“Why does it matter?”
“It’s just a question.”
She lifts a shoulder. “Wanted to get out of my apartment. This place is within walking distance. You?”
“Was supposed to meet a friend for drinks.”
“She stand you up?”
“Never said it was a female friend.”
Her gaze falls to her napkin.
It’s too dim in the bar to tell if she’s blushing, but I can only assume.
I take this as confirmation that things are absolutely headed in the right direction.
I trace my fingertips across the top of her knee. “Have to say … I can’t remember the last time I had a real conversation with anyone here.”
It’s a lame move and an even lamer line, but all I can think about is taking her home, and my impatience is getting the best of me.
She peers at me through a fringe of dark lashes before her gaze falls to my hand. “You’re not as smooth as you think you are, Casanova.”
A moment later, her palm rests over mine, and she returns my hand with the gentleness of an angelic virgin.
“You’re right.” I toss my hands in the air for half of a second. “It’s just another one of my … acts.”
Her drink is almost finished. Judging by the sullen turn our conversation has taken, a fourth is likely out of the question.
“Will you excuse me for a second?” She slides off her bar stool, hooks her purse over her shoulder, and heads to the back of the bar, leaving her coat to hold her spot.
I sip my vodka and watch as she bumps into the owner’s daughter on her way. Ophelia DeGrasse is one of those people who can talk to you once and the next time you run into her, it’s like catching up with an old friend.
Also, she exclusively dates women.
Either she’s merely being friendly with my ray-of-fucking-sunshine because they know each other … or she’s hitting on her.
Hard to tell from all the way over here, but I suppose it doesn’t matter because I’m sure as hell not getting ass from her tonight.
I knew better than to make a move so soon. I should’ve kept the conversation going. Feigned interest in getting to know more about her. But the Russian liquor coursing through my veins has evidently thrown me off my game and my impatience got the best of me.
My effervescent, out-of-reach bubbly blonde disappears into the ladies’ room.
I order water and text my driver.
I refuse to sit here wallowing in rejection when I’ve got dozens of women in my phone who would Uber to my place in a heartbeat if I said the word.
I’m half-finished with my water by the time she comes back. Clearing her throat, she takes a seat and tosses back the rest of her drink. We sit in silence over the longest two minutes of my life before she turns to me.
“You haven’t even asked my name,” she says.
“What?”
“You’ve been flirting with me all night, buying me drinks. You put your hand on my knee. And you’ve yet to ask my name.”
“I don’t need to.”
Her eyes catch on mine and she studies me. “Ah. So you already know it.”
I smirk. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I should go.” She slides off her seat. “Thanks for the drinks.”
My phone lights with a text from my driver.
He’s almost here.
I rise, slip my phone into my pocket, swipe my jacket, toss some cash on the counter, and head outside first.
God forbid she thinks I’m following her.
I’ve never chased after a woman in my life. I’m not about to start now.
I stand beneath a black awning, my breath turning to milky January clouds under a clear blue-black sky.
Sliding my phone out, I decide to check my work email while I wait for my ride. With it being a Saturday, I’m not met with anything urgent, and I’m about to close out of the app when I spot a reply email from Anonymous Stranger.
My thumb hovers above the delete button for half of a second before I decide to see what this audacious person has to say this time. Because I’ve never believed in letting anyone get the last word (and because I’m cheaply entertained by these exchanges), I fully intend to respond the next chance I get.
I’m three sentences deep when I realize this woman is giving me a novel’s worth of some sob story, likely an attempt to justify her decision to insert herself into my family’s tragedy.
She was a foster child …
She never met her father …
Her adoptive mother died …
Her fiancé died …
A bona fide country music song—all that’s missing is a runaway Blue Heeler and a broken-down Chevy on the side of the road.
There’s no fucking way any of this is true—and yet I continue reading anyway, waiting for the part where this madcap is about to ask me for money. It’s when I get toward the end that the amused smirk on my face fades and everything around me turns black.
The woman in the bar, the woman who eye-fucked me all night and then suddenly and inexplicably lost all interest … is none other than Anonymous Stranger.
And she fucking knew the entire time.
She thinks I’m cruel?
She hasn’t seen anything yet.
A moment later, the door swings open and Astaire joins me, buttoning her ivory pea coat and slipping her delicate hands into skin-tight leather gloves the color of baby’s breath. The faintest waft of her sweet perfume cuts through the cool night air as a car coasts by, tail lights reflecting against wet winter pavement until it vanishes over the hill.
Our eyes lock.
She begins to say something, but I silence her with a kiss … soft and slow, the kind that makes her melt against me, exhaling her sweet breath as my fingers trace the side of her cheek, her back against the brick façade of Ophelia’s.
She doesn’t resist.
In fact, her lips part to accept my tongue, gifting me the subtle tang of sugared citrus and champagne with a hint of pomegranate lip balm.
She’s every bit as sweet as I expected.
As if on cue, my driver pulls up, parking next to the curb.
I end the kiss, brushing the pad of my thumb against her lower lip. My thousand-yard stare bores into her and I step away.
“That’s my ride.” I nod toward the idling SUV.
“I’m not going home with you.”
“That wasn’t an invitation.” There’s a chill in my voice that makes her expression fade.
With that, I disappear inside the satisfying warmth of my backseat and leave her on the sidewalk, in the brutal January cold.
Thirteen
Astaire
* * *
“Astaire, there you are. Was hoping I’d catch you before the bell.” Mrs. Angelino, who teaches third grade down the hall, ambles into my classroom Monday morning, apple-shaped coffee mug in hand. “What happened last week? With Garrett? He said you never showed?”
I’d been meaning to catch up with her, to explain what happened, but she was out sick Friday, and I didn’t want to bother her at home over the weekend.
“I’m so sorry.” I was just about to check my email, but I close out of the log-in screen. “I got caught in the rain Thursday night, so when I got to the bar, I went to the ladies’ room to clean up. When I came out, the bartender told me he’d left. I didn’t have his number or else I’d have—”