AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Zack
I found myself wanting to prove something to Rainey. I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. As I reflected on high school, I realized how I might have come across.
I was from a prominent family, and I was popular. People followed me, and at times I let that go to my head. I knew that girls liked me, and I took advantage of that—maybe too much advantage. I was a total jock and cocky about my abilities.
What I wasn’t good at was math, which was odd since I worked in finance now. It wasn’t the basic calculations that tripped me up. It was higher algebraic equations that had confused the hell out of me. Rainey had helped me many times try to understand them for tests. I swear I only passed those classes because of her.
Needless to say, we had spent a lot of time together in my senior year, which was her junior year. I had always enjoyed her companionship, even though she was trying to cram equations down my throat.
I frowned as I climbed back on the elevator alone. After I left high school, I didn’t think much about her again. Maybe a few times in college, she might have crossed my mind, but that was when I thought, oh, man, I bet Rainbow could help me with this.
At that time, I had no idea what had happened to her, and my thoughts were fleeting of her. I wish they hadn’t been. What would my life have been like if I had paid more attention to her?
I shook my head as I got off the elevator and wound my way along the main floor, searching for my friends. I found them in one of the clubs on deck five.
Bobby slapped me on the back. “Where the hell did you go? We thought you fell in. You left for the bathroom and never came back.” He grinned at me and waggled his brows. “Or did you go get lucky with Rainbow?”
“Hey, it’s Rainey. We aren’t in high school anymore, Bobby. Rainey and I took a walk on the deck, and I made sure she got back to her room okay.”
John poked his head into the conversation. “You making a move on my woman?”
I shifted so that I was squared off with John. “She’s not your woman.”
He shrugged, smiled like he didn’t care, and turned back to the brunette who was hanging on his arm. Jesus, it was like high school all over again. I shook my head and went to order a drink. Marsha joined me a moment later. “You saw Rainey?”
“I did. We took a walk, and Rainey was exhausted, so I walked her back to her room.”
She lifted a brow. “You didn’t go in to tuck her in?”
“No,” I told her, then ordered my drink and asked Marsha what she was having since her glass was almost empty.
“Shame you didn’t.” Marsha brought our conversation back around after she ordered. “She could use a good roll in the hay.”
“What’s her story?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’s her story?’”
I collected my gin and tonic, and she retrieved her rum and coke, and we stepped off to the side where it was a little easier to talk.
“I mean, is she single? Does she have kids? What does she do with herself all day?”
“That last one is easy. She works. Rainey is a workaholic who hates to socialize. Anytime she is around people, her anxiety goes through the roof. If she’s not working, she’s home taking care of her plants, her dog and cat, and has her nose stuck in a medical journal.” She sipped her drink. “It’s rather boring and answers your other questions.”
“So she’s not in a relationship, and she doesn’t have kids.” She shook her head and glanced at a man who passed us. Her eyes went all the way to his feet and then back up, where she smiled appreciatively. She followed him with her eyes until he stopped to speak with another man and then turned back to me. “She’s single, very single. Almost got married once, except when they were on vacation a few months before their wedding, she found him screwing another woman in their cabana pool. She hasn’t dated anyone since.”
I stared, my jaw hanging open slightly. “Are you serious?”
She nodded, and her eyes kept going back to the guy who had walked past us. Finally, she turned to me. “If you want to know any more, you’re going to have to ask her. I have a man to meet.” She winked and walked away.
For a moment, I wondered what happened with her and Mark, but then I looked back at Mark. He was chatting up a woman with auburn hair and legs that were half a mile long. Yep, high school.
I joined my friends and enjoyed my drink, and then a few more before we finally made our way into the casino to try our luck.
* * *
My luck wasn’t all that bad, but it wasn’t great either. I couldn’t say the same for John and Bobby. Both of them had lost a few hundred bucks. Mark had cashed in his chips to score five hundred, and I had tallied up about one hundred and fifteen. Not bad. It would cover my bar bill so far on this trip.
The next morning, I rushed to brush my teeth and get changed as it was already after ten. I had told Rainey I would be hitting the pool around ten-thirty. As I started to walk out of the stateroom, I did an about-face and made sure to bring my sunglasses and threw back two acetaminophens. My head was banging a little bit from the night before.
