He was just as gorgeous as I remembered. Tall, dark and handsome. He had a tattoo on his arm that I didn't recognize, but it gave him a dangerous air that I found rather appealing. I wondered if James had any tattoos that I didn't know about.
“Maybe he'll get that baby making bug out of your system. Let's go say hello,” Tessa said, grabbing my hand. I didn't even have time to protest before we were suddenly at the bar. Dennis smiled as we approached and I felt nervous butterflies start up in my stomach.
“Tessa. Allison, good to see you,” he said as we sidled up to the bar. “Can I buy you two a drink?”
“You can buy her a drink,” Tessa replied, nudging me closer to him. “I have to work in the morning and really need to be going.”
“Tessa?” I glanced over at her and she grinned.
“You can thank me later,” she whispered, giving me a hug. “You two have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.”
She proceeded to give me a wink that said there really wasn't anything she wouldn't do. That girl was crazy. Just because I was baby crazy didn't mean that I needed to get laid, but I wasn't about to say no. Especially not to one of my high school crushes. I knew he was a player, but sometimes a girl just wanted to feel wanted.
I watched her waltz out of the restaurant and out into the cold night air. I was suddenly very aware of Dennis and my low cut top. This was something I had dreamed of in high school. This chance. And James wasn't anywhere nearby to fuck it up.
Dennis motioned to the bartender and before I could say no, a beer was in front of me. I sipped at it gingerly. I wasn't big on beer. I was much more a cocktail kind of girl, but I wasn't about to complain. I was having a drink with Dennis. In school, he wouldn't have even given me the time of day, but I knew that I looked and behaved differently now that I had New York in my system.
“I hear James' business is going through the roof,” he said, finishing his drink and motioning to the bartender for another. The bartender paused for a moment, but poured him another.
“Yeah,” I replied with a shrug. His eyes kept going to my cleavage. My stepbrother was all anyone ever wanted to talk about. James and his billions. “Can we talk about something else, though?”
“Yeah, sure.” He took a huge sip of his beer. “It's just that he's sort of a legend around here. He's the only billionaire I know.”
“He’s not a billionaire yet. At least not in liquid assets,” I pointed out, though any sane valuation of his company put him at well over the billionaire mark.
Dennis laughed. “He’s close enough for me. Is he here?”
“James, here?” I laughed, glancing around Annie's place. “He's almost a billionaire. No reason for him to come to Annie's.”
“Good,” Dennis said, his eyes scanning the room anyway. “You know, I had a little bit of a crush on you when you were a freshman, but I didn’t have the balls to ask you out.”
I blushed and smiled. “Well, you should have just said something. I would have said yes.”
“That’s not why I didn’t ask,” he said, laughing. “Your brother made it clear to all of us just what would happen if we tried anything with you. You were off limits. Especially after what he did to that Tim Volker kid.”
“He didn’t do anything to Tim Volker,” I said, remembering that day.
I was a freshman at my locker and Tim, who was a creep with a date rapist reputation even in high school, had stopped me and asked me out. I was too nervous to say no and tried to talk my way around him, but whenever I tried to leave he blocked me from going, or grabbed my arm and pushed me back against my locker.
Then out of nowhere James was there, like a guardian angel answering my prayers. He slammed Tim back against the wall of lockers and just stared him down until Tim raised his hands, apologized, and walked away.
Tim never spoke to me again after that.
It was one of the few truly nice things James ever did. And in typical James fashion, when I went to thank him for it later, he acted like a jerk. He said he had no idea what I was talking about and told me to stop stalking him around school. His friends were all around, and their laughs had followed me all the way down the hall as I ran away.
“He just threw Tim against the lockers,” I said with a shrug. “It was nothing.”
Dennis shook his head. “No. Like a week later he literally beat him bloody at a party. Don’t you remember he had stitches over his eyebrow for like a month?”
I didn’t, but then I had barely seen Tim again after that day at the lockers. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, well. Needless to say no one was eager to see if Tim was a special case or a warning to the rest of us. Your stepbrother's got a bit of protective streak.”
I realized more than ever how much I didn’t understand my stepbrother. He was a jerk, but then, out of nowhere, he could transform into a knight in shining armor and ride in to save the day.
It was like the day he left for college. I had gone to his room to confront him, to try to make him realize how he had ruined my life. I walked into his room, ready to bitch him out. Without letting me say anything, he grabbed me, hugged me, and told me that he “wasn’t into tearful goodbyes”. It was a line that to this day I had trouble believing actually came out of that cruel, smirking mouth.
“Allie?” Dennis said. “You all right?”