Page 10 of Sexting the Tattooed Outlaw
Nadia returns to my side.
“Okay, the bartender talked me into trying this prickly pear piña colada drink and I hate it, can we switch back? You like sugary drinks, right?”
Nadia swaps our drinks without waiting for my confirmation. My eyes are still fixed across the bar athimand to my horror, he looks up and meets my gaze.
Nadia follows my eyes curiously, finding the man I’m watching.
“Oh no,” she groans. “Of coursehe’shere. Now I’ll never convince you to have another night out with me again.”
I take a sip of the drink she handed me. Thank god, it’s delicious. I gulp down the rest of it in one go, feeling the rum burn the back of my throat.
“Woah,” Nadia widens her eyes, then glances over. “Shoot, now he’s coming over here. Want me to cause a distraction? Maybe I can pull a fire alarm?”
“It’s fine,” I gasp through the burn of the alcohol in my throat.
I feel rooted to the spot as Douglas comes nearer, his smile more like a smirk. He’s wearing a cowboy costume: Clothes that have never seen a day of work, boots with no scuffs, no tan line around his neck.
Looking at him right now, I’m not sure what I ever saw in him. Compared to Sam, Douglas is small and feeble looking. And Douglas definitely never gave me the kind of full body tingles that Sam is capable of giving me with just one glance.
“Hey Kayla,” he drawls, and I realize that he might just be the source of the nasty cologne smell that seems to fill the whole bar. He’s wearing enough of it for forty men.
Gross. He never wore cologne like that when we were dating. Maybe because he wasn’t trying too hard to impress me? Tonight he’s on the prowl, looking for his next girlfriend or hookup.
For his next victim, more like.
“Hey there,Dougie,” Nadia says flatly. “Surprised to see you’re still allowed into places like these. Or does your parole officer not know where you are tonight?”
I don’t know what Nadia is talking about. I raise a brow at her and she shakes her head.
“Dougiehere was picked up last month for a DUI,” she explains.
“You never mentioned that,” I say.
“I didn’t think he was worth mentioning at all,” she says with an eye roll. “I mean,youcertainly haven’t been talking to me about him. I figured you wouldn’t care what this loser was up to.”
It’s a blatant lie.
After the breakup, I talked Nadia’s ear off about my ex, crying and re-playing the relationship to figure out how I could’ve been so dumb.
Nadia is a solid friend, though. And she knows that if there’s one thing I don’t want, it’s for Douglas to know how much our breakup affected me.
“Right,” Douglas chuckles, looking at me. “You got over me that fast?”
“Sure did,” I reply.
“I don’t believe it.”
He’s wearing a smile on his face, but I know better. I can see the mocking behind the grin.
I don’t know why I accepted this treatment for so long. The casual way that Douglas would dismiss and insult me.
“Well, believe it,” Nadia cuts in, putting her arm around me. “My girl is back on the market…she’s actually seeing someone.”
“Sure,” Douglas snorts.
My cheeks are warming.
Suddenly I feel like my old high school self, standing in the middle of the cafeteria, looking for a table that might accept me with my baggy clothes meant to hide my body, my greasy bangs and pock-marked cheeks.
