Wasted (18 page)

Relief poured over me as I saw Hawk come
through the front door. He walked toward the bar, and with his
painfully slow stride, I clenched my teeth, wishing he’d hurry the
hell up. Finally, I motioned for him. A surprised look crossed his
face, and he picked up his pace and sank down on the empty stool in
front of me.

“
What’s going
on?”

“
Did you see Lexi
outside?”

“
Huh?”

“
When you came in just now,
did you see Lexi standing out there with a guy?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t notice her, but it’s
dark outside. There was a couple standing off to the side, but I
wasn’t about to stare them down and see what they were doing.”

“
What do you mean ‘standing
off to the side’?”

“
I mean they were standing
by the building on the side of the parking lot.”

“
Were they
kissing?”

Hawk cocked his head to the side and gave me
a look like he wondered whether I’d lost my mind. And maybe I had.
Just knowing that she was with him was tearing me up.

“
Why do I feel like I’m
missing out on something?” he asked.

I gripped the edge of the bar and exhaled.
“Lexi’s ex-fiancé just came in here looking for her, and against my
advice, she went outside to talk to him.”

Hawk leaned back against the chair, a huge
smirk on his face. “You’re jealous.”

“
I am not jealous. I’m just
worried about her. The guy was a douche.”

Hawk shook his head. “No. You’re definitely
jealous.”

Staring at the floor, I sucked in a deep
breath.

“
There’s nothing wrong with
being jealous, as long as you don’t let it make you crazy. Lexi’s a
great girl. It’s been a long time since Rachel.”

I lifted my head and glared at him. “Don’t
bring Rachel into this.”

“
Man, we’ve been friends a
long time. I haven’t seen you act like this around a female since
Rachel. Stop punishing yourself.”

Squeezing the edge of the bar, I blew out a
breath. “I’m terrified, man. I really like her, but shit, I loved
Rachel. And I still managed to screw things up.”

“
You’re human. Y’all were
going through a difficult time, and that’s the kind of shit that
either draws people closer or splits them up. And well, you know
how that story ended.”

Indecisive, I wondered what I should do.

“
If you were in another
relationship, would you do things differently than the way things
went down with Rachel?” Hawk asked, his voice penetrating my
thoughts.

“
Hell, yeah. I screwed
up.”

“
Then consider yourself
older and wiser. Find someone to watch the bar and go check on
her.”

“
I don’t know, man. It’s
not like we’re together, and she made it clear that she could take
care of the situation herself.”

“
I can’t tell you what to
do, but if a chick I was interested in was out there with her
douche of an ex, I’d be out there checking on her. I don’t care how
independent she is, women like to know you care. If she matters to
you, your top priority should be to make sure she knows
it.”

His words burned into my brain. Torn between
ignoring the situation and rushing outside to possibly make a fool
out of myself, I tried to logically cipher the number of pros and
cons. Hell, why was I standing here wasting time?

I called someone over to watch the bar and
rushed outside. If he had done something to hurt her, I was going
to beat his ass, and I didn’t give a damn what Lexi had to say
about it.

As I exited the building, I scanned the
parking lot, scantily lit by a dim light attached near the corner
of the building. A group of three walked to their car, and a couple
were on their way into the building. I didn’t see Lexi
anywhere.

Had she left with him?

My heart sank. Damn, I shouldn’t have let
her come out here alone.

I walked along the front of the building.
Hearing a noise, I peered into the night in its direction. I heard
it again, and I picked up my pace as I skirted around a huge
planter.

She was sitting on the ground in the shadows
near the corner of the building, her back against the brick, her
knees bent in front of her. Her hands covered her face, and I could
hear her soft cries.

“
Lexi?”

She looked up and leaned her head back
against the wall.

With long strides, I covered the distance
between us. I was going to kill him. “Did he hurt you?”

Swiping at her tears, she sucked in a
breath. “Go back in, Mason. I’ll be there in just a minute,” she
promised in a shaky voice.

“
Did he hurt you?” I
repeated, my hands curling into fists at my sides.

“
No, not in the way you
think.”

I dropped down to the pavement beside her
and pulled her into my arms. “What’s wrong, love?”

Unable to speak, she cried even harder.

Her cries wrenched my gut. I held her close,
softly whispering words of encouragement as I stroked her hair. “I
got you.”

Wrapping her arm around me, she hugged me
closely. I kissed her temple, and she drew in a shattered
breath.

“
Do you want to talk about
it?”

She shook her head.

Frustrated, I frowned. I
wanted her to talk about it. Hell, it wasn’t just that I wanted her
to talk about it. I wanted her to want to talk to
me
about it. I wanted to
be the guy that she turned to, the guy that she needed.

In an attempt to comfort her, I rubbed her
back in long, gentle caresses.

“
Could you tell Spanky that
I left early?”

“
Why? Are you going after
him?”

“
I want to go
home.”

I closed my eyes, clutching a silky strand
of her hair in my fist. Her confession offered me a reprieve from
my anxiety. I was terrified that she wanted to be with him, that
she was unhappy they hadn’t worked things out.

Home.

I released a pent-up breath. She wanted to
go to our apartment, to the comfort of the place where we had
shared meals, beds, and most importantly, snippets of our lives
with each other.

“
I’ll tell Spanky. I can’t
leave the bar right now, but let me have Hawk drive you
home.”

She squeezed my hand. “No. I don’t want
anyone else to see me like this. I can drive myself. Just call me
when you’re ready for me to pick you up.” She wiped her face with
the hem of her tee shirt.

Standing, I reached down and pulled her to
her feet. I gave her another hug, and she laid her head against my
shoulder.

“
Mason?”

“
Yeah?”

“
Thank you.” She turned and
looked at me, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Lifting her
face, she reached up and softly kissed my cheek before she released
me.

I pulled the car keys out of my pocket. “Be
careful.”

“
I will.”

“
And you’re not getting
back out. I’ll call my friend who owns a cab.”

A soft laugh escaped her lips. “You’ll come
home in a caxi tab?”

My mouth twitched into a grin. “Something
like that.”

Her smile dissipated, and her gaze grew
serious. “I think….”

I waited for her to continue, but she pursed
her lips and swallowed.

“
What?”

“
Nevermind. I’ll see you
when you get home.”

Chapter
14

Stinger

Mason

I thought the night would never end.
Realizing I didn’t have a key, I turned the knob, and I was both
relieved and aggravated that the door was unlocked.

When I stepped into the apartment, dim light
from the hall bathroom cast a soft glow that spilled into the
living room. Exhausted, I kicked my shoes off and moved silently
over the carpet as I made my way to Lexi’s room. I’d wondered all
evening what had upset her.

Gently opening her door, I saw the outline
of her body beneath the comforter. Her dark hair contrasted against
the white pillowcase in wild disarray, and the faint smell of
perfume hung in the air. I breathed in deeply, enticed by the
scent.

After closing the door softly, I pulled off
my tee shirt and socks. Once my jeans were unfastened, I pushed
them to the floor in a crumpled heap and stepped out of them. Her
soft breathing cued me that she was asleep, and I crossed the room
and went into her bathroom. So that I wouldn’t wake her, I made
sure to close the door before I flipped on the light. The
nightlight immediately flickered off, and I noticed the neatly
folded towel and washcloth on the edge of the vanity. A pair of my
boxers had been folded into a small square, and my toothbrush and a
brand new travel tube of toothpaste jutted out from a white mug
that she had borrowed from the kitchen.

I took a hot shower, allowing the steamy
water to release some of the tension from my shoulders. Opening her
bottle of shampoo, I lathered up, hoping my manhood wouldn’t suffer
too much once my hair smelled like a blooming hibiscus.

The fragrance reminded me of her, of all the
times she’d been close enough that I could smell her hair. I rushed
through the rest of my routine, the need to hold her close burning
like hot coals in the pit of my stomach.

I toweled my hair dry and ran my fingers
through it, contemplating over whether I should use the blow dryer.
Turning it on at low speed, I dried my hair just enough to keep it
from being overly damp.

Flipping the light out, the nightlight
resumed its duty of being just luminous enough to prevent stumped
toes.

When I approached the bed, she turned over
and watched as I slid beneath the covers.

“
Did you have a good
night?” she asked softly.

“
Not as good as if you’d
been there.” And it was the truth. I’d missed her, and I could
barely concentrate on anything else.

She snuggled beside me, and I put my arm
around her, tucking her in close. “How about you?” I kissed the top
of her head. “Are you okay?”

“
Yeah.”

I could hear the pain in her voice, and I
knew that she wasn’t.

“
You can talk to me. You
know that, right? I’ll keep whatever you tell me between the two of
us.”

She was quiet, and I wondered if she was
mulling my words over in her head. Her fingers started tracing the
edge of my tattoo, faintly visible in the dim light.

“
I thought I was going to
have his babies, you know?” she whispered softly, emotion cracking
her voice.

Remaining silent, I rubbed her arm in a
soothing motion. I wanted to comfort her. I wanted her to open up,
to tell me about her ex-fiancé.

“
We’d planned on getting
married as soon as we both graduated from college. I had everything
planned out. We’d move back to Creekview, spend the first year of
our marriage getting everything established, then we’d have
beautiful babies.” Her fingers stilled. “I thought he was ready for
children, too.”

“
So he didn’t want to have
kids? Was that why y’all split up?”

“
He said he wanted kids,
and maybe he did. Maybe it was the wife part he was having trouble
with.” She started tracing my tattoos again.

“
He didn’t want to get
married?”

“
I was the one who broke
off the engagement.”

Somehow that made me feel better, like maybe
there would be less of a chance of them working out their
differences if she was the one who had called it quits.

“
I’d went back home to
visit my parents, but I had a lot of pressure on me because I
hadn’t finished a presentation that was due for my marketing class.
I decided to go back a day early.” She sniffled, and I knew what he
had done. I knew why she was in so much pain. “I thought he’d be
happy to see me, but…it became painfully clear that he hadn’t
missed me at all.”

“
You walked in on
them?”

She nodded, and there was the stinger.

Smoothing her hair away from her face, I
kissed her forehead. I wanted to take her pain away, to absorb it.
I rose, leaning on my elbow as I gazed down at her face. Even
though her eyes were cloaked in shadows, I knew she was crying,
tendrils of excruciating pain squeezing her heart. “I’m so sorry,
Lex, sorry that you had to go through something like that.”

“
Don’t be,” she whispered.
“He’s a heartless bastard, and I’m glad I found out before I
married him.” She wiped her tears away. “Besides, I always try to
look at the bright side.”

“
How the hell can you find
a bright side in a situation like that?”

“
If all that hadn’t
happened, then I wouldn’t be here with you.”

A strange mixture of terror and pride rushed
through my veins, and I struggled to sort through the unexpected
tangle of feelings. Part of me wanted to grab her and never let go,
and another part of me wanted to run like hell. I leaned down, my
lips softly meshing with hers.

The kiss was gentle at first, meant to
comfort, but we could never be this close for long before things
started to sizzle.

She arched off the bed, pressing against my
body. When I slipped my tongue in her mouth, she released a soft
moan of pleasure.

I needed to end the kiss before things
progressed much further. She was vulnerable, and she’d made it
clear that she wasn’t ready for a sexual relationship. But damn, I
knew the sounds a woman made when she wanted more, and Lexi was
definitely into this as much as I was.