“Take an Uber! I’ll see you at home!” she yelled, making her way to the exit.
Damn it. It looked like I was on my own.
While I was guzzling the rest of my water and preparing myself to get lost on the train since I couldn’t afford a damn Uber, some random guy beside me spoke.
“I can give you a ride home, baby.”
I lowered my glass to the bar so that I could take a look at who was speaking to me.
I turned to my right to find a guy about my age with a white t-shirt on and a heavy gold chain around his neck was smiling at me. He looked decent enough and had a nice wide smile, but I wasn’t in the habit of taking strange rides with men I didn’t know.
“Thanks, but I’m good.” I pushed away from the bar, but was stopped with a hand around my waist.
“Don’t be like that, honey,” he said, his lips near my ear, way too close for comfort.
I placed my hand over his at my stomach and tried to pry it off. “Please get your hands off of me,” I said calmly, even though I was feeling anything but. The stench of alcohol and cigarettes on his breath only heightened my fear as he held me tighter around my waist. I dug my nails into his hand, getting more desperate by the second.
“Grace! I’ve been looking for you all over the place,” a deep voice that I instantly recognized said from behind and all of a sudden, another arm was around me and I was spun into a completely different set of arms but still in a hell of a lot of danger.
Because Whitaker Aldrich had his arms around me and his hands were dangerously low on my hips, my face practically buried in his too-tight black shirt. And I could smell him and, lord, it was good.
His scent was expensive and spicy. He smelled like heaven and hell had a baby and its name was Whit. Good, lord. I wanted to bury my face right there in his neck, but instead I looked up at him confused.
One of his hands landed delicately on my cheek, his calloused thumb brushed it, and I did my hardest not to lean into it and purr like a cat. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting, baby.” His deep voice reverberated against my chest, causing me to shiver. “Thanks for keeping my girl company, man,” he said to the guy whose arms he pulled me from, his face was serious and his eyes were almost murderous.
I’d have been scared if I wasn’t so damn turned on by his smell. He pulled back from me, draping an arm around my shoulders and steering me toward the other end of the bar away from the other man who luckily had gone back to nursing his beer.
When we approached a stool, I ducked from under his arm and sat down knowing I had to think right now and I couldn’t do it worth a damn with his smell all around me.
He leaned on the bar next to me and smiled down at me. “How’s it going?” he asked like he hadn’t just saved me. Again.
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Are you stalking me?” I was only half joking.
He let out a low laugh that I felt in the pit of my stomach. That laugh shouldn’t have been so attractive. Was there nothing that wasn’t appealing about this man?
“You think I’m stalking you and yet you showed up at my gig?” He gave me a give-me-a-break look that made me smile, too. “Maybe you’re stalking me,” he finished with a waggle of his eyebrows.
“No way! I didn’t even want to come tonight,” I word vomited all over the place and instantly regretted it when I saw his disappointed face.
“Maybe it’s fate, then?” He gave me a crooked smile.
I shook my head. “How could it be fate when I’m not dating right now? I’m on a man ban.”
A sudden seriousness passed over his face. “Why aren’t you dating?”
I shrugged. “Because men suck.”
He nodded. “But not all men.”
“Agreed. Not all men. But I’m done kissing a bunch of frogs trying to find a prince.” I flagged down the bartender for another glass of water before I had to walk for what would feel like a million miles to a train to then walk a million miles to my apartment.
After the bartender gave me another glass of ice water and I guzzled it down, I looked over at a smiling Whit. “What are you grinning about?” I asked, full of sass. The man’s smile was too much. Those dimples were going to do me in. I couldn’t help but flirt with him. Man ban or no man ban.
“You,” he answered bluntly.
I sat up straighter, all of a sudden feeling too seen and it made me hella self-conscious. “You’re smiling about me?” I asked, not wanting to know what that meant, but totally wanting to know more than anything in the world.
“Yep, you’re freaking adorable, Grace Abernathy.”
I felt my entire body deflate. I was adorable. That was it? Hell, at least he’d remembered my name. But still, I was cute. Like a little sister. Like a lost little sister who couldn’t do shit in this city without her big brother coming to her rescue. A big brother she didn’t even know, at that.
Why did I care so much that his adorable comment placed me firmly in the friend zone? I wasn’t in the market for a man anyway. Besides, no wonder he saw me as adorable.
Whit was a man. Not a twenty-three-year-old boy but a man. He was probably looking for a woman, anyhow. Someone his age, who had a job and a real apartment without roommates that slept on futons in the living room. He probably dated corporate chicks who had their shit together and dressed to the nines.
Not young women fresh out of school who had their heads in the clouds thinking they could ever have their dream job in the big city.
“How old are you anyway?” I asked, feeling bold. Now that I knew he only saw me as an adorable little sister, I found I didn’t care so much about appealing to him.
I watched as a small bit of worry passed over his face before his dimples were back out. “Thirty-one. What about you?”
“Twenty-three.”
He nodded slowly, his face pensive.
I didn’t ask him what he was thinking about even though I wanted to know. Instead, I stood up and pulled down the bottom of my skimpy red dress so that it hit my knees again. “Well, I should head home.” Home. It felt wrong calling that apartment, that I lived in with practical strangers, home. My home was miles and miles away.
“I feel like you’re always running away from me.” He looked around the bar, scanning the place. “Where’s your friend?”
“Who?” I asked, confused.
“The woman you were with during the show?”
I let out a long breath. “Oh. Yeah. She ditched me for some douchebag so I’m headed home alone.”
He leaned closer to me until I could smell his minty breath. “Or you could just stay here and hang out with me?” He tempted in a sing-song voice that I noticed sounded rather good.
I could. And I’d probably have a good time. I’d probably enjoy myself so much that I’d want to do it again and again and then he’d probably ghost me and break my heart.
“I could,” I said with a smirk. “But remember? I’m not dating.”
He leaned back and placed his hand on his chest, pretending to be affronted. “I don’t recall asking you to go on a date, ma’am. I was only suggesting,” his eyes scanned me from the top of my head to the bottom of my nude wedges, “that since you’re all dressed up, we paint the town. As friends.”