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“I wouldn’t count on it,” he said.
And with those spectacularly prickish words ringing in my head, I walked away.
4
HOLLAND
I left for work an hour early the next afternoon, for multiple reasons starting with the fact that I wanted—no, needed—to escape Mia’s ruthless interrogation.
It started last night as soon as I got back to service bar, and it continued through cash out, the ride home, and even into this morning when I woke up. Pretty much the second I opened my door, Mia was there, presenting me with a fresh cup of coffee, a croissant from my favorite bakery around the corner, and her narrowed eyes as she said, “Good morning, I’m bribing you for details.”
Which was aggressive.
But fair considering last night was crazy.
Madness, really. The kind of mind-blowing, head-boggling, did-that-really-just-happen type of madness that stayed stuck in my head for the rest of my shift, and robbed me of my sleep by forcing me to spend the night tossing and turning, getting lost in about a million memories of being a teenager who was awkward, lonely and head over heels in love with her brother’s very off-limits, very unattainable best friend.
Which was reason number two for why I had to just get to work already.
The sooner I could get there and get through a shift, the sooner I could get my life back to normal and erase what happened last night, because for the love of God, I was not doing this again.
I really wasn’t.
My adolescence, in a movie title nutshell, could be summed up as My Crazy Debilitating Crush On Iain Thorn, and for the sake of my pride and my sanity, I was not making a sequel.
Was last night wild? Yes. Did I see Iain Thorn for the first time since I was seventeen? Yes. Did he somehow get even hotter and look brutally fucking good in that suit? Oh yes. He looked so good yesterday that it had triggered a few of my oldest fantasies, like what his long, chiseled Superman body looked like all sweaty and naked while fucking some lucky girl against a wall—because for the record, I’d heard him do that before.
When I was fifteen.
And the memory was forever seared into my soul.
But still. None of that changed the fact that he had been an outrageous asshole to me last night. That he’d clearly become the exact kind of arrogant, self-important prick I suspected he would when he up and disappeared from my life, and it didn’t matter what naughty little thrill I’d gotten out of toying with him for a second, or what point I may or may not have succeeded in making about how I was totally an adult now, because according to Iain, I’d seen the last of him. He had said himself that he was never coming back, and besides all that, my adultness didn’t make him any less off-limits since he was still with that girl Keira.
Adam wasn’t a fan—probably because he saw her as the woman behind Iain’s drastic transformation from his reckless, bar-brawling partner in crime to the responsible, cleaned-up suit he was now—but that didn’t seem to affect the happy couple at all. They’d found each other pretty much the week Iain moved to Manhattan to take over his dad’s agency, and considering their relationship was running on five years, they were probably getting engaged any day now.
So why should I waste another second thinking about Iain?
Well.
Because he is unforgettably gorgeous and your standard for men since day one. Because all you’ve ever wanted was for him to look at you like a woman. Because you deserve closure for last night, and the way he treated you like a complete—
Ah, ah.
Enough.
I blinked hard, shaking my head as I got off the train.
Seriously, no more. Just stop now, I scolded myself as I stepped onto the bustling platform, angling my way through the crowd and reminding myself that I’d already made up my mind about this.
Unlike teenaged me, I no longer had all the time in the world to waste on this painfully pointless crush. I had an actual life now—one I’d busted my ass for, so dammit, I was going to live it.
I was going to show up to work, throw on the uniform I secretly loved, then get lost in about a million drink orders till last call at 1AM, at which point I’d text Mia to see what she was up to for the night. Or I could go post-shift bar-hopping with the other girls like I always said I would. Or I could finally take up Tyler the barback’s offer to “chill” since he was pretty cute.
I could do anything.
The possibilities were legitimately endless, and suddenly, I was more eager than ever to explore them. All I had to do first was clear my mind and start this damned shift.
In three... two...
