Page 21 of Cheater and the Saint
“No.”
Chase beamed with the kind of smile that made me weak in the knees, and he held out his arm. “Come on. I’ll show you how.”
“Everything okay?” Leo asked, chalking the end of the stick he’d grabbed from the rack.
I blinked once. Twice. “Huh? Yeah. Sorry. Just zoning.”
His face wrinkled, as if he thought I was full of shit, but he let it go. After setting down my beer, I grabbed a stick and took the chalk from him. I didn’t notice my hands were shaking until I went to place the chalk back on the small table and accidently dropped it.
“Have you played before?” Leo asked as he gathered the balls and placed them in the triangle.
“Once,” I answered with a dry throat. I picked up my beer from where I’d placed it on the table against the wall and downed some more, hoping it’d help some. It didn’t. “A few years ago.”
“I’m sure it’ll come back to you once we start.” Leo was oblivious to the chaos in my mind right then. The painful memories. The smile he wore, along with the flirty attitude he tossed to anyone who looked his way, said as much.
He went first, hitting the cue ball hard enough to where it scattered the balls across the table. He pocketed a stripe and got to go again. A few people danced around us, since the dance floor wasn’t too far from the pool tables, and one of the girls stumbled into Leo.
“Easy there, doll,” he said, holding her up. God he was too charming. When he smiled, I envisioned that sparkle in his teeth like the cartoons always showed.
When it was my turn, I wiped my hands on my pants before taking hold of the stick again and searching for a shot. There were multiple shots I could take, but focusing was difficult.
“So, Frosty, tell me about yourself.”
Good. Something else to occupy my mind.
“I think I’ve told you all the basics,” I said before seeing a shot and leaning over to take it. No surprise that I missed. “Anything specific you wanna know?”
Leo held the stick with one hand and leaned against it, studying me with a crinkled brow. “You’re a psych major. Why psychology?”
“I love learning about the mind,” I answered, grateful he was asking me questions. Keeping me talking. “Not just the mind, but behavior, as well. I like learning about what makes people tick. My turn to ask a question. Have you thought more on what you want to major in?”
His gaze dropped to the table, and I saw him calculating his moves. “Not really. It’s hard for me to think so far ahead.”
Funny. I thoughttoofar ahead and lived too much in the future, worrying about things that hadn’t happened yet. The fact that hedidn’tthink about his future was astounding.
We kept up the questions for a little bit. He asked me about my family, and I explained that I didn’t know my dad, but I had a great relationship with my mom. He told me more about his older brother. It struck me as odd that he didn’t talk about his parents.
Things were going great.
Then, they weren’t.
He’d knocked all of the striped balls in and was going after the eight ball, whereas I still had three solids left on the table. All of my shots sucked. Bad. In order to make them in, I’d have to bank the cue ball off the rail and hope I got the angle right for it to go where I wanted.
“Let me show you something,” Leo said before approaching me. He got behind me and positioned my pool stick, placing his hand over mine. “It can be tricky to bank a shot. Too much force, and it goes all over the place. Not enough, and it doesn’t do shit.”
That night flashed in my mind again.
I remembered Chase coming up behind me, snaking his arms around my waist and positioning my hips, showing me how to shoot. I remembered the heat of him against me, how I’d pressed back into him. There’d been a gleam in his eyes when he saw me letting my guard down.
I recalled the hell that then followed it.
The party setting, the drink Leo gave me, and him teaching me how to play pool. It was all too much. Too reminiscent of that night.
I jerked out of his hold, pushing him away.
“What the fuck? You okay?” Leo asked, stepping closer to me. “Saint?”
Feeling his hand touch my forearm, I lurched back. “Don’t touch me.”
