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“I’ll teach you.”
I push aside the same tired voice I’ve been hearing all of my life that tells me I’m going to make a fool of myself. I don’t have to be perfect. Not tonight. I’m thirty-three years old and I don’t know what fun is. It’s high time I fix that.
“Okay, let me go to the ladies room first.”
On the other side of the room, a trendy vintage neon sign points me in the right direction. Once I get there I do my business, apply more lip gloss, and gleefully get ready to make a fool of myself on the dance floor. All goes well.
The problem presents itself as soon as I step out of the ladies room. Where I find Mr. Urban Cowboy from the booth next to ours leaning up against the wall, thumbs hooked into his tooled belt, wearing a decidedly sly grin.
“Hi.”
“Hiya,” I reply, suddenly uneasy.
“Is that your boyfriend?” No beating around the bush with this one.
“No,” I answer honestly.
“Didn’t think so.” Urban Cowboy smiles wider.
“Hey,” comes a firm shout from afar. An angry giant looms large down the crowded, narrow hallway. People give him a wide berth as Dane quickly closes the distance between us. Suddenly alert, Urban Cowboy drops the lazy charmer act and pushes off the wall.
“Fuck off,” is directed at the cowboy, who is easily two inches and fifty pounds smaller. Dane’s voice is low and angry, marked with the promise of violence. Even I get goose bumps and I’m in no danger.
Urban Cowboy hesitates for a beat before deciding that I’m more trouble than I’m worth. He slinks away quietly, after a shrug aimed at me. Probably for the best.
“What is your problem? Seriously? Are you feeling faint? Is it heatstroke? Because that would be a legitimate reason for the crap you’ve been pulling since we walked in. Otherwise you’re just being a jerk.” I storm past him, in a hurry to get back to Levi and take him up on his offer.
“Some strange dude’s mushroom head is not gonna be poking my son. If anybody is gettin’ that honor, it’ll be me.”
My feet stop so suddenly I almost topple over.
Mushroom head? The man has lost his ever-loving mind. And in public no less. I turn and take a moment to collect myself, to put a lid on the unusual flare of temper he’s managed to elicit in me. I thought that was impossible and yet here I stand, blood boiling.
“I have no idea where this hostility is coming from. But I suggest that you go home and sleep it off.”
“You want sex. I’m happy to help you out.”
Help me out? As in a pity fuck? I gave him a chance, drew the line in the sand, and told him nicely not to cross it and he trampled it––along with my feelings. Now the gloves are off.
“You think I need your charity? I’m not your type, remember? Any one of those three guys at the next table would be happy to help me out.”
“Over my dead body,” he mutters, stepping past me and effectively cutting off any chance I have of escape.
“That can be arranged,” I grind out as I jerk to the left. He blocks me. “Get out of my way, Dane.”
His expression switches from frustration to pain to irritation so quickly I can hardly keep up. He’s struggling with something and I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is.
“Stell…I…” He takes off his ball cap and runs a hand through his hair, biting on his lower lip. “Let me take you home.”
“Jesus Christ, I came to have a little bit of fun! This is going to sound like a foreign concept to you, but I haven’t had much of it in my life. Can you allow me just a little fun? I don’t think I’m asking for much.”
Shoulders sagging, he finally steps aside. I pass without a backward glance. Common sense tells me this isn’t the end of it.
Chapter Nineteen
Dane
I swear on all that’s holy I’m gonna have a stroke tonight if I see one more sonovabitch smile at Stella like he’s picturing her on her knees.
Levi’s teaching her to line dance. She’s terrible for Pete’s sake. The woman’s got two left feet. And it doesn’t look like she cares either. Those two have been laughing it up for the last hour while I sit here at the bar pounding beers and plotting the murder of anyone who gets near her.
“Penny for your thoughts, darlin’,” a familiar voice singsongs. Nothing like your best friend busting your balls to take a mood from bad to worse. He slides onto the recently vacated stool next to mine.
“As the owner of this fine establishment, don’t you have work to do?”
He eyeballs the empty shot glass in front of me with suspicion.
“Every good business owner knows how to delegate.” This delivered with a side-eye and a smirk.
I continue picking away at the label of the beer bottle, eyes aimed down to keep from becoming a victim of Noah’s ruthless examination. “Fair warning. I’m in no mood, Callahan.”
As much as I try not to glance at the dance floor, I lose that battle in seconds, drawn to her by a power that I’m coming to understand I have zero control over.
“What crawled up your ass, sweetheart?” My narrowed-eyed gaze moves away from Stella but not fast enough for Noah to miss. “Girl trouble?”
The bartender slides a beer in front of him. Noah tips his head at the guy, then takes a chug of the brew.
“What am I, a fucking teenager? I do not have girl trouble. Stella is not my girl. She’s the mother of my child.”
When I don’t get an obnoxious reply, I look over. Next to me Noah’s wide shoulders quake, his face swollen from containing the laughter dying to burst out of him.
“Get it out, asshole.” I catch the bartender’s attention. “Another Jäger.” He pours one without delay. I knock it back, the burn no longer uncomfortable but welcome. Feeling anything other than this underlying rage is good.
A loud boom of laughter rises above the music, even above the noise of the crowd. “Look, I’m gonna help you out ’cause I love you and generally you’re a good guy.” He wipes tears of laughter away from his eyes. “For entertainment value, I’d like to see you eat shit for as long as possible, but I’m feelin’ charitable tonight.”
“Is this the part where I tell you to go fuck yourself?”
“Not yet. Okay, here goes.” He takes a deep breath, fighting back more laughter. “You’re in love, you dumb motherfucker.” After which, he punishes me with a shit-eating grin.
“This is the help you speak of? This is you being charitable? I told you I wasn’t in the mood for none of your rubbish.”
“I’m serious, Dane.”
I take a good long look at my friend. He is serious. “Where’dya get that hairbrained idea?”
“Anyone that’s ever suffered from unrequited love can read that condition on your face from five counties away.” His gaze drifts off, his throat working as he takes another swig of beer. “Present company included,” he mutters.
“Unrequited?” This bullshit demands an eye roll. “Now I know you’re messing with me.”
“Are you sleeping with her? Did she profess her love for you? No? So then it ain’t requited––that makes it unrequited.”
I can’t be in love. God help me if this is what love feels like.
“I can’t be in love. I don’t have a good opinion of it, but it can’t feel this bad.”
He slaps me on the shoulder. “Brotha, ain’t nothing special about love. It’s a condition. Like eczema, or erectile dysfunction. And like any condition you can treat it, make it better, but it will never fully go away. That right there,” he says tipping his beer bottle toward the dance floor where Stella’s having so much fun she’s apparently forgotten I even exist. “Is the medicine for your pain. Tell her how you feel. Go be with her and you won’t feel crappy no more.”
Maybe I am in love. I’ve always had a bad opinion of it so it makes sense that it should feel this god-awful. Then again I haven’t gotten laid in far too long.
“I’ll tell you what I’m suffe
ring from, the reason I feel like this. I believe the correct medical term is blue balls. I need to get laid and right quick. It’s clouding my judgement.”
Three bar stool over I spot a curvy blonde making eyes at me and in return I give her my best smile. Noah’s eyes shift from me to the blonde and his face loses some of its amusement.
“I know that look on your face, Dane,” he warns, head shaking “Don’t be doing nothin’ stupid. You wrong that woman and there’s no gettin’ back to right.”
The underlying darkness in Noah’s voice gets my attention. He has that look about him. The one he’s been wearing for a decade. It comes and goes and tonight it makes an appearance.
Disappointment and hopelessness are as comfortable on him as an old pair of jeans. What a waste. Another perfect example of the dangers of loving a woman. There’s no talking to him about it though.
I jerk a chin at the blonde and she moseys over.
“Wanna dance?”
“I’ve been waitin’ for you to ask, sugar,” she responds in a baby voice. It grates on my already inflamed nerves.
