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“Pee, pee, pee. I have to pee!”
“Don’t let me stop you,” I said to Lara.
I dodged Lara’s desperate body as soon as we entered 5B Rock, and she shot in front of me and dived into the scattered crowd in search of a restroom.
The crowd wasn’t as thick as last night, Sunday night being more of a football bar night. There a few TVs dispersed throughout, but from what I saw, they played only vintage MTV music videos on mute. I had more of a sense of the place—lots of dark, varnished wood, a tower of liquor bottles in front of mirrored bar and, how could I forget, electric purple walls.
I slid onto a vacant stool and looked for Reagan but was unable to spot her. She told me to meet her here after the game since I’d been “too drunk” Friday night to be introduced properly to her brother. She refused to admit she’d gotten just as wasted. “I just had a little too much fun, okay?” she’d said.
When I asked her if I could bring Lara, I sensed her hesitation almost immediately. Our communication was entirely through text today, but Reagan’s responses made it clear she wasn’t too open to Lara dating her brother. I took my phone out of my purse because I’d forgotten to text Reagan when we were leaving the game. I swiped my finger across the screen.
Me: Here!
Her response came within seconds, which meant she was probably out of the subway and making her way to the bar.
Reagan: Can’t come! Last minute reading crisis. Forgot torts.
Luckily, in a frantic fury so I could make today’s game, I’d spent the entire weekend finishing all the required readings for tomorrow, but only just. I picked at my lip, reading Reagan’s text again. Wasn’t the torts assignment just one case? It couldn’t have been more than a half hour read. I texted back:
Wasn’t the assignment less than thirty pgs?
Then, to add a dash of humor, I wrote:
You can read that while doing jumping jacks and solving a Rubik’s cube. Come out!!
Reagan: Shoot I meant crim! Can’t! Way too busy.
Criminal law was a lengthier assignment, but I remembered her being almost halfway through that yesterday, and it was only fifty pages. The one major assignment we had was contracts at one hundred and fifty pages. If any assignment would keep her home, it would be that. But she didn’t even mention it.
Does it matter?
So she didn’t want to come and was making up an excuse. Big deal. I began thumbing my response.
Are you avoidi
“Hey. Charlie, right?”
I looked up from my phone. “Nate.”
A weird feeling unfurled in me, one akin to embarrassment and anger swirling together. I could remember vague pieces of Friday night and my proclivity to argue with him, but after focusing on a million other things this weekend, I couldn’t recall the actual words I’d used. Or he’d used, for that matter.
Technically, I could air it all out right now, blame Charles, and he could find me witty and we’d move on. But his stare was intense, the bright green of his eyes almost encouraging me to revisit the conversation from Friday. And I found myself wanting to rebel against anything he expected.
I peered around him. “Aren’t you on the wrong side of the bar?”
He gave a modest chuckle, wiping down the bar in front of me. With improved overhead lighting, I could see the tattoos on his forearm a little better. The ink was pure black, thick lines crisscrossing up to his elbow, thin ones curving into circles at the center but spreading out to the edges. The ink curved all the way around, more black than skin. It ended just above his wrist, the perfect stopping point for a button-down work shirt.
He paused in his cleaning, and my eyes rounded. I wasn’t sure how long I was staring at his arms, but it was long enough to make him stop what he was doing.
“Sorry,” I said, busying myself by blacking out my phone screen. I placed it on the bar.
“Nah, don’t worry,” he said, dropping the cloth somewhere below him. “The price of wearing sleeves.”
“Huh?” I tucked my purse onto my lap.
“If you get a lot of tattoos, you kind of have to accept people will stare. Try and figure it out, you know.” His ring flashed through a lopsided grin. “Did you figure anything out?”
I squinted at him. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was waiting for me to say something stupid.
“You’re supposed to be a lawyer.”
I caught him off guard. I even surprised myself. Normally I was never this rude or abrupt. That was Lara’s territory.
“I am a lawyer,” he said, turning his back to me for a moment. While lean, I could still make out the lines and crests of muscle underneath his black T-shirt. “Vodka soda, right? Or are we heading straight to tequila today?”
“Really? Hey—no.” Heat splayed into my cheeks, and I hoped my mind wouldn’t betray me and recall that night in all its glory. Because if my instincts were correct, I’d offered to replace him as the drummer because I thought he was a dick. And he’d accepted. “No. No tequila.”
I thought I heard him laugh under his breath as he slid the vodka soda over to me. He combed the hair out of his eyes before he rested his arms on the varnished wood. “My dad owns the place. I help out when I can.”
“Oh. I had no idea. Reagan never told me this place belonged to your family.”
“Yeah, it goes all the way back to our great-grandfather.”
“And was he a bartending lawyer in a rock band as well?”
His face broke into a smile, and I noticed he had no dimples. His cheeks were creaseless even when he grinned wide. “No. That’s an honor only I’ve achieved.”
“What kind of law do you practice?”
It was a standard question. One I was told I was going to have to get used to every time I introduced myself as a lawyer or was asked my occupation. He was well practiced in his answer because he said automatically, “Criminal. I’m a prosecutor in New York County.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep.” His expression was too flat to be joking. I must have looked incredulous.
“But all I hear is how crazy that job is and how there’s no time for anything else. Just court and jail and paperwork.”
“I have a lot of energy.”
He was so calm, so nonfidgety as he pressed his palms to the bar and spoke to me that I had no idea if he was fucking with me or not. I snapped my mouth shut, judging him.
His cheekbones were so sharp the hollows of his cheeks were natural, bending in before extending into a square jawline. His nose was classically straight with no nubs in it to indicate he’d ever broken it—unlike Slade. I searched around his nostrils, trying to spot a piercing hole. Was that what Reagan meant when she spoke of other piercings? Where were the others?
When he sniffed, I realized I’d been ogling too long again.
I jerked back on my stool, wondering why Reagan had to wimp out on me. And where the hell Lara was.
He lifted off the bar, tucking another rag in the back pocket of his jeans. “So I hear Lucky Thirteen won the game. Did you go with him? Cheer him on from the stands?”
He studied me just as much as I was assessing him. His upper lip was raised in a manner that meant he may or may not be sneering at me.
“No, I was at home cleaning our apartment with a feather duster and a frilly apron, and gee whiz, I nearly forgot the roast in the oven because I was too busy touching up my lipstick waiting for my man to come home.”
His brows disappeared into his mop of hair. The slightest smile appeared on his lips, so small I nearly missed it.
“Shit, I had to climb like two flights of stairs in order to get to the bathroom,” Lara said, flopping into a stool beside me. “What are you drinking? That looks yummy and quenching.”
She filched the drink from my hand and took a long, languorous sip, her fingers dancing along the stirring straw as she spun in her seat and her eyes landed on Nate. “Oh, why hello.”
; “Lara, this is Nate. Reagan’s older brother.”
All day, I had been waiting for this moment. Deliberately I didn’t mention Nate’s appearance because I was way too excited for this very scene when Lara’s face would morph into a cartoon’s and her jaw would drop to the floor, complete with an ah-woo-ga! as her eyes bulged out of her head.
She didn’t disappoint. “Excuse me?”
I nodded, a shit-eating grin on my face. Nate cocked an eyebrow at me and said to her, “Uh, yeah. I’m Nate.”
He wiped his hand on his jeans before holding it out to her. She took it robotically, likely still coming to terms with his genetics.
“Should I get you another?” he asked me, already turning back to the row of bottles.
“Holy. Motherfucking. Shit,” Lara said, loud enough for my ears only.
“Told you.”
“Told me? You didn’t tell me shit, you conniving little twerp.”
Nate swung back around in the middle of my laughter. “Hey, listen, sorry about what I said…”
“It’s okay,” I said, recovering enough to speak. “But it’s a touchy subject.”
“Noted,” he said. “But for the record, I’d never pictured you in something frilly.”
I zeroed in on his tone. Was he—no, that was ridiculous. He was not picturing me in something else.
Another girl came up to the bar, and he shifted his attention to her, listening to the order.
Lara took stock of her as soon as she noticed the girl’s voice, slightly flirty and filled with dulcet tones. But Lara must have rated her at zero because she turned to me in immediate dismissal.
“So I totally failed my interview today.”
“Crap, I’m sorry! I didn’t even ask,” I said, feeling awful.
Lara had shown up late for our car service, so my time with her before the game was spent shoving her into the vehicle and burying her in warm clothing since the tight black number she was wearing would only catch her the flu.
She lifted a hand in a whatever motion. “It was some little Italian mom-and-pop, anyway. Totally not where I belong.”
I agreed. Lara wandering around a boutique restaurant with a crisp white button-down and a color-specific tie was not an image I could reconcile with the self-proclaimed vixen in front of me. She had a bachelor’s degree in sociology but had no interest in using it. I often wondered where she was going to end up. But she was happy with her life of spontaneity, and I was still recovering from the shock of her sitting still long enough to graduate. Twice.
“So what’s next?” I asked her.
She twisted a ring on her right middle finger and said, “Oh, who knows. But this is New York City. I’ll find something.”
“You need a job?” Nate was back, doing a quick wipe down of some glasses out of the dishwasher.
“I do,” Lara said, drawing out the words.
It was a thing she did with men. Her voice dropped an octave, and she savored every syllable. The only person who seemed impervious to it was Slade.
Nate’s lips crept up in slow, sexy amusement, a thing I’m sure he did with women.
My mind barked a reminder: Slade.
I was supposed text him when I got to the bar,
I picked up my phone, which was still on silent from my studying today, and saw there was already a text message waiting.
Slade: You get to the bar okay?
Me: Yes! Sorry! Reagan bailed but I’m here with Lara. Hooking her up.
Slade: Haha let’s hope she doesn’t hook him. With her claws.
I suppressed an eye roll. I had to love him, but somehow he came up with the lamest lines.
Me: She’s found a worthy opponent I think.
Slade: Fingers crossed. Night babe. Come home soon. But don’t fall on me tonight.
I smiled at my screen.
Me: You mean don’t seduce you. No promises.
Slade: You’re going to be the end of me.
I placed my phone back on the bar.
“So start tomorrow.”
“Wait, what?” My eyes went from the bar to Nate.
“Shocker, you weren’t listening,” Lara said, looking to Nate as if letting him in on a joke. “She gets like this every time she talks to her man. Like she’s got the ability to vault off the planet.”
“I don’t go to outer space,” I said and picked up my drink, mumbling into it. “I have enough extra-terrestrial friends.”
“Nate’s offered me a job,” Lara said, her smile bright.
“Seriously?” How was that the only exclamation I seemed to be able to use around Nate?
“For serious. I’m a bartender now.” Lara tossed the mini straw out of her drink, sending a wink to Nate as if to say “I know how you guys do this.” She slugged her drink back and then said, “I’ll be excellent at it.”
“Did I just do something stupid?” Nate said, pointing to her but asking me.
“I’ll let you be the judge,” I said and downed the rest of my drink. “Don’t worry, though, I’ll be cheering for you.”
He cocked his head at me before he smirked, and I was much too happy to see that he recognized—and accepted—the barb.
Sisters in solidarity, Lara and I clinked our empty classes together in cheers.
About the Author
Ketley Allison began her career by writing books as birthday presents for her friends (with her friend as the main character and opposite a super sexy lead, of course) before ending it in order to walk down a path she thought she was supposed to follow.
The writing bug never left her—and, in fact, would often bleed into the official papers she was supposed to write—so now Ketley’s putting down her suit and finally following her dream. While her friends are no longer the stars of her books, she still throws in bits and pieces of them into each and every one of her characters.
As a result, her books tend to focus a lot on friendships as well as love, because let’s be honest, friends are what really get you through—especially when your epic love turns into epic heartbreak.
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