Page 10 of Fighting Jacob

She doesn’t need to say that I am her type. I can see it in her eyes. She digs me.

“Noah doesn’t date either.”

Don’t get the wrong idea. He has no problems with the ladies. His list of admirers grows exponentially after each gig, but, excluding me, I’ve never seen anyone permanent in his life. Hookups aren’t permanent, but dating is. That’s why I’m praying Lola didn’t see our exchange last week as a one-off hookup. We created magic—magic that deserves to be explored time and time again.

I eye Lola with suspicion when she murmurs, “I bet his stance on dating will buckle when he meets my baby sister.”

While swigging on my beer, I shift on my feet to face Noah. For the first time in a long time, he seems content, so I doubt he’d appreciate anyone fucking with his personal life. Furthermore, he never lets anyone in, so whatever scheme Lola is cooking up, she's wasting her time. Noah is convinced he's a bad omen. For that alone, he keeps everyone at arm's length.

Once my beer runs out, I order another round of drinks for Lola and me. I request a beer for me and a fancy milky drink for Lola. She hasn’t complained about her beer, but her screwed-up nose tells me everything I need to know. She’s not a fan of frothy beverages.

Since Maggie is run off her feet, it takes her a good ten minutes to fill my order. “Sorry, Cindy quit this morning, leaving us short a barmaid. If you know anyone looking for work—”

“I’m looking for a job,” Lola pipes up from behind my shoulder, her mouth circled with hope.

Maggie sizes her up before returning her eyes to me. She remains tight-lipped, but she doesn't need to speak to seek my thoughts on whether Lola would be a good fit for Mavs. Her motherly eyes ask on her behalf.

I nod. Not only will Lola be a great addition to the Mavericks family, but I'll also be able to see her more regularly. It’s as if fate is aligning in my favor for once.

Taking my pledge at face value, Maggie swings her eyes back to Lola. “Can you start next week?”

When Lola nods, Maggie hands her a business card with her mobile number scribbled on the back before moving down the bar to serve other patrons. Once she’s out of eyesight, Lola throws her arms around my neck. “Thank you so much! If you hadn’t backed me up, I doubt she would have offered me the job!”

When her tippy-toe stance gains her more than a few admiring glances at her delectable backside, I swivel her around until her back is flush with the bar before returning her embrace. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

Over the next hour, we enjoy Rise Up’s set. We drink, chat, and Lola often gets up to dance. Since I’m not a fan of busting a move, I watch from the bar… until her seductive moves have a pack of ravenous sharks circling her.

I don't dance, but there are no laws stopping me from standing next to Lola while she shakes her ass like she's on a stage lined with dollar bills. If my stern glare doesn’t give her admirers a clear sign to fuck off, my stern finger point won’t be denied.

When I reach Lola, she twirls around me, her sweaty scent flooding my brain with memories of last weekend. “I thought you didn’t dance.”

“I don’t. Just figured it would be safer in here than out there with the ‘call me daddy’ girls.”

“She’s here?” Lola’s wide eyes glide to the left, then to the right. “Which one is she?”

Don't ask me to swear on the Bible, but I'm reasonably sure she sounds jealous—that or she felt how hard her scent made me when she ground her backside against my crotch.

Playing along with my ruse, I ask, “Should I point them out individually, or just nudge my head in their direction?”

“There’s more than one?!”

Oh, yeah, she’s jealous alright.

When Noah spots me in the middle of the dance floor like a massive turd that refuses to flush, he smiles so wide, he nearly misses the intro of the song he’s performing. Serves him right. If he minded his own business, he wouldn’t fuck up.

I stop giving Noah the finger when Lola says, “How about we make things interesting for them?”

I twist my lips, acting only partly interested. “What do you have in mind?”

Please, God, let it be one of the naughty thoughts in my mind. I don’t care which one. I’ll take any you’re willing to give me.

My prayers are answered when Lola balances on her tippy toes to sling her arms around my neck. We're already squashed close together because of the number of Rise Up fans in the space, but this isn't about a lack of leg room. It's more than that. Her eyes are holding the same gleam they held last week, the shimmer that says she'll be my greatest reward, but only after being my biggest pain in the ass.

When she angles her head to the side to better align our lips, I lick mine in preparation for our kiss. She inches closer and closer until her cherry lip gloss overtakes the scent of the cocktails she’s been downing, but instead of kissing me as I’m praying she will, she shouts, “What do you mean you don’t want us to be exclusive anymore?! I thought I was your snugglebutt!” She pushes away from me, her dramatics gaining her more than a handful of spectators. “I only agreed to call you Daddy because you said you loved me. Clearly, that was a mistake. You’ll have to find someone else to tuck you in at night and mend up your boo-boos. I’m done.”

I swear on my mother's grave, her last sentence gains the attention of women from all walks of life. Some gawks are in sympathy, but more than a dozen are from a range of crazies. There are the straight-up kooky ones who don’t attempt to hide their wackiness, the ones who seem normal until you get them alone, and the ones who’ll hide the fact they were raised in a mental asylum until they’ve popped out three of your kids.

“She was joking.”

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