Hadley’s eyes meet mine, and she lifts her chin. I don’t flinch. I flinched once years ago. That’s what started this bullshit situation I can’t win.
“Front row seats,” Peck says, leaning toward me. “How’d I get so lucky?”
“Ask yourself that in thirty seconds.”
“What’s in thirty seconds?”
“I’m gonna split your lip.” I fire a glare his way. “You didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”
“Uh, no. I want a beer. Not dead.”
“Just makin’ sure,” I grumble.
Hadley struts across the room as though she owns the damn place. It’s impossible not to watch her. Most people would buy the confident game she’s playing, but most people aren’t me.
Her chin is lifted too high. Her lipstick too red. Her walk too practiced to mean anything other than she’s nervous as hell.
“Hey,” she says. Her words are breathy as though she’s just run a mile. “Can I get a …” She glances at Peck as she sits beside him. “A rum and Coke?”
The corner of my lip is all that moves. “You want a rum and Coke?”
“That’s what I said.”
Her eyes, the same color as Nana’s butterscotch pie, stare into mine. I keep searching until I find the flecks of jade that pop when she’s worked up about something. The first time I saw them, I offered her a ride home from school. The second time, I was kissing her by the payphone at Goodman’s. The third time, I was sinking into her next to a campfire on Bluebird Hill. This isn’t the fourth time I’ve seen them, but it still causes the same fire to rocket through my body.
Damn her.
Customers buzz around us, unaware that I can barely breathe. Billiard balls crack, rock music plays, and voices laugh—enough diversions to disrupt my attention. Yet all I can focus on is the spark between me and this beautiful girl who makes me want to rip my hair out.
Nora bumps my shoulder as she slides Peck a beer. “Hey, Hadley.”
“Hey, Nora.”
“Is everything okay?” Nora asks.
“Yeah.” Hadley shrugs, the tiny little clover I won for her at the Water Festival all those years ago moving until it tucks between her breasts. “I just thought I’d come in for a drink before I head over to Cross’s.”
Nora glances at me out of the corner of her eye. A grin stretches across her cheeks as she looks back at Hadley. “Good luck with that.”
“Right?” Hadley laughs. “Don’t get me wrong. Cross and Kallie are perfect for each other, and I’m happy they’re together. But staying there while they’re in this honeymoon phase of their relationship should be fun.”
She makes a face that I just want to kiss off her. I want to reach across the bar and grip the back of her silky sun-kissed reddish hair and pull her to me until there’s nothing but a bunch of memories we’re better off to forget between the two of us.
Instead, I grip the bar harder. The laminate top cracks. Peck must notice because he chokes on his beer.
“I meant good luck getting that drink, but good luck with Cross too,” Nora says with a laugh. “I gotta check on the hoodlums in the back. It was good to see you, Had.”
“You too.” Hadley lifts the clover and toys with it in the air. Our gazes lock. “So …?”
Blood rushes back to my fingers as I release the counter. I search for any hint as to why she’s sitting in my bar because she doesn’t sit in my bar. Not even when things are semi-reasonable between us.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
Her chin drops at the harshness of the question. “It’s good to see you, too, asshole.” Her gaze chills and lingers on my skin for what feels like an eternity before she rips it away. Despite the frigidity, I’m irritated when her attention lands on Peck. “What’s going on in your life, anyway, Peck?”
Peck takes a drink. “Oh, same old, same old. Working at Crank with Walker and keeping my tab here active.”
“I feel for you,” she says. “You work with Machlan’s brother all day and then hang out with Machlan all night. How do you cope?”
“Well, Walker gives me money, and I turn around and give it to Machlan. They have a good system, if you think about it.”
“Would be brilliant if you actually paid all your tab.” I try to ignore Hadley, but that lasts two seconds. “What’s going on in your life?”
“On vacation,” she says quickly. “No girlfriend, Peck?”
“Nah, Molly hasn’t come around yet.” He tears at the corner of his beer label. “She will, though.”
“You deserve better than her,” Hadley insists. “I have this friend who I think you’d love. She—”
“Leave Peck alone. He’s a big boy. He can handle his own shit.” I grab a rag from beneath the counter and wipe an invisible spot between them so I don’t have to see the enjoyment in Peck’s eyes that I’m actually working my way into their conversation.
Peck tips his beer my way. “Is that a vote of confidence I hear?”
“Nah, more like if you want to hate yourself and go after Molly, then go for it.”
“Better than ending up like you.”
My head snaps up. A giant smirk is plastered on his face. The only thing that keeps me from going down that road is that Hadley is sitting a few feet away.
I toss the rag on the counter. “Hear that, Peck?”
“Hear what?”
“That. It’s your thirty seconds is winding down …”
Peck lifts off the stool. “I gotta go … do somethin’. Find me if you somehow score a drink and need a ride home, Had.” He stops short of leaving. “How long you gonna be in town?”
“I’m not sure. I had some vacation saved at my old job and don’t start my new one until the first. I’m just going with the flow for a few days.”
“Well, if you wanna head up to Bluebird, find me. We can go tear some shit up,” Peck says.
The end of their conversation is blurred by the white noise strumming past my eardrums as I watch the two of them make plans that don’t involve me. I have half a notion to interject, to take control like I usually do, and just call the shots. But I don’t.
Hadley left town because of me. She moved away from her brother and her friends because I’m a jackass.
The longer she’s gone, the deeper the guilt gets. There’s no way to fix it, though. The things I’ve done, the hurt I’ve caused this sweet girl, are things I can’t pretend she should forgive me for.
I’ve seen her a few times since the morning over a year ago when mascara-laced tears rolled down her cheeks, but I can’t shake that vision. Her hair a tousled mess from my hands being in it the night before. Her lip quivering as she waited for me to change my mind. There was hope in her eyes that I didn’t mean to put there, but I suppose I did. I did it a couple of times too many already. It’s why I can’t do it again.
Peck knocks on the bar top as he leaves, as if he’s doing me a solid and bringing me back to the present.
“I came for a drink,” she says.
“Yeah, that would work except you don’t drink.”
“Maybe I started.”
I lift a brow. If she’s fucking with me, and I’m ninety-percent sure she is, she’s doing a damn good job. My blood heats as it rolls through my veins, and I have to force out the thought of her drinking with people who aren’t, well, me. As the devil on my shoulder offers up other things she might be doing with people who aren’t me, the vein in my temple throbs.
“I asked for a rum and Coke,” she says, pressing her lips together.
“I heard.”
“Damn it, Machlan. Why does everything have to be so difficult with you?”
“How am I being difficult? I’m just standing here.”
Her lips part as though she’s on the cusp of firing back one of her typical smartass retorts, but she surprises me: she closes her mouth.
The good thing is she shuts up. The bad thing is I can’t tear my eyes way from the way her pucker plumps in a pout that sends a shockwave straight to my cock.
Fucking hell.
“Does your brother know you’re home?” I ask.
Because if he didn’t warn me, I’m gonna kick his ass.
“No. He thinks I’m coming in tomorrow.”
The stool next to her rattles as a man who was just here sidles up beside her. “Beer,” he demands and stretches his tattooed arms out too close to her for comfort.
Feet planted in place, right arm twitching to launch a shot at his weak-ass chin, I grit my teeth. Hadley flips her gaze my way before angling her body toward the douchebag.
“Didn’t you just leave?” she asks him with a grin that I’m fairly sure is more for my benefit than his.
“Yeah but I couldn’t stop thinking about you, so I figured I’d come back and say a proper hello.”
“Isn’t that sweet. What’s your name?” she asks.
“Logan. Can I buy you a beer?”
“I’m Hadley, and yes, that would be great.”
Logan turns to me and rests his elbow on the bar. “Make that two, bartender.”
“Fresh outta beer,” I deadpan.
“What the fuck you talkin’ about?”
I stare at him so hard he leans away. Unbeknownst to him, he’s not out of reach. My right hand could still smash his face before he realized I twitched.
“Did I stutter?” I ask.
Hadley sighs, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Come on, Mach. Stop it.”
“What? I can’t help I just sold my last beer to Peck.”
She rolls her eyes.
Logan gives me a curious look before turning to Hadley. “Want to head outta here and find a drink somewhere else?”
Roughing a hand over my jaw, I take in Hadley. She’s nervous as fuck, literally sitting on the edge of her seat. She has every reason to be. We’ve been in this position before. She knows how this can end. Unfortunately for the douchebag, he does not.