The Intern (The Dalton Family #4)(15)

Thank you, I mouthed to the bartender when she set a cup of water in front of me. I quickly took a sip. “What did he say, Oaklyn?”

“That I-I wasn’t worth w-waiting for.”

I squeezed the cup, the plastic threatening to break as icy water sloshed over the side. “He didn’t.”

“He d-did.”

My best friend—the drop-dead gorgeous twenty-four-year-old virgin—wasn’t waiting for marriage per se; she was waiting for a prince to sweep her off her feet before rewarding him with the one thing she hadn’t given to any other man.

Half a year later, the most romantic thing Trevor had done was book them a weekend away in Santa Barbara. Oaklyn had ended up paying for the hotel along with their food and drinks since Trevor’s credit card had been declined.

She never picked the patient, sympathetic, nice guys.

She picked straight-up assholes who treated her like a conquest.

Oaklyn and I had been best friends since we were twelve, and this issue with boys had started in high school. It’d worsened in college. Now, at our age, it was an impossibly difficult challenge that she constantly had to hurdle.

Men, at least the ones she chose, didn’t want to wear a crown.

They wanted to verbally fuck you at a bar and make you come in an alley.

My thighs, without prompting, pushed together, the delicious pain that sparked between them a reminder of how many times I’d screamed tonight.

Oh, Declan Shaw, you are nothing like I thought you were going to be and everything I didn’t know I wanted.

Declan—oh shit.

I’d almost forgotten he was still outside in the alley.

Waiting for me.

“Hannah, I h-hate him,” she cried. “I-I hate everyone.”

“Me too. Especially a man named Trevor and that dimple of his that we thought was cute at first, and now, I just want to poke it with a nail.”

“The d-dimple. I can’t-t.”

I downed the rest of my water.

There was only one way I could make her feel better, and that was by returning to our apartment, getting her drunk, and letting her vent for the rest of the night.

“As soon as I get home, we’re purging every trace of Trevor from your room and finding a bar that has darts, so we can use his pic as a target and aim for that damn dimple.”

“Yesss-s.” She sighed. “Screw that d-dimple.”

“It’s going to take me about forty minutes to get there, but don’t worry; I’m coming.”

“Wait.”

I paused as I turned toward the exit. “Yeah?”

“Your car is h-here, and you’re that far away?”

Before Declan had invited the top performers out for drinks, a bunch of us law students had planned to go barhopping. Since my intention was to crash at Gregory’s apartment, where there was no parking, taking a ride-share to campus had just made my life easier.

“I’m just off campus,” I told her. “I had that mentorship thing today for my Trial Advocacy class.”

“Oh my God, that’s right. I-I totally forgot. How did it g-go?”

I stopped at one of the open tables, leaning against the back of the chair.

This wasn’t the right time to mention Declan.

Tonight needed to be about Oaklyn.

“It went really well,” I told her.

“Is it over?”

It was over enough.

If things with Declan were meant to continue—and I hoped that was the case—then we would reconvene when my best friend wasn’t bawling her eyes out. When she didn’t need me to hand her darts and feed her wine and say all the things that would make her forget about that dick.

“Yes,” I fibbed. “In fact, I was just getting ready to leave. I’ll text you when I’m almost home, so you can open a bottle of wine for us.” I had another thought. “Oh, and can you also turn on the oven? The brownies I made last night will be extra yummy if you heat them for about ten minutes. The caramel will ooze out and get all gooey and delicious.”

“I love you.”

“See you soon, babe.” I slipped my phone into my pocket and rushed out of the bar and down the side of the building to the alley.

It was so dark. Quiet. Almost eerie and creepy.

“Declan?”

The only sound was my breathing and my feet swaying as this dreary space started to freak me out more and more.

“Declan, are you back here?”

When there was still no response, I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight, holding it up so I could see.

Our condom wrapper was on the ground, and I could pinpoint the exact place where Declan had held me against the brick building, pulling sensations out of me that I’d never felt before. But he wasn’t here, nor was he on the other side of the alley or the small walkway that had led me here.

Didn’t I tell him to wait for me?

Right here?

And not to move?

Or did I dream that?

Did I dream this whole thing?

I went to the front of the building and scanned the entrance and the sidewalk, searching for his handsome face, but there was only a bouncer and a few girls standing out here. The girls were holding each other up—a sign that they wouldn’t be the most reliable source—so I walked over to the bouncer.