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Rowan
More than once I’m tempted to get up and bail before Bryce even has a chance to get here, but I resist the urge and stay where I'm alone at one of the tables, nursing a Piña Colada between my fingers that’s not even pretending to have enough booze in it.
The place is swarming for a Thursday night. Couples are getting drunk at the bar, men are playing darts, growing louder with each finished pitcher of beer, and single women are prowling the place, ready to dig their claws into whatever half-decent jock makes the rookie mistake of looking their way.
I don’t like bars. In fact, I hate them. I don’t like crowds in general, actually, and Carly says it’s due to my introversions, or whatever.
But I’m not the same girl I used to be, right? Not even close.
Or at least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself of anyway.
College is a way to be someone else, to do different things, meet new people and pretend like the old you is someone you’ve never even met, let alone someone you once were.
I’m still having a hard time with that part, especially when it comes to Matt, Dereck, and Bryce.
But as Jamie brought up once before, what is the best revenge for three guys like this? Three men I’m equally smitten with. Three men I can’t stop thinking about at all times of the day. Even after my night with Dereck, it somehow didn’t deter me from the other two. In fact, it only made me want them more.
But if I was going to seek revenge, any kind of revenge, I had to act the part.
I was still working on that.
At five to nine, the bell over the door jingles and Bryce comes in. He looks adorable, really, in a clean pair of jeans and sneakers. His jacket is zipped up against the cold and a green winter hat with actual reindeer prancing around the fabric hides his ears. I can’t even hold back the smile as Bryce spots me across the room and comes over, taking a seat across from me at the table I’ve saved for us.
“You look beautiful,” he says, shrugging off his own jacket and pulling off his hat. He smells good, like some new cologne, but it’s weird on Bryce. He’s never been the cologne-type, as far as I can remember.
“You don’t look too bad yourself,” I say with a grin I can’t stop from playing on my lips. “Love the hat.”
“Oh, this old thing?” Bryce holds it out for me to see, shrugging sheepishly. “My grandma made it for me two Christmases ago. Every attempt I’ve tried to lose it hasn’t worked out. Somehow it ends up back on my head.”
“I don’t know if anyone told you, but it’s only September. Christmas isn’t for a few more months.”
“Bah humbug.” Bryce winks at me, hardly looking up from my face as the server comes over and takes his drink order. Then, he orders me a second Piña Colada.
“Extra rum, please,” I say to her, and the server rolls her eyes and walks away. Bryce is chuckling.
“I know I’m not Matt or Dereck, but I can’t be that bad of company.”
“Who said you were bad company?” I shrug my shoulders in a small, flirty way until I have Bryce’s undivided attention.
Not like that was ever an issue to begin with, really. I’m pretty confident that neither Bryce nor Matt know what happened with Dereck and me. I’m surprised he’d been able to keep his mouth shut.
For now.
“See, Bryce, I don’t really know you, do I?” I continue, admiring the way his lightened brown hair falls, just barely, into his eyes. “All I know about you, Mr. Connor, is that you were a very mean kid in high school. You all were.”
“I thought you didn’t want any more apologies,” Bryce says, a grin playing on his lips.
“No apology needed, just stating the facts.” I lean forward on the table, hands crossed in front of me. “My point is, I don’t know the real you–who Bryce is now. How do I know what kind of company you may or may not be based on what I know from you in the past?”
“I think you’re too clever for your own good,” Bryce says, his eyes twinkling. “You always have been.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that once or twice.”
The server delivers our drinks, and when I take a sip of my Piña Colada, I’m pleasantly surprised as the rum burns my tongue. “Now, that’s more like it.”
“Cheers to that.” Bryce raises his own drink in the air as a toast, and I clink him. His cheeks are tinted red, something that is actually adorable on this man, and even the ears poking through his mess of almond-hair are tipped with red.
“I’m enjoying this already,” I tell him, allowing my body to relax with my mind. “Thanks for saying yes to my date.”
