My nakedness suddenly feels wrong. I scoop up my clothes, avoiding eye contact. “No. No, go ahead. I get it. Completely.”
His zipper breaks the silence before he rummages around, finding his hat behind the chair. “You’re okay, right?”
My throat tightens. I search his face for some hint as to what he’s feeling but find nothing. Just a guard in place that I’ve seen too many times to count.
I’ve never been stung in the chest by a wasp, but this is what I think that would feel like. A quick stab. A slow roll of poison. A burn you can’t shake for a while.
“Of course, I’m fine,” I say, plastering on a smile. “That was letting things be organic. I don’t expect anything from you.” And now the natural thing is for you to leave.
If I’m not mistaken, something washes over his eyes. It’s another bee sting in the center of my chest. Lucky for me, the first one stings too bad to really feel this one.
“Just make sure you lock this,” he says. He takes his hat off, watching me as he runs his hands through his hair, and then puts it back on again. Only now does he start toward the door.
And just like that, he’s gone.
Twenty-Two
Machlan
“I think that does it,” Navie says. She zips up the money bag and tosses it on the counter. “Everything is squared away.”
“You did good tonight.”
“Thanks.” She looks quite pleased with herself as she leans against the bar. “How good did you do tonight?”
That’s all it takes for my mind to be pulled right back to Hadley. One stupid little sentence that might not even be about her—that probably isn’t—and I’m lost to everything else.
I looked over my shoulder all night. I don’t know what I wanted more—have her in walk in the bar and spar with me or walk my ass back upstairs and finish what I started. Or re-start what I finished. Either way, it ends with me getting fucked. She’s probably directly above me, just feet away, yet it feels like she’s on the other side of the world.
I’d ask myself what I was thinking, but I already know. I wasn’t. Not with the head I should’ve been.
“It was that good, huh?” Navie asks.
Putting the last clean glass back on the shelf, I look at Navie through the mirror. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, okay.” She’s laughing when I turn around. “Look, I know I just started here, and we’re not friends or anything. And you totally don’t have to tell me anything …”
“But?”
“But I want to know.” She pouts. “I see the way she looks at you like you’re the best thing since yoga pants. And you look at her like you want to eat her.”
I pretend to consider this. “Fair enough.”
She laughs again. “See? You don’t even dispute it!”
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re a busybody?”
“Lots of dumb, stupid people.” She raises her brows. “I saw you chase her out of here.”
It’s like she wants me to deny it. I can’t. I don’t have the fucks to give to lie.
I chased her.
By all accounts, I fucked her.
But if it was only fucking, then why do I want to run back up there?
God help me.
I rough a hand down my face. “I pay you to keep the customers’ tabs, not keep tabs on me.”
“Well played, boss. Well played.” Pulling a gray sweatshirt over her head, she then hops on a stool and gets comfortable.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” A few moments go by before she gets it. “Oh, like I’m expecting you to talk to me?”
“Yeah.”
“Because I’m expecting you to talk to me.”
“I’m not the talking type, Navie.”
Liquor bottles are right behind me. I back up to them. A quick shot might dull some of the insanity in my brain, but it’s against my own rules. I never drink at work.
A shot glass magically appears in my hand. Whiskey jumps from the shelf and splashes into it, and I down it without a second thought.
Navie watches with an unbridled curiosity. “That’s probably why you aren’t actively screwing Hadley. You won’t talk.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Explain it to me another way then,” she challenges. “Or don’t because communication issues seem to be your thing.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“And I don’t really want answers unless you feel compelled to give them. In that case, I’ll totally listen. But,” she says, wagging a finger through the air, “I do want you to think about it.”
The shot slams down my throat. It burns as it rolls, splashing into the acid already pooled in my stomach. One measly shot isn’t going to do shit; I’d need the whole damn bottle to make a dent in this night.
The whiskey mutes just enough to pull my defenses down and bring her reaction front and center—the one I’ve fought since I walked out of there. It’s a look I’ll never love. It’s a look that, every time I put it there, I swear I won’t do it again.