Page 19 of One Night Rebellion
“I’m not going anywhere, but your phone has been going off for ten minutes.”
His eyes pop open then and he sits up, reaching for his jeans. After fishing the phone out of his pocket, he unlocks it and starts scrolling through what looks like a novel’s worth of texts. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Just fuck.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” he replied, “Other than I’m going to kick your brother’s ass for not keeping his mouth shut.”
That panic starts to rise in me, but I tamp it down. This is JT. JT who wanted us to be public, who was perfectly willing to hard launch our relationship days ago. “And that matters why?”
“Because my mom is texting me. Sierra is texting me. Cody and Troy and Lizzie are texting me,” he says. “And all anyone wants to know is why the hell I’m sneaking around when they all love you.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh…. and Lucas texted me.”
“Shit,” I whisper. “What did he say?”
He shakes his head. “He didn’t say fuck all, Addie. He just texted me a picture of his target from the shooting range.”
“Oh, that doesn’t mean anything. He’s texted that same pic to every guy I’ve ever gone out with… and every guy Karly has ever gone out with. I’m pretty sure it’s a joke.”
“Pretty sure is not all the way sure, and I’d rather not have my life threatened twice in one day by the men in your family.”
“So don’t give them a reason to make good on the threats,” I reply with a shrug. “Treat me right and everything will be just fine.”
He puts his phone on the nightstand and reaches for me, pulling me close. “I want to. I want to do more than just treat you right. You set the bar kind of low… and I’m an overachiever, Addie. Always have been… and that means, unfortunately, that I need to drag my ass to the office and pretend that I’m not obsessing over the way you smell… the way you taste… that little sigh you do just after you come.”
“I wish you could stay. I don’t want either one of us to get out of this bed… I don’t want the real world to intrude.”
He kisses me again, his lips tender and sweet against mine. “It won’t. Because I’m taking you out tonight. If all of Bellehaven is going to be talking about us, we might as well give them something to talk about.”
I like the sound of that. Way more than I ever expected to.
12
JT
"What are you doing sitting over here, sipping on your beer?" Malcolm asks as we sit in a booth, watching Addie tend bar. "You two aren't hiding anymore, remember?"
I finish off the bottle and set it on the table. "No, we aren't, but she's still working at this shithole for a few more months. So I sit over here and watch her be sassy to the regulars. Until I have enough."
"Then what do you do?" Rachel questions, sipping on her bourbon.
I run a hand through my hair before flashing a smile at her. "I get up off my ass, saunter across the floor, and get her to dance with me, while everyone in the place watches."
Addie grins as she watches me, her eyes taking in everyone and everything around us. When I get to the bar top, I reach out a hand to her. "What do you want, JT?"
"You, always you," I smile, bringing the back of her hand to my lips. "But first, I want you to shake your ass around this bar. Wanna do that with me?"
Her smile turns into a laugh. "You know I love dancing with you."
She takes my hand without hesitation, her fingers intertwining with mine like they were made to fit together.
"Let me grab a few quarters," she says, already reaching for it behind the bar. "Can't dance without music."
Within seconds, the speakers crackle to life with some old country song that gets everyone's attention. The regulars push back their chairs, giving us room, and I can already hear the murmurs and whistles starting.
"About damn time!" Cam yells, whistling. "Keeping that secret was rough."
