Page 55 of Full Tilt
I go to swipe the glass back, but her excellent goalie reflexes, combined with my inhibited ones, has me coming up empty.
“Aside from practices, I’ll likely not play for another four games. I figured, why not use the rest period and have a little fun?”
Her gaze roves around the bar before it lands back on me. “You call this fun? Jesus, you’re more miserable than I first thought.”
I try for the glass once more and fail.
“Do your precious girlfriends know we fucked yet?”
She deadpans, “No one knows what happened, and that’s the way I plan to keep it.”
I lean forward on my elbows, pinning her in place with my stare. “And have you fucked anyone else since me?”
My question was intended to sound hot and inviting, but instead, it came off as borderline desperate.
Jenna smirks at the upper hand I just gave her, leaning across the table until her breath fans my face.
“What if I told you that I was on my way over to a guy’s place right when I got your text?”
I sit back, dragging my flat palms across the table. Jenna can’t resist sneaking a peek at my tattoos.
“I’d say, that pleases me greatly. You blew off one guy so you could blow me instead.”
She scoffs, but it isn’t hostile.
Jenna Miller loves giving me shit. Which is just as well since I’m incapable of being any other way around people. Whether I find them hot or not.
“Listen, I know you’re drunk and everything …” She reaches across the table and presses her pointer finger against my temple, and I feel that shit everywhere. “But it’s high time you start listening to me when I say that I’m never going to sleep with you again. Ever.”
“You could just suck my?—”
“I could just do nothing,” she cuts me off, releasing her finger and sitting back in the booth.
Like a game of footsie in high school, I wrap my leg around hers, and when she pulls back, I hook my foot around the back of her calf, making it more difficult for her to move away.
To my delight, she doesn’t fight for long, but I don’t miss the rise and fall of her chest beneath the V-neck sweater she’s wearing.
Seconds, maybe even minutes, pass between us as the jukebox in the corner of the room switches to Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.”
Jenna presses her lips into a thin line, but it isn’t enough to suppress the giggle that rises up her throat. I’ve never heard her laugh like that in front of me, and in a three-second window, Isee a different side to this girl. A little like when she fell asleep right after I fucked her brains out.
“We’re bad for each other, Tommy. You know that; I know that. There’s way too much toxicity between us.”
The alcohol thrumming through my body feels like it’s starting to fade in response to the direction this conversation has turned.
“I only want to fuck you, Jenna. Not marry you.”
Is it possible for a person to look partly turned on and offended at the same time? Judging by the look on Jenna’s face, maybe.
“Despite myself, I was actually considering coming back to your place tonight. But you had to go and spoil it by being an asshole all over again.”
I shrug, totally confused. “What did I say wrong?”
This time, her scoff is hostile. “You! Assuming that I’d ever want anything from you, let alone your cold, empty heart.” Her eyes scan my body with disdain. “If you even have a heart, that is.”
“I’ve got a heart,” I tell her, hooking my foot even tighter around her calf.
“Then why don’t you have any friends or even a shred of evidence that anyone likes you?”
