Biting back a sigh, I turn to face the woman again. Maybe she dropped her keys or I’m blocking her way to the bar or something.
“Hi,” she says, smile shy as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
Sweet.
Just like Harper.
The memory slams into me as fiercely as it had the morning after I left her sated and sleeping in her bed?—
“Fuck,” my father mutters to me as my mom storms out of the house yet again, slamming the door behind her, “don’t ever have kids, yeah? They’ll ruin your fucking life.”
“Did you need something?” I ask back in the present when she just continues to stand there smiling at me, trying to be patient, to be gentle, but with the memories of my parents running through my mind, reminding me precisely why I can’t have what I so intensely want, I have the feeling I don’t succeed.
Her smile dims slightly. “Oh, I…” Her cheeks start to turn pink. “I just wanted to see if you maybe…” She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Wanted to, you know, go out sometime?”
Christ.
I rub my forehead, barely smother my curse.
Too sweet.
Too much like?—
“No,” I say, a little too sharply, and for the second time in as many weeks, I make a nice woman’s face fall. “No,” I repeat more gently. “I’m sorry. I’m not…the going out type,” I finish lamely.
“Oh.” Her smile’s gone now. “Right, well, I’ll just…”
I save her the trouble of finishing and turn back to my beer, lifting the frosted glass and taking a long sip.
But it doesn’t soothe the ache in my throat, the fire that’s been burning in my chest.
The yearning for something I can’t have.
Sighing, I take another, longer sip.
“So,” I hear, “you’re not looking for sweet?”
I glance to the side, see a woman with deep brown hair that just brushes her shoulders and brightly painted red lips curved up into a smile that is anything but sweet.
“I’m not looking for anything,” I mutter and focus on my beer.
“No?”
“No.”
“Hmm,” she drawls.
“What?” I can’t help but ask.
“Are you sure you’re not looking for anything?”
I sit up, intrigued, but kind of hating myself for being so. “What kind of anything are you offering?” I ask.
“Hmm,” she says again, leaning forward slightly, allowing the deep vee of her shirt to float forward and reveal a gorgeous set of tits covered in black lace. “The kind without strings.”
I can’t wait to see you again.
My words echo through my brain like a sledgehammer and I lift my beer, swallow down a large gulp, trying to quiet them.
