Page 19 of Unforgettable

I hadn’t stopped wanting her since that day. She came into my life like a fucking tornado, and I’ve enjoyed every second of the chaos. It just so happened that my best friend also felt the same way, and we’d both finally decided to do something about it.

“Dude, do you see this shit?” Josh appeared behind me, pointing toward the opposite side of the bar. Lost in my own disordered thoughts, I hadn’t paid attention to the rest of the bar since I walked in. One side of the place contained the stage, dance floor, and the circular bar where I was seated. While the other held a smaller bar with pool tables.

Josh was pointing near one of the pool tables, and it only took a second for me to understand.

Amanda was standing at one end of a table, the cue gripped tightly in one of her hands while the other one held the arm of the guy in front of her. He looked like a typical college frat boy, and based on the other guys surrounding him, he was there with all of his buddies. They were gathered on a few barstools at the high-top tables surrounding the pool tables and were snickering as Amanda spoke to the kid.

In a split second, his face dropped, and even from across the room, both Josh and I felt the mood shift. A quick look at my best friend was all I needed to confirm he shared my feelings. I was out of my seat at the same time Josh began charging for them. The little punk ripped the pool cue from Amanda’s hand and tossed it to the side, then grabbed her upper arms. He looked like he was about to get in her face, but he didn’t get further than that.

Amanda was yelling at him over the music booming through the place, struggling against his hold but mostly unfazed by his grip on her. We intervened only a moment later, but my blood boiled watching him touch her like that.

Josh stepped around Amanda’s left and pried the prick’s hand off of her as I stepped around her right side and shoved the guy’s shoulder. With us between him and Amanda, the little douche stepped back but kept running his mouth.

“What the fuck is this? These your boyfriends or something, sweetheart,” he slurred.

“Doesn’t matter who we are, kid. We have a zero-tolerance policy for touching women like that or fighting in this place, so you and your friends gotta go,” Josh said, waving his hand toward the front door. I didn’t miss the way he seethed as he spoke or the anger that also rolled off of him.

“Are you kidding me right now? Chick hustled me! She said she’d never played before but didn’t miss a fucking shot. Lost me fifty bucks,” he cried, and I couldn’t help but laugh. He didn’t take that too kindly and tried to square up to me. But I was bigger and older and wiser, and I could see the doubt flash across his eyes.

“Sounds like you’re just upset you lost, man. But either way, you gotta go. Now,” I said, ready to be done with the bullshit and get back to the real reason I was there.

“Man, let’s go.” One of his buddies stepped up behind him and ushered him out. He hurtled a few more slurred insults over his shoulder—mostly aimed at me and Josh—but we stayed between them and Amanda, just in case one of them tried something until they were out the front door.

As the door shut behind them, we both simultaneously turned to Amanda.

“Seriously, babe?” I asked as Josh scrubbed a hand through his hair.

“What? I just wanted a pick-me-up, and he was an easy target. I came in here prepared to play by myself, but then he started pestering me. I couldn’t just let it go,” she said. She reached behind her and grabbed her beer, which was surrounded by three other empty bottles that I assumed were also hers.

“How long have you been here? I’ve been upstairs for all of thirty minutes.”

Amanda thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, probably about that long.”

“Why did you need a pick-me-up? What happened?” I asked.

She slumped onto the barstool behind her and took another long pull of her beer. I found myself drawn to the way her throat bobbed when she swallowed and how her lips formed around the rim of the bottle. I thought about the way her smooth skin felt under my lips, under my fingers and how her pouty, pink lips formed so perfectly to my own.

“My stupid fucking parents is what happened,” she muttered and finished off her beer in one go. Josh and I glanced at each other—the last thing she likely needed was to be sitting alone in the bar after something happened with her family. She’d find a way to get herself into even more trouble.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Josh suggested and didn’t leave time for Amanda to agree or disagree as he took her hand and led her toward the stairs at the back of the bar. She argued for a moment but conceded when she saw I was also following. Josh asked Grady to send three burgers with fries to his office upstairs as we passed, and I grabbed another beer for myself on our way up.

“Sit,” Josh told Amanda once we entered the small space. His office was on the quaint side but was neatly organized. There weren’t papers scattered everywhere as there were in my office, and it looked like he actually used his filing cabinet.

There was also a picture of him and Zach framed on his desk, which made me smile. That kid had turned out to be one hell of a spitfire.

With a huff, Amanda sat down on the older brown leather couch with her arms crossed in front of her. She was acting like she’d just been called into the principal’s office or something. But the way her crossed arms pushed her tits up toward her chin, along with the practiced, contented look on her face, she looked nothing like a student.

Josh mimicked her and folded his arms over his chest as he leaned against his desk. With his ankles crossed and his serious expression, he looked like the damn principal. I rolled my eyes and plopped next to Amanda, throwing my arm on the couch behind her, which earned me a less-than-enthusiastic look from Josh.

“What happened?” Josh asked.

Amanda sighed and let her head fall back onto the couch cushion, her hair and the top of her head brushed against my arm and even that slight touch sent a jolt of excitement through me. I was dying to touch her with a need that was growing harder and harder to ignore.

“My parents are moving to California.”

“Well, I guess that’s good for them? But why are you—”

“They’re moving in three days, and they just told me tonight.”

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