“Why the fuck are you on a date anyway?” He drew her closer to him.
“Rory fixed me up. She’s worried about me not having a boyfriend. She thinks I’m still wallowing in my breakup with Nolan.”
“Are you?”
“No. It’s the opposite of that. I’m elated he’s out of my life. I’ve told Rory that, but she doesn’t believe me. It’s easier to play along than to have her on my ass about it all the time. At least this one is more fun than the last one.” Her body relaxed in his arms.
“You still big into eighties hair metal?” he asked.
She laughed. “Yeah. I can’t believe you remembered that.”
“I remember a lot about you, like how I noticed you weren’t a little kid anymore when you started high school.”
“I thought you always saw me as a kid.”
“No way. And a lot of guys noticed you. You were stacked back then, and I had to fight the urge not to bash the guys’ faces when they talked about you.”
“The guys talked about me? I never knew that. I mean, I noticed how they all stared at my bust. I used to hate that.”
“You can’t blame them. You had a great pair of tits. You still do.”
She cast her eyes downward, the light picking up the tinge of red streaking across her cheeks. He laughed and held her close, swaying to Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” As they danced, he sang the lyrics softly into her ear as he ran his hands down her back, stopping just before her ass. The scent of her surrounded him, and the more they moved, the harder he got until he had a full-blown hard-on. She tilted her head, her heated gaze met his, and then his lips hungrily covered hers as he kissed her frantically and deeply for the rest of the song.
After the song ended, she pulled away, smoothing down her hair. “I have to get back to the table,” she said.
“Why?” He grasped her hands again and started moving to the next song.
“Because it’s rude. I agreed to the blind date.”
“You don’t owe him shit.”
“Common courtesy. But I don’t owe you anything.”
“I don’t want you to ‘owe’ me. I want to be with you.”
Goldie watched her face as sadness crept in.
“Me too, but each time we try to start something, you freak out and bolt. I can’t keep turning my feelings and desires on and off at your whim. I get the whole thing with Ryan, but I’m a woman now, and neither you nor Ryan get that.”
“I totally get that you’re a woman. That’s the fuckin’ problem.”
“I don’t mean it in a sexual way. I mean that I’m grown and can choose who I want to go out with and who I don’t, and Ryan doesn’t have the right to tell me otherwise. I’d like to get to know you, but you won’t let me. We always end up kissing and touching each other, but then you let Ryan invade your mind and you’re gone, leaving me feeling empty and shitty.” Her voice quivered, and she pulled away.
“We need to talk. I know I’m acting like a fucked-up shit, but loyalty goes deep with me.” Goldie scrubbed his face with his fist.
“Then move on. Forget about me. Leave me the hell alone.” She spun around and walked off the dance floor, joining her table of friends.
At first he wanted to follow her, yank her to him, and cart her off to the tattoo shop so they could talk, but he let her go. She was right, he wasn’t being fair to her. He wanted to play it in the middle: touch and screw her, and maintain his loyalty and friendship with Ryan. He knew better.Life can never be played that way. It’s either all or nothing.The way he’d been acting, he wasn’t playing it straight with Ryan, Hailey, or himself.
Giving her table a sidelong glance, he wanted to rearrange the smug look the goon had on his face as he walked by, but he didn’t. He gave Elmer and Carl a chin lift, then walked out into the drizzling rain.
Chapter Nineteen
Susan O’ Brienhad worked hard to become the administrator of Cherry Vale. Hailing from Ireland, she’d grown up poor. With her nine siblings and a father who liked to play the big shot in the village at the local pubs, her family barely survived on the meager government assistance her mother had to collect each month.
Coming to America was like a dream come true, and she promised herself she wouldn’t fuck it up like she did most everything in her life. Each month, like a dutiful daughter, she sent money home to her mother. Sometimes she felt guilty about not visiting, but she rationalized it away each time she wired the money to her mother.
Glancing down at the stats, she groaned inwardly. She’d hoped she could’ve kept the recent surge in dead patients internal, but that gum-cracking sheriff had to shove his nose in it. How she hated it when people chewed gum. It always reminded her of cows chewing grass. And when the people cracked their gum, well, it was like nails on a chalkboard for her. Sheriff Wexlerlovedcracking his damn gum.
