worse, he tossed his chin her way. “Hey, Kim. How’s it going?”
“Great, you?” The words left her in a rush although she couldn’t wrap her mind around their meaning, so stunned was she at Jay’s friendly ambivalence. It was like she was a stranger, like he hadn’t known her for years, like he hadn’t ever poured his heart out to her, like he’d never been inside her, making her come. She forced herself to behave the same and ignore the swell of guttural screams now looping through her head.
Taryn’s eyes sparkled as she bobbed her head, perhaps a bit too vigorously. “Everything’s going good. Really good.”
“Have you heard from Brad?” Kimber asked, hoping that Taryn had, that her neighbors’ love life would resolve and stop intruding on hers. Not that Jay was in her love life but—
“No.” A dark, sad look filled Taryn’s light green eyes, and Kimber regretted saying anything at all—until Taryn beamed and patted Jay on the back. “No, I’m not going to think of him tonight.”
Kimber forced a weak smile, keeping her gaze on Taryn’s face and refusing to let it drift in Jay’s direction.
“Hey, we’re sitting at a table near the stage,” Taryn added. “You should definitely join us.”
“No, that’s okay. You guys go ahead.” Kimber heard herself speak and felt her lips move, but she couldn’t comprehend the situation, which felt like an out-of-body experience. Here congregated a group of people, everyone being polite, and no one saying what was truly going on. She clasped her hands together to prevent them from shaking. “I’m waiting for the guitar player to finish up.” She nodded toward Dane, not wanting to catch Jay’s response. Suddenly, the idea of making him jealous was unattractive—especially since he didn’t seem inclined to be jealous at all.
“Okay,” Taryn said as the bartender set two beers before Jay, who instructed they be put on his tab before picking them up and handing one to Taryn. “Well, come join us if you want. You know where to find us.”
Jay gave her an easy smile. “If we don’t see you, have a good night.” Then he and Taryn disappeared into the crowd, back to the two-person world they’d apparently created for themselves.
Kimber chugged the whiskey the bartender had placed in front of her, hoping it’d make her feel better but hating that it made no difference at all. She had made a huge mistake.
* * *
Jay slid into his seat beside Taryn, wondering if it was possible to feel any shittier. The last thing he felt like doing was making small talk with and blowing his paycheck on a girl he wasn’t in any way interested in while listening to a cover band he hated for personal reasons, but here he was.
Actually, that was the second-to-last thing he wanted to do. The first was seeing Kimber dance in her seat with a faraway smile on her face, contented by her own company and awaiting fucking
Dane
, as always, apparently harboring no anguish regarding their recently dissolved friendship and the obliteration of anything romantic between them. Confirmation of this had come in the form of her reaction to seeing him with Taryn. After everything they’d been through, she could hardly pretend to give a shit about any of it, so he’d acted similarly. What other choice did he have? He’d laid all his cards on the table, and it hadn’t made any difference whatsoever.
He longed to call it a night and head home to his bed and a bottle of SoCo. Getting blitzed at home and allowing himself to fully immerse in his misery sounded far more appealing than feigning happiness. But feigning happiness was exactly what he intended to do. He wasn’t going to let Kimber see how her rejection affected him again. He would put on the face of a Spartan warrior and suck it up. She’d made it clear it was over between them, so it was time he recognize that, accept it, and act accordingly, no matter how fucking wrong it felt.
* * *
When Dane left the stage for the band’s second break, Kimber threw herself in his arms, even though his clothes were soaked with sweat. “You were fantastic. I loved that last song.”
“Really?” His eyes lit up. “We were wondering if anyone would notice that we snuck an original in the set list. It’s new, we wrote it about two weeks ago.”
“It was brilliant.” It had been okay, but Kimber imagined Jay’s eyes on them and kept the awed, flirty smile on her face. She wondered why she felt the overwhelming need to prove Jay was so unimportant to her that she would even prefer Dane’s company to his. That wasn’t what friends did to each other when they stopped being friends.
“Brilliant?” Dane looked so delighted and boyish that Kimber wished she’d meant the compliment. His expression softened with affection. “Thanks, bables.”
“You’re welcome.” She nudged him with her hip. “Now how about buying your biggest fan a drink?”
Dane winced as he reached for his wallet. “Don’t kill me, but I only have, like, five bucks left on me. I’m in the band so I’ve been drinking for free, but I owe everyone money so I don’t even get paid for tonight’s gig.”
Typical. She forced her annoyance aside in favor of keeping the smile on her face. “I only want a lager.” He could afford that, right?
He forked over his last crumpled ones with a wistful look and passed a draft to Kimber, who sipped it and tried to act like she was enjoying herself. Not only had he made the beer taste terrible by acting like buying it had been the ultimate sacrifice, she couldn’t think of a thing to talk about with him. Small talk seemed too small. It seemed best to just get to her new objective for the evening, although best was probably an inaccurate description.
She entwined her fingers with his. “I’m sorry I was so touchy yesterday at the casino. I really have missed you.”
“I really missed you, too, bables.” His gaze flittered between her eyes and her lips, and his brow furrowed with what she knew was the want to kiss her. She closed the distance between them and pressed her mouth to his. Despite the familiarity of the kiss, it was like he was a stranger. Ironically, when she’d kissed a stranger, it’d felt so familiar. Then again, she hadn’t actually been with a stranger, had she? And she’d done more than just kiss him. A lot more.
Her skin grew warm from the thought, and her tongue slipped between Dane’s lips. He groaned and pulled her closer to him using her jean’s belt loops, the contact revealing how much he—or at least his cock—really had missed her.
In an effort not recoil, Kimber recalled the times when she had felt true passion—namely the past few weeks. She detested having to do so; so much negativity and just plain wrongness played into the scenario and its aftermath. But her body defied her, her cunt wet with the memory of being laved by a talented tongue then clenching around a cock that had fit her so perfectly she’d seen stars.
Dane drew away from her, breathless. “Wow. What’s gotten into you? You’ve never been this…I dunno, passionate before.” Before she could reply, he added with a grin, “I like it.” He glanced around the bar. “I like it so much that things are going to get pretty embarrassing for me if we continue this in public.” He tossed her pleading look. “Afterward?”
“Afterward,” she said, cupping his face and biting his lower lip, a move she was well-aware she’d learned from Jay, “you’re coming over to my place.”
* * *
“I wish I knew what I did,” Taryn wailed, facing the tabletop, propping her head over her draft with her hands. “I don’t understand why Brad would just storm off and not come back or even call.” She turned to Jay. “Do you?”
“I don’t.” Why would he? He didn’t even know why things happened in his own life.
Taryn released a sad sigh. “Did you know that we were high school sweethearts? He promised me in the yearbook that he’d never love anybody else.”
Jay sipped his lager and gave a grunt of interest despite the fact that he could barely make sense of what Taryn complained about. From what he could make out, they were fighting over something retarded. Not only could he care less about Taryn’s plight, he was also intensely distracted by the public make-out session Kimber and Dane were engaged in. He tried to look elsewhere but it was no use. He was too steeped in misery.
Aside from just depressing him, the sight of Kimber with Dane truly pissed him off. Yes, he’d had a horrible lapse in judgment—several epic ones, actually—but after all that had happened, she still preferred Dane? Jay experienced a flash of what it was like to feel nothing for Kimber aside from pity that someone could be so stupid and self-sabotaging. Wanting a girl of that caliber hardly seemed worth the pain anymore.
Jay turned to Taryn. “You just have to face it,” he said, silencing her tirade in mid-sentence. “What you and Brad had is obviously over. You can either sit here all night feeling sorry for yourself or you can take a step in the right direction and move on—like this.”
He kissed her with a fervor he didn’t really feel, and she moaned, giving his tongue access to hers. For a moment, Jay thought this was the best decision.
Then Taryn broke away, looking not overwhelmed with lust but bug-eyed and bewildered. “What was that about?”
“Um…” Wasn’t the answer obvious? If he had to explain what he’d just done and why, he’d seriously misjudged the situation.
She covered her face with her hands. “I’m just so confused.” She peered at him through her fingers. “Last night outside the apartment… The argument… Well, don’t you have a torch for Kimber?”
That a complete stranger preoccupied with her own romantic problems could discern that—after he’d just kissed her, no less—but Kimber hadn’t for ten goddamn years was quite possibly one of the most depressing things he’d ever heard. He sat back with a sigh, resigned to his fate. “On that note, I’m just as confused as you.”
“Let’s go over the facts.” Taryn returned her hands to the tabletop. “I asked you out because I’m in love with Brad, and you just kissed me because you’re into Kimber.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Does she have any idea? I know you said last night that you messed everything up, but the way I’ve seen you guys act around each other, I thought she had a crush on you, too.”
“Seeing as how she was just all over one of the guys in the band, I’m gonna have to go with no.”
Taryn paused for a moment and stared at the table again as if trying to determine why a raven was like a writing desk. “Just as I thought.” She gave a brusque nod. “Love makes no sense at all.”
Jay groaned and rubbed his temple. “All I need is a new way to feel. At this point, it’s the only thing I ask for. I can’t take this anymore, and I don’t know what to do about any of it.”
Taryn rubbed his arm. “Maybe there’s a reason you feel the way you do. Like an everything-happens-for-a-reason reason.”
“There is. The reason is I’m stupid.”
She laughed. “Come on, let’s get out of here and go back to my place.”
Jay arched a quizzical brow. “I can’t kiss you in the bar but you want me to go home with you?”
“Actually, yes. I’m sick of this place, as I’m sure you are, and I’m craving the cookies I made this afternoon.” She frowned. “I made them for Brad. I was hoping he’d be back by now.” After a pause, she shook her head, like shaking off a spell. “I just don’t want to be alone right now. The other night without him was too tragic to relive.”
“I don’t know.” Jay yawned. “I should probably just go home and get some sleep.”
“Just for a little while,” Taryn pleaded. “Besides, imagine Kimber’s expression when she sees your car in our lot and realizes you’re not there to see her.”
Jay knew Taryn played his weak spot with desperation but didn’t mind. The idea of Kimber experiencing twinges of jealousy over him and Taryn together was an attractive one, although she’d made it more than clear she had no interest in him. In fact, she flat out copped to hating him. What did she care who he went home with? It was a reminder that strengthened his case to go to Taryn’s. It was better than the alternative, which was going back to his place and trying to stop thinking about everything just long enough for him to get a few hours rest. “Those cookies better be pretty damn awesome.”
Taryn grinned. “With a glass or two of wine, there’s nothing better.”
* * *
Kimber watched as Jay and Taryn left, tittering like lovers, and her body burned with anger and worry. Were they going to top off the night with a romp in the sack, then laugh afterward about how pathetic it was that poor Kimber was stuck alone at the bar, awaiting her ex-boyfriend to finish playing the music he’d always loved more than her so they could have some unsatisfying encounter vaguely resembling sex? It was the most miserable thing Kimber had ever imagined. Meanwhile, Jay would be giving Taryn multiple orgasms—orgasms that should’ve been hers.