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The bartender shook his head but said nothing when I slid next to the man lost in his drink and ordered another round.
“You set him up,” the lost soul stated matter-of-factly. His voice was low and carried a bit of a drawl that only upped my attraction to him. Then again, any girl that grew up in the Midwest would go weak at the knees for an honest to God southern boy.
And he knew pool—or at least enough to recognize that I’d made shots I shouldn’t have been able to and purposely scratched others.
Which only made him infinitely more interesting.
I leaned against the bar, shifting my shoulders so I was facing him, giving him a full view of the cleavage popping out of my top. “Are you suggesting I cheated?”
His jaw tensed, and when he swallowed my eyes were drawn to where his stubbled throat bobbed. This man clearly had no idea how delicious he was.
Much to my disappointment, he didn’t look my way. Instead, he took a long pull from his beer, his knuckles white where he gripped the glass. “I’m suggesting women like you can’t be trusted. Scratch that, all women, unless they are forthright about the fact they need more than one cock to satisfy them. In that case, you are a goddess among mere mortals.”
His words weren’t slurred, but they weren’t reserved either, only proving my assessment was right. He was there to drown his sorrows.
Walk away.
I should have listened to my conscience, but I was already in too deep; too intrigued by the gorgeous man beside me. “Bold statement. Is that why you’re in here on a Saturday afternoon? A woman sent you packing?”
I didn’t miss the slight tightening in his shoulders before his brows furrowed and he gave me a long side-eyed stare. “Why did she have to be the one to send me packing?”
“Because if she cheated and it’s you here staring at the bottom of a glass instead of her, she didn’t want to work things out,” I state matter-of-factly, using every trick I’d ever learned to dig for information without outright asking.
Men never wanted to talk. The trick was knowing how to make it seem like it was their idea.
His jaw clenched, and for the first time since he walked through the door, fire danced in his eyes. He looked like a man on the cusp of committing murder, though I wasn’t sure if it was my life or that of the woman who’d scorned him that he’d be taking.
And then it was gone. Every bit of fight he’d just shown drained from him, and he released a long, low sigh. “She’s dead.”
Fuck me. The weight of his words sucker punched me in the gut, and the whispered words were out before I could think. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” he scoffed, his eyes boring holes in the bar top, “but I appreciate you saying so.”
Without thinking, something that was becoming a trend around him, my hand darted out and rested on his forearm, like somehow my touch could melt away some of his misery. “Loss doesn’t discriminate. You hate her now, but she’ll keep a vice grip on your heart for the rest of your life. It won’t go away, but one day it will get easier. And then it eventually becomes a passing thought, except for the one day a year it takes your breath. But one day is manageable, and you plan around it like a dreaded holiday.”
My eyes fluttered closed, and I was grateful he wasn’t looking at me. If he was, I feared he might see through me and catch a glimpse of the haphazard shards that were the foundation of the walls around my own mended heart.
I sucked in a gasp when he turned and eyes the color of a storm met mine. Gorgeous didn’t do him justice. He might have well been Adonis, or at the very least royalty, with his chiseled cheekbones and harsh brow. He was breathtaking and broken all at the same time.
In fact, I’d only seen that look once before, in a small honkytonk bar in Oklahoma when I was twelve, and just learning to embrace my curiosity with people. It was the look of a man on the edge of self-discovery. I didn’t know it then, but hindsight being twenty-twenty, I recognized it now. That man went on to be one of country’s biggest superstars, and it left me to wonder where this man would be after tonight.
You could only go up when you’d hit rock bottom, and the man in front of me was there.
It was fucking awe inspiring.
“Who’d you lose?” he asked, his eyes searching mine, understanding in their depths.
“My dad.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not, but I appreciate you saying so,” I teased, throwing his own words back at him.
He licked his lips and furrowed his brow. “You’re insightful for a toddler.”
I shrugged. “And you’re pathetic for a grandpa.”
His lips pressed together and he hesitated. I half expected him to berate me with his next breath. Instead, his mouth lifted into a half smile, and I found myself wishing it would grow farther. I wanted to see this man with his head tipped back, laughing, with a smile that reached his eyes. I wanted to feel what I was sure would be a deep chuckle that would roll over me like velvet and seep into my bones.
