Page 5

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SCARLETT

T he look on the bouncer’s face is totally worth it.

As I leave Vortex with Demi and the guy I found her with her lips latched onto trailing behind me, the bouncer already had a sour expression chiseled on his face thanks to the big yellow stain decorating his shirt.

But when we make eye contact as I pass by, furrows of shock dig into his large and prominent brow.

“You?” he sputters. “How did …”

I cut him off by flipping my wrist at him in a haughty goodbye wave. “Toodles,” I sing, passing with my head held high.

The triumphant feeling that expands in my chest is only sweeter for how truly petty it is.

Demi and her new friend—they’ve been too busy sucking each other’s faces for a formal introduction yet—follow me as I walk to where Lane and I agreed to meet.

I’m relieved to see him without any bruises and sporting an unbroken nose.

He pushes off the wall he was leaning against, and not for the first time tonight I’m struck by his towering height; his powerful figure that’s broad and thick at his shoulders and chest but that tapers sleekly at his waist.

“Mission accomplished?” he asks. He hasn’t even broken a sweat.

I smile. “Mission accomplished,” I demonstratively hold up my phone.

I catch the way his gaze ticks to my phone, along with the interest that flares in his eyes.

I decided not to give him my number a couple days ago because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to jump right back into a fling while my breakup with Caleb is still fresh.

As many times as I’ve told myself I’m better off without him, and as true as the rational part of my brain knows that fact to be, the breakup is still a raw wound on my heart.

But with our paths crossing again so soon—by me literally falling into his arms—maybe fate is giving me a push in Lane’s direction. And maybe I shouldn’t ignore her hand.

I nod over my shoulder, knowing without having to look that Demi’s still got her lips locked with the guy she just met. “That’s my friend, Demi,” I tell Lane. “And, uh, some guy.”

“Hi, Demi,” Lane calls past me to them. “Hi, some guy.”

Without unlatching their mouths, Demi spares Lane a little wave of her hand while Some Guy holds out a thumbs up in Lane’s general direction.

There’s a beat of silence as Lane and I regard each other, each seemingly unsure of the next move. Having two people making out a couple paces behind us does kind of add a tinge of awkwardness to the scene, too.

But Demi breaks the silence before either of us has to.

“Scarlett, Garrett and I are going to go back to his place,” she tells me, giving me his name for the first time.

I walk over and huddle with Demi for a minute, telling her to make sure to text me when she arrives at Garrett’s place along with his address, so I know she’s safe and where she is. Then they’re walking off together, and I turn back to Lane.

“So,” he begins, “I’d offer to buy you a drink for letting me help you. But I’m a square and don’t have a fake ID.”

I sputter a laugh, shaking my head. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around, anyway?”

“You offering to buy me a drink?” he retorts with a wry grin. “I would accept. But, well, you know.” He holds out his two thumbs and index fingers to make the shape of a square in front of his chest. I laugh again.

No point in resisting fate, right?

“There’s a pool hall around the corner. Serves beer, but you don’t have to be twenty-one to enter.”

Lane replies with three words that have an outsized effect on my heart rate. “It’s a date.”

“So, is getting kicked out of places a regular thing for you?” Lane lobs his question as we order sodas from the bar area of the pool hall.

“Not really,” I answer over the rim of my glass as I take a sip. “Well, I did get kicked out of the zoo once.”

Lane’s brow leaps. “The zoo ? How do you get kicked out of the zoo ?”

I shrug. “I was there with a group of friends, and someone dared me to sneak into the penguin enclosure and get a selfie with one of them. I tried, got caught, and we were escorted from the premises.”

Lane blows a heavy breath through his lips, shaking his head slowly like he’s judging me, but the glimmer of amusement in his eyes tells a different story. “Geez, you’re worse than I thought.”

“What? It’s not like penguins are dangerous or anything.”

His expression pinches with contemplation. “Aren’t they? How do you know? Maybe they are.”

“But they’re too cute to be dangerous!”

“Hippos are cute, too, but they kill more people than lions.”

“Maybe you’re right. Getting caught may have saved my life. I could’ve been bludgeoned to death by the wings of a penguin.”

Lane laughs, and he leans against the bar top and looks out to the pool tables. It’s busy here, but there are a couple tables open. “You play much pool?”

I nod. “Kind of a lot, actually. I worked at a bar that had some tables. Lots of customers came in to use them. I learned the ropes.”

“You even worked at a bar being under twenty-one?” Lane asks.

The surprise in his voice makes me chuckle. “This really wasn’t the kind of place that gave a shit about checking IDs. Or about filing taxes right. Or about paying employees on time,” I add with a grumble.

“Where are you from?” Lane asks. “Near Burlington?” That’s where the flight Lane and I met on originated from.

“Nah, I’m from a run-down former mill town in Massachusetts you’ve never heard of. The cheapest flight to Chicago was out of Boston with a transfer at Burlington.”

It’s funny to think how it was nothing but the desire to save an extra fifty bucks that’s responsible for Lane and me crossing paths.

I guess that’s just what life is. A series of coincidences and mistakes. It all depends on what you’re able to make of them.

Honestly, reflecting on all the mistakes I’ve made in my life so far has been weighing on my shoulders lately. It feels like there’s been too many for the number of years I’ve racked up.

At least for all the mistakes I’ve made, I have stories to go along with them. Even picked up a skill or two.

“Ready to get your ass kicked?” I say to Lane, nodding toward an empty pool table.

He grins, rising to the challenge. “You’re awfully confident. You know, last season I led all of college hockey for defensive goals.”

I arch my brow primly. “That supposed to mean something when it comes to pool?”

“Aim and accuracy translate.”

I brush past him, walking to the cue racks. “We’ll see.”

We pick up our cues, rack the balls, and a couple minutes later I show Lane that, no, aim and accuracy don’t translate from hockey to pool.

“Shit,” he murmurs as I sink the eightball into the side pocket to win this round. “Let’s go again.”

Concentration lines his face as he takes his first shot. His competitive nature is coming out.

Lane doesn’t like to lose, and he’s not used to it. That’s clear.

Too bad for him, because he does again.

His jaw drops when I decide to show off a little, sinking my final ball with a trick shot into the furthest corner pocket.

I wiggle my hips. “Darn, wasn’t this ass of mine supposed to get kicked?” I tease.

The set of Lane’s jaw goes hard, his gaze ticking below my waist. Something tells me he’s imagining doing other things to my ass than kicking it right now.

He pulls his gaze back to my eyes. “How the hell did you do that?” he asks. “And more importantly, why the hell do I suck so bad at this?”

I grin. “Your form’s all wrong. Here, I’ll show you.”

I set up a striped ball and the cue ball a distance from it on the felt surface of the table. I tell Lane to get into position as if he were about to try and sink it into the corner pocket, but then to freeze.

I sidle up to him to adjust his posture. From the first contact, sparks skate across my skin. I’m so close to him that waves of warmth roll off his muscle-wrapped body, and his clean but masculine scent swims in my nose. It’s a heady, intense feeling that leaves me tongue-tied for a second.

“You need to straighten this arm,” I tell him. It’s only after the words leave my mouth that I realize how much gravel there is in my voice. “And bend lower.”

The muscles straining against the back of Lane’s shirt pull tighter, and the muscles sitting at the height of my thighs do the same.

He follows my directions. The movement only brings us closer, our hips touching while I’m angling my torso toward him to correct his form.

His frame is big, powerful, and sculpted. I swallow past the dryness in my throat.

My gaze travels the length of his left arm, the long limb rippling with lean muscle. To correct his posture, I place my left hand above his wrist and my right hand at the crook of his elbow. Tendrils of heat rip through me from where our skin makes contact.

“Like this,” I breathe out, my voice shaky with the stutter of my heartbeat.

He lets me reposition him. A small laugh tickles my throat as I consider how backward this scene is. Traditionally, a guy would be using this as an excuse to feel up his date.

Too bad this guy sucks at pool.

Lane gives me a sidelong look. “What’s so funny? I’m not that bad, am I?”

I grin. “No comment.”

I consider how Caleb, my ex, would never let me do this. Coaching him on how to shoot pool in public? He’d view it as emasculating.

Clearly, Lane’s immune from that insecurity.

“Keep your left arm like that,” I tell him. I round behind his frame. A feeling of awe surges through me at the wide expanse of his back and the broad axis of his shoulders. “Now, put your right arm like this …”

His muscles roll under his warm skin when I take hold of the spot just above his elbow to guide him.

As he moves, his elbow brushes against my hip bone, and every muscle in my core clenches. A tight, needy ache erupts low inside me. When I pull in a steadying breath, I find out my nipples have gone so hard and sensitive that heat prickles over my skin when they scrape against the fabric of my bra thanks to my chest expanding.

I try to clamp down on the reactions, willing my body to have some semblance of self-respect. Yeah, this guy is hot, but sheesh, don’t let him give you an orgasm in the middle of the pool hall just from a brush of his elbow.

“Alright,” I say, my voice still breathy, “don’t pull too far back, and don’t push too hard.”

“I bet that’s what you tell all the guys,” he quips.

I knee him in his firm butt, drawing a laugh.

Lane takes his shot and sinks the ball.

“Alright!” He pumps his arm, the angle of movement popping the boulder of his bicep. He turns to me with a satisfied grin on his face. “There might be hope for me yet as a pool player.”

I hold my thumb and index finger just a sliver of distance apart. “Some.”

“I’m finally on the road to not being a square.”

“Yeah. Just need to get you a fake ID.”

An excited glimmer lights his eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d take that as an insinuation that you want to spend more time with me,” he drawls with a smirk.

A warm, fuzzy feeling fills my chest, and my stomach does a series of twists. I’m not used to this bubbly feeling that has me trapping a girlish giggle in my throat.

“Well, how else are you supposed to get better at pool?”

Flames lick at the edges of Lane’s eyes. His gaze elevators down my body shamelessly.

He’s not stealing a glance this time. His gaze drags over me slow and heavy like he has a right to it. The space between us thickens with electric tension, so much so that I feel if I just arced my hand through it, sparks would crackle against my skin.

My eyes latch onto his lips. My own lips thrum with the vivid, almost-real imagination of how they would feel sliding against his.

All it would take is to angle my chin just so. Tilting it up just a bit, swaying my body so slightly in Lane’s direction, and he’d seize the moment. I know it.

But instead, I step back and to the side, picking up my phone from the edge of the pool table. Stepping out of the heated moment that could have led to one of our beds.

I tell him that I’m tired and should be heading home. But first, we finally exchange numbers.

I like Lane. A lot. Too much. Even though we’ve just met.

Maybe it’s silly, but I want to know if he actually likes me enough to stay interested even if I don’t make it easy for him.