Page 193 of Things We Left Behind
There was another picture. Another woman on another night. Lucian had his hand resting intimately on a diminutive redhead’s back as they exited a trendy restaurant. She was shorter, curvier, and somehow just as horribly gorgeous in a flirty cocktail dress designed to draw the eye.
I looked away from the screen and willed myself to forget Lucian Rollins and his penis ever existed.
I was no longer the one who drove him crazy, or maybe, as I’d fantasized in my darkest, drunkest moments over the years, the one who got away. Now, I was just one of the legions of women he’d left behind.
My head felt stuffy and full. I could feel my heartbeat at the base of my ponytail. I heard a snap and glanced down to find I’d broken the cap on the pen I held.
“Okay. I can fix this,” Naomi said, pulling her phone out.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Lina. We need alcohol and Silver Fox Joel.”
“I’m fine. We weren’t together. We were just having sex,” I said robotically. “Oh, look at that. His first date sits on the board of DC’s largest food bank, and the second one is a freaking astrophysicist.”
I wanted to reach through the screen and dump a very expensive cocktail over Lucian’s beautiful head. I also wanted to ask his date where she shopped because her shoes were phenomenal. Not that small-town librarian me could pull off or afford that look.
He looked good with both women. Better than good. They looked like they belonged on his arm. Like they could sit next to him for longer than five minutes without bickering.
“You and Lucian have history. Unfortunately for you as a woman with strong feelings about everything, that means you can’tjusthave sex with him.”
“I can and I did,” I insisted.
“You just broke your pen and crushed your paper cup. Iced coffee is literally running down your arm,” She pointed out.
“Shit.”
“Feels good to be on this side for once,” Knox said, settling with satisfaction onto a sticky bar stool at Hellhound, a greasy, dingy dive bar outside Knockemout.
“This side of the bar?” Lina asked, angled into Nash, who stood next to her, his back to the bar, his gaze scanning the bikers gathered around rickety tables and arguing over pool games.
“Nope, this side of Men Suck, Let’s Drink,” Knox said.
“We are here purely for social reasons,” I insisted. “There is no reason to participate in Men Suck, Let’s Drink, because that would imply that I care what Lucian is doing when I don’t because he means nothing to me. We had sex. Then we stopped having sex. End of story. Where is Joel? I need a drink.”
“My bar is better,” Knox said, giving no indication that he’d been listening to my convincing tirade.
Naomi beamed at him. “It is. But wait till you meet Silver Fox Joel.” She pointed down the bar to where our favorite bartender poured shots of cheap whiskey in front of three morose-looking women in ripped denim and worn leather.
Lina waved at him, and Joel gave her the cool guy nod.
“Okay, I filled the jukebox with men suck songs and told the biker couple with matching tattoos that you’re in a cult and looking to recruit members. That should buy you some time before anyone starts hitting on you,” Stef said, grabbing the stool next to me.
I patted his knee. “Thanks, Stef. You’re a good friend.”
Knox and Nash moved closer to their women as the studly bartender approached. He stopped in front of me. “Hey there, blondie. What’ll it be today? Shots? Spicy Bloody Mary?”
“Hi, Joel. I’d love a Bloody Mary for no other reason than that you make an excellent one. I’m not drinking away man problems or anything like that,” I told him.
“Glad you cleared that up,” he said with a half smile.
He took everyone’s drink orders and went to work under Knox’s watchful eye.
Naomi elbowed him in the ribs. “Stop staring and glaring.”
“I’m not glaring, I’m judging him professionally,” her husband insisted.
“I, for one, think since you two finally got each other out ofyour systems that it’s time for you to tell us about that history,” Lina announced.
