Page 46 of Keeping It
Shaking my head, I try to process that sober Tyler Holiday is saying the same things that drunk Tyler said last night. He stares at me. Hard. Like he’s trying to figure me out. “You are something special.”
“Not special enough, though. Too small town. Too simple.” He watches my mouth as I speak.
He stalks toward me quickly and the sudden movement takes my breath away.
“Know that anytime you move your lips I want to be kissing them,” he growls. This close I see everything he tries to hide. The specks of lighter blue in his eyes, the way his jaw ticks as he holds himself back. I know what it used to mean. Does it still mean the same thing now?
Blinking away tears, I enter the diner. Aidan has a tray of food haphazardly balancing on one hand, and Caleb is wearing a scowl fit for the Grinch.
One glance at the morose demeanor of Tahoe’s table of friends tells me they watched the whole sad, sorry conversation deteriorate. Who knows, maybe they can read lips. I could punish them for their friend’s behavior, but that would take more effort than I can muster at the moment. When Shirley joins me a few hours later, I give her the lowdown. She makes me feel better, because aftermath is what she’s good at. I listen to her advice, forcing it to be applicable to me. She tells me men aren’t worth it. They are only good for one thing. I tell her that one thing is why he decided I wasn’t worth the effort and she does her best to conceal her confusion, but can’t.
I shove my apron in the dirty clothing hamper near the kitchen. “You have to do it, Caroline. With anyone. It doesn’t matter if they aren’t up to your standards. Make him think he’s a blip on your radar, not worth the dirt on the bottom of your shoe.”
Swallowing hard, I think her advice through. “Isn’t that kind of the opposite of what I want?”
“He is not a nice person, Care. Move on. With one of the Bronze Bay boys. They won’t hurt you like that. I guarantee it. It sounds like he has some weird hang ups. You’re ready to settle down with someone?” Not with a Bronze Bay boy. I can’t even fathom it now.
“I’m ready to lose my virginity,” I reply.
Shirley smiles. “Let’s focus on that.”
I shrug.
Chapter Sixteen
Tahoe
There’s a brunette in the kitchen when I walk out of the bedroom, a towel wrapped low around my waist. She’s wearing a t-shirt, the curve of her naked ass peeking out of the bottom. Her legs are short and lean as she leans forward to look on a bottom shelf inside the fridge.
Aidan gallops into the room from the other bedroom. Gallops. Like a fucking horse. He blows a noisy breath through his mouth and nose before he neighs.
“Please take the pony play to the bedroom,” I say, wincing. It’s been a while since we’ve been in this kind of situation. Not since before Bronze Bay. To say the guys are going balls to the walls with the freedom in a big city is an understatement.
Aidan cackles and pulls the dark beauty into his arms. She leans back to kiss him and I have to look away. “You can come be a stallion in my stable if you want to,” she says, breaking up their kiss to talk to me. The brunette winks.
“Yeah, man. I’ll share,” Aidan replies when I don’t. It’s more of a growl. It doesn’t tempt me in the least. Not anymore. I’m convinced the only things that do it for me are the ones I’ve sworn off.
Shaking my head, I brush past them to grab a bottle of water from the hotel fridge. “While it’s an offer that’s hard to refuse, I’m going to have to bow out gracefully,” I say, making my way back to my room. “Use a saddle, Aidan,” I call out before closing, and locking, my bedroom door behind me.
Their laughter carries through walls and it reinforces the lonely, awful feelings coursing through my body. I take a long swallow of the water, as sweat beads on my chest and arms. I just went for a run in the bustle of NYC and the shower didn’t cool me down. It didn’t do anything to clear my head either. My comrades are on a Tinder rage and I’m hung up on a woman, trying to come to terms with what that means.
Caroline was supposed to be here with me. This was supposed to be it. The time of my life. When I finally gave in and let myself have what I’ve been lusting after. Instead, I’m masturbating twice a day, in a penthouse suite while thinking about the woman who I’ll never have. Not in the capacity that I thought I would. My brothers decided to come early with me because I wasn’t able to cancel the hotel reservation, so they added several rooms. To fill the rest of the day, I’ll need to distract myself. I need something. Want to forget that I fell so hard for a woman so effortlessly I didn’t realize it until now. Until I couldn’t call her mine.
A few loud raps sound on my door followed by Leif’s baritone voice telling me to let him in. I throw on a pair of jeans that are on the floor next to my bed and slink over to let him in.
“You’re a fuckin’ mess, dude. Aidan is across the hall screwing a celebrity lookalike, my room looks like a brothel, and here you are,” he says, waving his hand to my room, and then me. “Working out and moping like a sorry sack of shit.”
I run my hands through my wet hair a few times to dry it. “I have to see her every day. It’s a small, fucking town.” Deviate from the real problem. My feelings. At any cost.
“Go back to San Diego. Ask for a transfer to another satellite base. They’re popping up everywhere now. They wouldn’t tell you no.” The thought of moving makes my stomach sink.
Shaking my head, I say, “I like it there.”
He comes in, and cracks open the mini bar and fishes for a bottle to down. “You need to get over the chick, then. You can’t possibly be that hung up on her,” he says. It’s a question, though, not a statement. He’s eyeing me in the way we look at bad guys we’re questioning, trying to seek out truths inside blatant falsities. Without taking his gaze from mine, he screws off the top of a mini bottle of Jack and downs it.
“I’m in love with her,” I reply. When it’s this obvious how miserable I am, there’s no sense lying about it.
“I thought you might say that,” Leif says, setting the empty down on a dresser. “I called her.”
