Page 110 of Betting on the Bad Boy
I ignored the comment and focused on the weight. My arms and chest burned from the effort. I’d been numbed by Faith’s betrayal. It felt good to feel something, even if it was pain. Ihad started to think I might never be capable of feeling anything again.
“What are you going to do?” Murph asked.
“Who says I have to do anything?” I squinted up at him.
“No offense, bro, but I read that shit. It was hot. If I was getting off like that with some chick, I’d be banging it until she shut me down.”
I struggled to get the weight back up onto the stand. If I kept pushing myself like this, I wouldn’t even be able to lift a beer mug tonight. Murph grabbed on and helped guide the bar to a resting position.
“Well, that’s probably just the beginning of the difference between you and me.” I sat up slowly and wiped a towel across my brow.
“Dude. Did she tell you I found that shit on her computer? She offered to fuck me to keep it quiet. Like I’d want to put my dick in your cum dumpster. What a cu?—”
Instinct took over. Before I realized what I was doing, I jumped off the bench and wrapped the towel around Murph’s neck, pulling it tight with both hands. “It was you! Take that back, you piece of shit.”
Murph gagged and sputtered, sending a dribble of spit down his chin as his hands came up and scrambled to pry the towel away. The usual clank of barbells and raucous background voices came to an abrupt halt. As I released my grip, I looked around the weight room. All eyes were on me. Just like they’d been all week. Murph’s face started to regain a natural color, and I clapped him on the back.
“Get the fuck away from me.” Murph slapped at my hand.
With every eye in the place boring into my back, I grabbed my water bottle and keys and made my way to the door. Shit. I couldn’t even get away from her at the gym. I saw her everywhere I looked.
I’d done exactly what I promised myself I’d never do again—put my trust in someone. Faith had played me like a fucking fiddle. She’d blindsided me, pulled the rug out from under me, taken my heart to the cleaners. I’d never be able to live it down, thanks to the diligence of the paper and the worldwide web. My mistake would go down in everlasting history.
I needed to get my mind off her once and for all. I needed to get wasted. Maybe even laid. And I knew just the place to go to make both of those things happen.
I wrappedmy fingers around the stem of the last clean wineglass and hung it upside down from the rack over the bar. I’d been scheduled for the early shift on a Saturday afternoon for a change. I caught a glimpse of pink from the corner of my eye and looked up to see Brittany coming through the door. As she made her way through the tables of men watching the Blackhawks take on the Red Wings, all their eyes followed her from the doorway to the bar.
“Hey, Brittany. How’s it going?”
“So this is where you hide out when you’re not meeting with us at the library?” She lifted one butt cheek onto the edge of a stool.
I set a paper coaster down in front of her. “What can I get you?”
“Well,” she drew out her l’s, making the word last ten times longer than it should have. “Semester’s almost over. I was kind of wondering if you might be interested in dinner sometime. You know, like a last hurrah.”
She was decked out in all pink, like some frosted cotton candy concoction. Tight raspberry pink jacket over a snug bubble gum pink tank top. Even the purse she plopped down on the bar was pink. Pink overload.
I fought the urge to shield my eyes. “Dinner, huh?”
“Yeah, the meal after lunch. Most people eat it in the evening, say, around seven?”
I smiled. “I’m not opposed to dinner, but Iamopposed to going out with a student I’ve mentored.”
“Oh, I thought maybe you’d changed your position on that, after all the stuff in the paper.” A gleam caught her eye, and she leaned over the bar, giving me a glimpse of her lacy, pastel pink bra. “We don’t exactly have to go out, Dante. In fact, we don’t even have to have dinner.”
She was a good-looking girl. Blonde hair, blue eyes, a cross between a busty Julianne Hough and a platinum Katy Perry.
“Thanks, but no thanks. Nothing personal.” I grabbed a rag and wiped down the counter, forcing Brittany to remove her hands from the bar and sit back down.
“I get it. Just between us,”—she cupped her hand around her mouth as if divulging a huge secret—“what she did to you was wrong. Leading you on like that. See, with me, what you see is what you get.”
I swabbed the rag further down the bar, away from Princess Pinky Pie. “I’m flattered, but I have to pass.” What the hell had gotten into me? She was offering me exactly what I’d always been after... sex with no strings attached. Only now that didn’t quite seem like enough anymore.
“Fine. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” She stepped down off the stool and sashayed her tight, Pepto-Bismol-covered ass right out the front door.
I let out a groan and took out my frustration on a particularly stubborn spot on the bar as a vision of Faith lying on my bed in her red lacy bra cavorted through my mind. So much for getting laid. At least I could still get rip-roaring wasted. I snagged a bottle of Jack from behind the bar and grabbed a plastic cup.
“I’m taking five, Wyatt.” I stomped down the hall to the office and slumped into a chair.
