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Ugh. Soccer.
I never liked that sport, never, and I hate it even more now. But I’m here because the booze is good and they’ll let me in with a fake ID. Like they do all the other underage patrons, either college or high school students.
Taking a seat at the bar, I carefully avoid touching the sketchy-looking countertop and order a cosmo. And since I don’t want to look at the TV screens like all the other soccer fanatics in here, I decide to look around. Which goes uneventfully for a few seconds until I have to stop.
Abruptly.
Mostly because for the second time tonight, I feel like I’ve been jarred out of my body.
I’ve been cruelly thrust out, pushed out, removed from my own self.
And this time, it’s even more forceful than before.
It’s even more violent than when I heard his name spoken out loud.
Probably because this time, it’s not just his name.
It’s him.
Here.
In the flesh.
What the fuck is he doing here?
I mean yes, he’s in town right now apparently. As evidenced by Callie making him his favorite oatmeal raisin cookies. But why the fuck are we running into each other?
Shit. Shit. Shit.
But that’s not even the big problem.
The big problem is that he is here and he’s not alone.
He’s got company.
Of the female variety, of course.
And as always, she’s exactly his type: reed thin, blonde and tall. And of course, she’s touching him.
She’s also leaned over him so that her shoulder-length blonde hair is grazing his left forearm that’s resting on the bar-top table. He’s sitting there with a beer bottle, his elbows resting on the table, his broad shoulders made even broader because he’s bent forward.
It’s a familiar posture.
I’ve seen it hundreds of times before.
And every time I see it, I can’t help but think that this casual pose does nothing for him. In the sense that it can’t hide the barely leashed intensity in him. The sheer strength and power contained in his muscular body. The heated energy, the electric danger that runs just under the surface of his bronzed skin.
Three years ago when I saw him for the first time, I thought that he was the most intense guy I’d ever seen.
And three years later, nothing has changed.
He’s still the most intense guy I’ve ever seen.
A force of nature. A fierce thunderstorm.
The Angry Thorn.
So maybe I can’t blame her, the girl who looks so enamored with him.
Nothing is more beautiful than the Angry Thorn, resting all casually but not really, and his hair.
The dark and thick and unruly strands of his hair.
His crazy hair.
That tonight looks even thicker and wavier and crazier.
And longer than what he usually maintains.
She’s almost there too, her fingers reaching out, almost touching the wavy strands fallen over his forehead. And despite not blaming her at all for her actions, I grip the skinny glass of cosmo so hard that I’m afraid I’ll break it.
But the glass is saved in the last second when his hand snaps up and his long fingers curl over her svelte wrist, effectively stopping her in the process.
“Oh, thank God,” I whisper, my grip loosening from the glass.
As irrational as my response just was, I gave it too quickly.
Because as soon as I said those words, it’s as if he heard me.
It’s as if he knew I was sitting here, watching him.
So he watches me back.
He pushes the girl away and his gaze swivels over to me.
Across the crowded and red-tinted space.
And holy fuck, I duck.
Like I did all those years ago. The night he caught me stalking him.
Well, he’d already known about it. So let’s say it was the night he forced me to come out of my hiding spot.
The only difference is that that night I took cover behind a shrubbery, while tonight it’s a beefy guy who’s so engrossed in the game that he doesn’t notice I’m using him to hide myself.
Like a stalker.
Which, I’d like to point out, I’m not.
Tonight I’m not a stalker.
But after how frazzled I’ve been — both from my trip to Callie’s and then at my parents’ — I don’t need the confrontation right now. I can’t take it. So ducking and hiding and running out of the bar is my only recourse. Quickly, I walk down the cracked and empty sidewalk, my heels clicking and clacking, to get to my car at the parking lot adjacent to the bar. But as soon as I reach my car, I find that I can’t really reach my car.
Because there are two guys leaning against it.
They’re chatting and laughing, completely oblivious to the fact that this isn’t their vehicle.
Breathing deep, I say, “Hey, guys.”
They both halt mid-conversation and turn their attention to me. Their eyes run up and down my body and they like what they see because they both lean away from my car as if coming alert and there are small — also silly and drunken — smiles gracing their lips.
