Bar Crawl(32)

Had he walked into the bookstore when I was working there, I’d have gotten his selections all wrong. While I typically made it a habit not to judge a book by its cover, CJ seemed to hand out the first pages of his personal story to every girl he flirted with at the bar. I was wrong. Gratefully so.

“I don’t know why I got all choked up at that ceremony,” I said to Ember after the champagne toast. “I don’t know anybody here.”

She shrugged. “Love is no respecter of persons, I guess. It’s real when you can feel it, not knowing any backstory of the couple.”

“Like you and Bo.” I nodded to the man she gazed longingly at as he stood at the bar.

She smiled wistfully. “Like me and Bo.”

“How long have you two been married?”

“Forever,” she said in complete seriousness, her cheeks still tight with a broad smile.

I decided not to ask for specifics. Her answer was perfect. There was one question, though, that had nagged at me since the first mention of her name by CJ weeks ago.

“Why do you hate CJ?” I asked bluntly.

Mid-sip of champagne was, apparently, the wrong time to ask Ember that question. She sputtered some of the liquid back into her glass and laughed as she wiped under her eyes, tears inside the laugh. “Did he tell you that?”

I nodded, grinning as I eyed Bo and CJ making their way back to the table.

Ember sighed lightly, recovering from her fit of laughter. “I knew he was more than the shithead he pretended to be. I didn’t really have any proof of that, other than the genes I knew he shared with Regan, and his talent. I know people with talent can be *s. Hello, I’m in the music industry. But…there was just something about the care he took with his craft that made me certain there was something…more. And, I don’t hate him. At least not anymore. Our relationship has never lost its zest for dysfunction, though.”

“How’d I miss that? The something more.” I questioned, almost under my breath. I’d always prided myself on being a decent judge of character, but, again, I’d been so wrong about CJ.

“He must have liked you immediately,” Ember replied. “You know, dialed up his perv self to half keep you looking and half push you away.”

I stared at the auburn-haired beauty in awe. “Are you, like, an oracle or something? That’s exactly what his behavior did.”

Ember grinned. “I like that you look at him like that.” She gestured to my face. “Like he’s a predator and you’re not sure where you sit on the food chain. But,” she sighed as the men sat down and handed us our non-champagne drinks.

I blinked rapidly, wondering how it was that this stunning, enigmatic woman could have possibly read my thoughts on CJ from two weeks ago.

Predator.

As if she continued to read my thoughts, she spoke again with a wistful smile. “I think you’ll both be fine. He’s not so scary.”

“Who’s not so scary?” CJ asked, looking comically panicked.

“You.” I laughed. “What was it Georgia said last night? You’re a kitten?”

“You heard that? How long were you standing there?

“Standing where?” Bo chimed in, completely lost.

I grinned. “Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.”



***



And that is the story of my bar crawl. One that spanned several months and landed me as the author of the Foreword to this book. Thank you, CJ, for allowing me to share my story. Your story. Our story. Yes, it may just be the beginning, but, beginnings are stories, too.

“Done,” I whispered as CJ looked over my shoulder.

It took a few months of artfully crafted hints, suggestions, and demanding, but I finally got CJ to agree to self-publish Bar Crawl. He said he would, on one condition: that I write the Foreword. I had warned him that my story was kind of the story of us, and that it wasn’t completed. He said he didn’t care. He needed my support, he’d said, in print and forever if he was going to come out of his well-hidden author closet.

CJ tilted his chin downward and kissed my temple. “It’s awesome. Thank you, again. I’m still scared shitless, you know.”

I turned in the desk chair of my small home office. My library, I called it. CJ stepped back and ran a hand over his face. It had been three months since we’d identified ourselves as officially in a relationship, but still, the nerves were there. There wasn’t any jealousy or distrust, but we still tread carefully, more protective over our own motives than those of the other person.

“I know,” I answered. “I’m scared, too.” Standing, I put my arms around his neck and kissed his warm skin.

“I meant about the book,” he half-moaned as my lips worked to what I knew to be the most sensitive spot on his neck.

I chuckled. “I know.”

I knew he was full of it, and he knew that I knew, but we didn’t need to talk about it. We had no use for belaboring all of the fears we each harbored. We just wanted to take care of each other and grow the best way we knew how.

“Oh!” I stepped back and put a hand on his chest. “Georgia’s Food Network special is going to be on in, like, ten minutes.”

I raced to the kitchen and quickly popped a pot of popcorn while CJ pulled two beers out of the fridge.