AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What can I get you, sir?” the bartender asked, his vague transatlantic accent perfectly in line with the aesthetic of the place.
“What you got on tap?” I asked, noting Nolan approached the bar slowly, picking up an acrylic table sign of drink specials, looking nonplussed.
The bartender slowly rambled on, but I couldn’t focus on his words. All I could focus on was Nolan. His skin lit up with the outlying glow of the lights behind the bar, biting his perfect pout. Which made me swallow hard, made my cock twitch.
“Sir?” the man asked me again, and I realized I must have completely tuned him out, so I waved my hand, nodding with a smile. “The last one,” I said, hoping to hell that whatever it was I just ordered wouldn’t be dry and bitter as hell.
“And for you, sir?” the bartender turned to Nolan, his lips pulling up in the corner. It was the smallest smile, but it was a smile I hadn’t been given.
Oh no, you don’t, asshole. This one’s mine.
Immediately, I froze upon my thoughts as Nolan looked up from his drink specials, big brown eyes oblivious to the bartender’s subtle flirt.
I’d never thought of Nolan as much more than a thorn in my side for the last two years—well, unless you counted my fantasies but that was different.
Because fantasy was certainly not reality, and the reality was that Nolan didn’t belong to me, not even in the slightest. He drove me damn near to drink with his incessant nitpicking and oversight of the claims I filed, and aggravated the hell out of me with his uncanny way of showing up just when I didn’t want him to, but it seemed like somewhere along the line, my entire brain had done a complete one eighty.
The reality was that at some point, whether it was the race, or him showing up to take care of my brother because it was important to me, or maybe it was the night he showed up at M’s Place and won bingo... somewhere along the line I’d changed, and I no longer wanted to make Nolan’s life a living hell.
I just wanted him.
To make his cheeks turn scarlet, to get him so flustered he couldn’t speak, to fuck him so good he wouldn’t be able to leave his fucking couch.
I swallowed harshly as that reality set in, because I knew this wasn’t a date.
But maybe I wanted it to be.
So, I decided if this date-not-date was going to be a disaster, I might as well make it a pretty one.
“Oh, uh, I’m not...”
“Tell the nice man what you want, baby,” I taunted him, which made him flush.
Dawson 1, Nolan 10, bartender 0.
“If you have questions or would like a recommendation,” the bartender said smoothly as he leaned his arms across the surface, his voice smooth and rich like the bar itself.
Nolan set the drink specials down, chewing on his lip as if contemplating what to order with great thought.
“I’ll have the Elderberry Fizz. Please,” he said poignantly.
“Will that be all, sir?” the bartender asked, his voice must huskier than I liked.
I moved closer to Nolan, only by an inch, placing my hand at the small of his back, which made Nolan jump nearly five feet off the ground.
“See, now was that so hard?” I teased.
Nolan side-eyed me from underneath his thick, black glasses and smirked. “You are insufferable, you know that?” he said as he cocked his head to the side, blowing a stray piece of hair out of his eyes.
“It is my number one goal in life. To be an insufferable bastard,” I said, flashing him with a grin as I turned to look at the bartender. “That’ll be all, thanks.”
Twenty minutes turned into thirty minutes, as there had been a party before us who was in our spot, who just didn’t seem to want to leave. Normally, I would have argued, gotten angry that I was planning on spending good money there too, so why the hell wasn’t I capable of being seated on time, but I’d already accepted this date-not-date was an epic disaster, so what else could I do? Especially after two beers of my own, knowing I needed to slow down or we’d be catching an Uber home.
Which didn’t sound bad, but then again, I didn’t want an audience with Nolan. In fact, I didn’t want anyone else with Nolan but me.
Mine.
All mine.
