That First Kiss (25 page)

             
“Excuse me?” Casey pressed a hand to her chest.

             
“Is that jealousy I’m sensing, Piper? Why, I didn’t think you were capable of such a thing.” Tate smirked, causing his dimples to appear.

She didn’t care if she sounded like a jealous ex or scorned lover or whatever the hell she was to him.

              “You wish,” Piper growled, lunging for his throat.

             
Tate didn’t even flinch. And that infuriating smile grew wider.

             
“Piper, calm down.” Tom took hold of her arm and began pulling her away. “Let’s go before this gets any uglier.”

             
Piper didn’t calm down. “Oh, believe me. Nothing could be uglier than the ugly truth!” she shouted. A few heads turned to see what the commotion was.

             
Pure malice flashed across Tate’s face. “You need to let go of her,” he growled, stomping after them. “Right now.”

             
“Don’t tell him what to do,” Piper snapped, now willingly allowing Tom to guide her away.

             
“Back off,” Tom warned over his shoulder. His pace quickened, forcing Piper into a near jog in order to keep up. His body language screamed pissed off and she suddenly felt a note of guilt coupled with embarrassment at having caused a scene. She’d lost her cool and ruined their date.

             
“I’ll back off when you get your hands off of her.” Tate was on their heels, his fists balled at his sides.

             
Outside, Tom whirled around to face him head on. “I don’t know what the hell is going on between you two, and trust me, I aim to find out, but what I do know is that Piper is here with me. And from what I can see, she”—he pointed to Casey, who was running on her pointy heels to catch up—“is here with you. You’ve made your choice, pal.”

             
“You may have come here with her, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be leaving with her.” Tate held out his hand. “Come on, Piper. We need to talk.”

             
Tom stepped in front of her, putting himself bodily between them. “She’s not going anywhere with you. Go back to your date. You’re not wanted here.”

             
Tate laughed darkly, tipping his head back to look at the stars. Without warning, he lunged at Tom, shoving him with both hands flat against his chest. “
You’re
not wanted here.”

             
Tom stumbled but quickly regained his footing. “Get back,” he told Piper, motioning her away as he stood tall before Tate. “Wrong move, buddy.”

             
Casey screeched and Piper covered her mouth in horror as the two men clashed together. Fists flew. The sickening thud of fists connecting with soft tissue touched her ears. Tate’s fist flew through the air, catching Tom in the jaw. Tom returned the favor, socking Tate in the mouth. Time seemed to stand still as the two exchanged blows.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, t
wo security guards rushed forward. Piper stared in shocked disbelief as the guards struggled to pull Tom and Tate apart. With a stern warning to leave the premises or charges would be pressed, they took the liberties off hailing forth a couple of cabs. Piper climbed into the first one, followed closely by Tom.

             
She felt completely hollow as they pulled away. In a terrifying way, she knew Tate had only been trying to defend her. The thought of him doing that warmed her insides, but she didn’t want her insides warmed. The knowledge that he could have hurt Tom, who, as far as she was concerned was an innocent bystander in all of this, made her sick to her stomach.

No words were spoken all the way back to
the hotel. They arrived back well before midnight and headed straight for their rooms. Most of the guests must have been out enjoying all the city had to offer, because on this go around, they got the elevator to themselves.

             
As they rode up, Tom dabbed at his swollen lip, the pad of his thumb coming back red. There was a small cut where blood had oozed out. One of his eyes was already starting to turn colors. The knuckles on his right hand were split open. Piper winced, ashamed of herself and her behavior.

             
“I’m sorry,” she croaked. Her voice, barely above a whisper, sounded like a gunshot blast in the deadly quiet space.

             
“Don’t worry about it,” Tom grumbled. His body language, the way he had his back turned slightly toward her and the way he refused to look at her, told a different story.

             
“Of course I’m going to worry about it. This is entirely my fault,” she argued. “I ruined our date, I made you get into a fight…I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me.” She prayed he didn’t hate her.

             
Tom pivoted to look at her. “Look at my face. Do I look like I hate you?”

             
Looking past the swelling and bruising already beginning to form there, Piper searched his eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know, but you should.”

             
“Well, I don’t,” he said definitively. “I’m a grown man and I make my own decisions. Yeah, you should have walked away when I told you to, but what happened back there was a long time coming. There was nothing you could have done to stop it.”

             
“What are you saying?”

             
“I’m saying that guy has been gunning for me since day one.”

             
She frowned. “But why? What could he possibly have against you?”

             
Tom’s face softened. Reaching out, he stroked the side of her face with his fingertips. “I think the answer to that question is fairly obvious.
You
.”

             
“Me?” Piper’s frown deepened. Tate didn’t want her, not the same way she wanted him. She was certain of it. So this was all just some giant pissing contest, she concluded. It had to be. “That’s ridiculous.”

             
“Two guys, one girl.” Tom shrugged. “Doesn’t seem all that ridiculous from where I’m standing.”

             
“Tate doesn’t do relationships,” Piper stressed, feeling a bit flustered.

             
“Maybe, maybe not. You know him better than I do.” The doors whooshed open and together they stepped out.

             
Did she? Because Piper felt like she didn’t know much about anything anymore. What she did know was that this night had become one enormous cluster-fuck of events that she’d be glad to be done with.

             
When they reached their neighboring rooms, they paused, neither of them quite sure what to say or do next.

             
“Will you be okay?” Tom asked, at the same time Piper said, “Would you like to come in for a drink?”

             
They laughed. “You go first,” Tom instructed.

             
“Do you want to come inside?” Piper asked, hitching her thumb behind her. “We could raid the mini bar. I think I saw some of those tiny bottles of alcohol in there earlier.”

             
Tom nodded. “I could use a drink,” he said, and followed her inside.

29

A
short time later, after arriving back in his hotel room, Tate paced the floors, fuming over the night’s events. It wasn’t just that he’d gotten kicked off the premises of a major hotel and casino in front of a crowd who went snap happy with their phones the instant he slugged the chef, or the fact that the incident was probably plastered all over the Web for his fans and news media everywhere to go ape shit over, or even that the left side of his face hurt like a sonovabitch and one of his ribs screamed with each inhale of breath. It was the look on Piper’s face when she laid eyes on Casey that haunted him.

             
Her face twisted in pain, like someone had just killed her cat.

Did she even have a cat?

So many things he hadn’t bothered to find out. So many regrets. He didn’t know why he let Casey talk him into that half-baked plan of hers. He should have known that making Piper jealous would just backfire in his face.

             
She ran off with the cook.

He
left empty-handed.

This was not how the night was supposed to go.

              “We’re in luck.” Casey strode out of the bathroom holding a first aid kit and dropped down on the mattress beside him. “Take off your shirt; let’s see what the damage is.”

             
Tate followed her instructions, his movements automatic. He welcomed the pain. He deserved every last bit of it.

             
“Ah, shit!” he hissed, his torso arching away sharply.

             
“Good news is I don’t think anything is broken.” Undeterred, Casey prodded around some more, poking her fingers around his soft tissue, searching for injury like a professional.

             
When she took out some antiseptic and gauze, Tate couldn’t help asking, “Where did you learn all of this?”

             
“What, putting on bandages? With all the kids in my family, there tends to be a lot of scraped knees, you know.”

Recalling all the family gatherings he’d attended once upon a time, and all the little ones that
were always underfoot, he knew that fact very well.

Her head was
bent; her eyes focused as she covered the nasty bruise slashed through with a small cut that had cropped up just under his left pecs with a square of cotton, and taped it into place. The asshole had probably worn a ring, which would explain how he’d inflicted so much damage in the space of so little time.

             
“No, I mean, how do you know nothing is broken.” Cause it sure as shit felt like something was broken, and he wasn’t talking about his ego.

             
Dousing a cotton ball with antiseptic, Casey dabbed at the contusions on his knuckles followed by the one over his right eyebrow. When she was through, she gathered all the wrappers and carried them to the trashcan beside the bathroom door.

“After you left,” she said as she came back into the room. “After we broke up, I spent a lot of time asking myself some tough questions. Mainly, why.” She shrugged. “I was so angry at first, with myself, with you, but then I realized that I couldn’t spend forever wallowing in self-pity. I needed to focus on me, then maybe, if had something more to offer, you would come back.”

              Tate frowned, studying her as a fresh wave of guilt washed over him. It was irrational, considering she was the one who had cheated on him, but he couldn’t help feeling a tad remorseful. They’d loved each other once, and the last thing he ever wanted was to hurt her. Some things, though, couldn’t be helped. “Cas—”

             
She threw her hand up. “No, I know. Really, I know you’re in love with her. I get it. I do. And I’m not mad. I’m happy for you, actually,” she rushed. “I mean, I always hoped that you would be single long enough for me to…I don’t know, win you back or something.” Her voice dropped, her head following as her level of insecurity spiked.

             
Tate rose off the bed and approached her. “Cas…”

             
“So anyway, that’s why I decided to become a nurse.” Her head lifted and she smiled weakly up at him. Her need for strength in the face of confession shone in her glistening brown eyes, and so did her sadness.

             
Some unknown feeling rose up in his chest, threatening to overwhelm him. Tate’s hands came down on her shoulders. “Cas…” He sighed. He wanted to apologize. Not for her infidelity or his guilt or their lost friendship, but for the all the hurt and broken promises and what could have been. It a lot of ways, it was both their fault the relationship had ended, and he couldn’t let her bear the burden of that alone.

             
No more words were needed. Stepping into his arms, Casey buried her face in his chest and Tate wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to his heart. It was then, despite all thoughts to the contrary, all the anger and the hurt and determination to hate this woman, that Tate realized she had never really left him.

The part of his heart that he had reserved especially for Casey when he was just a child still belonged to her.

It had changed, transitioned into something less like love and more like a deep caring for someone who had once meant the world to him. And it no longer hurt. He realized that long ago, but now, none of the bitterness or hostility he once felt was tied to it. It was like the strings had been cut, and now all he felt was lightness, buoyancy he wasn’t accustomed to. Like a tremendous weight had been lifted.

             
When they drew away from each other, Tate felt the awkward silence that engulfed the room like a physical touch. He didn’t want to lose the tentative truce they’d drawn, but in his moment of soul-searching, he had reached the conclusion that he needed her to leave.

Already his thoughts were straying to Piper.

Of the words that Casey had said moments ago.

If she was right and he did love Piper, h
e couldn’t let things stand the way they were. He needed to make it clear that he and Casey were over, and he needed to tell her what she meant to him. It would be hard, no doubt about that. He had closed that part of himself off long ago and sealed it with a cage of razor wire to remind him of how much love hurt if ever he thought to cross that boundary again.

Now, no matter how
much water was under the bridge, no matter how much she might hate his guts, he realized he had to try. Of all the women he had been with since Casey, Piper was the first to break through his defenses. He couldn’t let that simple fact go unanswered. He
had
to try.

Looking at the clock, he realized how late it
had become. Piper would probably be sleeping right now and as much as he wanted to bang down her door and pour his heart out at her feet, he knew enough from growing up as a teenage boy in a house full of sisters that waking up an angry woman likely wouldn’t go over well.

Erring on the side of caution, Tate decided it would be best to wait until morning before he confronte
d her. Until then, he needed Casey to vacate his room so he could take some time to clear his head and prepare himself for what was to come.

*****

Thomas
was every woman’s dream: Kind and caring with a rocking body, and he really knew how to make a girl laugh. The total package. Just not
her
total package. God, why couldn’t he be her package? Was she insane? Had her mother dropped her on her head when she was an infant?               Maybe that joint she tried in twelfth grade at Mandy Sims’ house party had killed off vital brain cells.

             
That was the only explanation she could come up with as she stood in the open doorway and stared at Tom’s back as he let himself into his room. Lordy, he was attractive, but for all that male hotness; she just wasn’t that into him.

             
Yep, something was definitely wrong with her gray matter.

             
When Tom turned, she waved goodnight as the door silently closed. Despite how horribly wrong everything had gone this evening, it had ended on a good note. At first she wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea to invite Tom inside, but she just couldn’t leave things between them like that. She needed him to know where she stood, that she had feelings for Tate, but that she still wanted to be friends. Surprisingly, Tom was cool with that. After she patched him up, they sat down to some drinks and started talking, picking up where they left off at the restaurant and leaving out everything in between.

             
She learned some interesting things about Tom, like how he often spent time helping out at local soup kitchens and even donating leftovers that would otherwise have gone into the trash at his own. Apparently, there wasn’t a big market for deformed cakes or mistakes on orders that shouldn’t have really mattered, but did.

             
By the time he stood to leave, Piper was feeling really good about where they were. She had a new friend, someone who was easy to talk to, would hold her in confidence, and could whip up a chocolate soufflé or some equally delectable treat when her hormones demanded something extra sweet.

             
Releasing a tired breath, Piper was just ducking back into her room, preparing to close the door and tuck herself in for the night, when she saw the door to Tate’s room swing open. A woman’s voice spilled into the empty hall and Piper scrambled back, shoving the door in front of her. Rather than closing it, she stopped short, leaving a crack so small, she had to squint and tilt her head to get a clear image.

             
She recognized the woman immediately: Casey, Tate’s not-so-ex-ex. Tate followed a moment later, his sculpted chest bared for the entire world to see. Piper glared at the both of them. She glared even harder when the woman stepped forward, going on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around Tate’s neck and pull him down for a hug.

             
She really shouldn’t care. It wasn’t like they were in a relationship. It wasn’t as if they were committed to one another. He wasn’t her damn boyfriend, she scolded herself. They were just two consenting adults who had hooked up a couple of times. People did it all the time. It didn’t have to mean anything. It
didn’t
mean anything.

             
As the happy couple spoke in volumes too low for her to catch, Piper pushed the door closed and marched toward the bedroom. She didn’t care what they said, really. She didn’t want to be a party to their reunion. She didn’t need to torture herself any further by witnessing their afterglow.

Images of the two of them together, in his bed, naked, swarmed into her head, but Piper shut them down immediately.

              There was only one thing she needed, one thing that every girl needed when her heart was crumbling into pieces: her girlfriends by her side.

             
Grabbing her phone, she took care of the first order of business with far more ease than expected considering the late hour and short notice. Then, Piper located the second number she was looking for and pressed the phone to her ear as the line began ringing.

             
“Hey, sweetie.” Sheila’s cheer-filled voice filled her ear.

Instantly, Piper felt her eyes mist over. “Hey,” she sniffled
, her breathing suddenly going wonky and leaving her nearly choking on a sob.

Shelia’s tone went deadly serious. “What happened?”

Piper didn’t bother filling her friend in. Right now, she had only one goal in mind. “I’m coming home.”