Bar Crawl(14)

“Shit. Fuck. Shit.” Frankie covered her mouth and stared at me wide-eyed. “I didn’t mean to do that. I…f*ck.”

Her flustered state finally made me feel like I had three seconds of an upper hand with this girl. So I took advantage of it.

“Hey,” I chuckled and shrugged, “it happens to the best of us.” I leaned back, dropping my hand to the side of my leg as I contemplated how to adjust my jeans without her seeing.

Frankie placed her hands on the edge of the table as if she were trying to keep herself from falling out of the booth. Her cheeks were still pink with whatever emotion drove her across the table, but her eyes darkened. “You’re a prick.”

Huh?

“What?” I leaned forward, turning my ear slightly, certain I’d misheard.

“That was a line. Or a story, rather. A well-crafted panty-dropper of a story you pieced together to break me down. Of course you’d tell me you’re a writer. I’m an English teacher who works in a library on the weekends, for God’s sake.” She lifted her palms as if she’d solved the world’s great mystery.

“Frankie, don’t you—”

One of her hands landed squarely an inch in front of my face. “Shh,” she demanded. “No more. No more of your bedroom trickery. I turned you down once for a reason…reasons. And those reasons still stand.” She slid her bag over her shoulder and scooted out of the booth, walking toward the door without so much as a glance backward.

Not willing to let her blow me off for the umpteenth time, especially since I’d just been more honest that I had with anyone else in a long time, I threw my shit in my bag and chased after her.

“Frankie!” As I left the coffee shop, I looked both ways, nearly giving myself whiplash. I spotted her, walking with her head down at a hundred miles an hour. I jogged in her direction, not calling her name until I was on her heels. “Frankie, stop!”

She whipped around, her arms crossed around her like inefficient armor. She kept her head down as she mumbled, “What?”

I couldn’t waste time kicking myself for my behavior every single night over the last several years that was causing a girl like her to run away from me. I just had to act. With one hand I gripped her shoulder, using my other to lift her gorgeous chin.

Then, I kissed her back.





Frankie




His mouth didn’t taste like cigarettes. That was at least one impression I’d had of him that was flooded away as his lips connected with mine. And, Jesus, they were soft. So soft, in fact, that I let my left eye peek open to make sure that I was actually kissing CJ.

Nothing about him was soft, I’d thought. His muscles were hard and perpetually flexed. Like an exaggerated action figure. The lines of his face were so sharp, I’d been sure you could slice bread along his jaw. And then there was his personality. There hadn’t been a soft thing about the way he barreled through the bar with a girl’s ass permanently sewn to his hand.

Yet, the softness of his lips and the way his hand moved gently from my chin to the back of my neck surprised me as we kissed.

For the second time today.

He pulled away, almost pushing me away at the same time, and I was left feeling like the idiot girl on a bad Lifetime movie. I brought my fingers slowly to my lips, dazed, checking to see if they were still there after a kiss like that.

CJ’s lip curled slightly as he clenched his jaw and held out his hands. “What the f*ck is your problem?”

“I’m sorry?”

He pointed his finger a few inches from the center of my chest. “I tell you true stuff about me—which you asked for—you kiss me, then you bash me for the nine hundredth time and f*cking walk away? So, I’ll ask you again. What the f*ck is your problem?”

“Bash you?” I couldn’t recall bashing him ever, let alone nine hundred times.

He scoffed and took a deep breath as he looked to the sky for a second. “You’re constantly making snarky and smartass comments about me…or who you think I am. I’ve dealt with it because we haven’t had a lot of alone time together for me to show you otherwise. But, Jesus, Frankie, I meet you out during the day and tell you real stuff and you accuse me of making up some story to get in your pants? Fucking seriously?”

This would be the part in the novel where he’d turn and storm down the street, and I’d be left to decide between chasing after him to plead my case or watching him walk away and kicking myself about it later. But nothing about CJ was fitting into any formula I’d seen. He stood there, staring directly into my eyes and actually waiting for an answer.

Shit.

I went with what I knew, which meant I started spewing. “How do I know what’s real with you, anyway? I’ve seen one minute of you supposedly being honest and I’m supposed to weigh that more than the six other nights I’ve seen you over the last few months? When you’ve basically been a dick with legs?”

“Seven,” he blurted out.

“What?” I ran a hand through my hair, my heart racing in anger and anticipation. There was no script for this conversation.

“We’ve seen each other at the bars seven times. Not six. When was the first time you saw me?” His jaw relaxed, but his eyes didn’t.

I thought back. I didn’t have to think too far, because I remembered clearly the heavy metal song with the two-minute drum solo that drew my eyes to him. “Plymouth,” I finally said. “February.”