A Toast to the Good Times (15 page)

“Whoa. Wait a minute. Things
have
changed between us, and I’m definitely happy about those changes. And what exactly do you think the truth is?” I try to brush a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, but she bats my hand away.

“The truth is...I had a huge crush on you. From the first day in the bar when you were drinking those disgusting pickle juice drinks. And, I guess, I figured if we were friends first that would be okay, because if you were just my friend first you mig
ht stop seeing me as some nerd-
”

“You aren’t some nerd,” I argue.

“I am.” She smiles, a slow, lush upturn of her lips. “I am, Landry, and proud of it, okay? I have a feminist poetry tattoo, and my dream vacation would be to go to Comic Con and spend a few extra days reading my newly autographed graphic novels in a hotel room
—
”

“Really? Not, like, Maui or Paris or something?” I’m half-kidding. It’s surprising, but in a good way.

She blinks hard and frowns. “Really. And I knew you and I wouldn’t necessarily see eye to eye on things, and I knew it was so stupid to think you’d just wake up in love with me or at
least wake up and see me as a girl who may actually have some sex appeal instead of a dork you happen to room with.”

“I never saw you that way,” I lie.

I always saw her that way until the infamous red dress the other night, and I’m embarrassed as all hell by how blind I’d been.

“You know what’s so funny?” She asks the question in a way that lets me know I’m probably never going to laugh at what she has to say.

“What’s that?” I take her hand, and, even though I get the feeling she wants to tug it back, she lets me hold it.

“All the times I tried so hard to get you to notice me, nothing ever happened until the minute I didn’t look or feel at all like me anymore. That should have been my first warning sign.”

“Mila...” But I don’t know what to say. Because part of what she’s saying is true, but there’s another part entirely that she’s missing. She’s so completely missing it, and it’s killing me not to be able to explain it how I want to.

“It’s okay.” She grins at me. “I mean, we’re humans. We’re shallow. We notice the outside before the inside. I liked you first because, well, obviously...” She gestures to my face and blushes.

“Um? What?”

I feel the burn in my ears, surprised at how disappointed I am that the first thing Mila was attracted to about me is exactly what every girl I’ve ever met has been attracted to since I was in middle school. And I’m stupidly let down that it feels like my looks are the only thing girls really notice about me sometimes, that I’ve never had to prove myself in any other way because no one really asked it of me.

I so badly want Mila to be different.

“You’re impossibly good looking, Landry.” She rolls her eyes and laughs. “Like so damn good looking, it’s not really fair to all the other mortal men. At first I thought you were
too
good looking, you know? Like you’d be a jerk or a player. But you’re...not. You’re such a good person, and you’re so driven and smart and kind of funny when you loosen up. It’s almost like your looks can keep people from seeing all the really, truly good parts of you.”

So, maybe I had proved myself, after all.

Her smile is regretful, like she’s already given up on us, before we ever got a chance to be.

I interrupt frantically. “Okay. Hold that thought. Hold all your thoughts. Alright, I was an ass, that’s a given. I was stupid. Another given. But coming back home changed the way I see things. And, I know you’re not going to believe this, but I was thinking about you the second before we crashed into each other outside my father’s bar. I’ve been thinking about you pretty much nonstop since the minute I walked out the door of our apartment. I was missing you and wanting to get back to you.”

Her eyes light up for a single instant, but they tamper back down almost immediately.

“Yeah. That makes sense. I’m comfortable. Dependable. Good old Mila. But the only times you’ve ever seen me as anything else were when you were so drunk it was just crazy and when your brother showed some interest.”

I shake my head, filled with frustration and the need to come up with the right words, fast, before I blow it for good.

“No, not true. Not true, Mila. This isn’t some stupid competition or some one-night stand kind of thing. I like you. I really like you. Everything about you. All the time.”

She presses her hands to her temples.

“How can this be exactly what I wanted to hear the most and everything I was afraid of at the same time?” When she glances back at me, her eyes are teary. “Don’t hate me for saying this, but I don’t think you know what you want. I think you like me because I’m convenient, and it makes no sense that I’m babbling about this because I’m the one who came to see you.
I
came to see
you
. But that’s just it, isn’t it?”

I press close to her, but she wiggles back. “What? What’s just it, Mila?”

“You’re opportunistic with girls, Landry,” she says, her eyes shifting back and forth like she’s confessing on a witness stand. “You like whoever’s in front of you at the moment. If one of your old girlfriends had shown up a minute before me, you probably would have asked her out, right?”

My ears burn and I grit my teeth. Mila’s features goes slack like she knows, like she can decode it all based on the look on my face. I feel guilt about Toni tangled with a need to explain before this gets more out of control.

“I did meet up with someone, but it wasn’t exactly like that
—
”

“It’s okay!” she yelps, backing away from me. “It’s so okay. This is my fault, Landry, not yours. It’s weird what six hours of back-to-back Hollywood romance can do to a sane person’s brain. I’m so, so sorry for crashing your holiday and making everything a huge mess. I feel like such a crazy, stupid idiot. I really do. I’ll leave tonight.”

“Don’t be insane. You’re not going anywhere.” I put my arms around her, softly, gently, so I don’t spook her, and that’s how Paisley finds us.

“Um, sorry.” My sister half backs up the stairs. “Sorry, guys, to, um, interrupt.” Mila’s already jumped out of my arms and is pressing her hands on the sides of her bright pink cheeks. “Dad called,
 
Landry. The bar is getting slammed. Like, super slammed. He could use your help if it wouldn’t kill you.”

Part of me hates thinking about stepping back in that bar and working under my dad. But a huge part of me knows I owe him, owe myself to bridge this gap and grow the hell up. It’s time to finally face what I’ve spent so many months running from, but I’m not prepared to do it on my own.

Or maybe that’s the wrong way to put it.

I could face it on my own if I had to. But if I had a choice, I’d want Mila by my side.

“Come with me,” I beg Mila, because I’m not above making an ass of myself to try to keep her around. “Please. Come with me? Free drinks all night, on the house.”

“The bar is open on Christmas Eve?” A tiny smile quirks on her lips. “At least I know where you get your crazy holiday hour ideas from.”

“It’s a huge night for college kids, back home and looking for a drink to help them deal with being under their parents’ roofs again,” I tell her. “Will you come?”

For a few seconds I have no idea what her answer will be, but when she nods, relief flashes through me, hot and quick.

“You guys better head out. Dad was a little frantic when he called,” Paisley calls as she runs back up the stairs.

Chapter 11

I keep my mouth shut while Mila drives to my father’s bar for the second time tonight. I direct her to the employee parking lot out back, because the street has filled with cars now that everyone is home from work and school, ready to get a drink and kick back with some friends.

I think about the fact that my dad’s bar, one of the most popular places in town for all the young people to flock to when they want to run away from their family, was, and is the place where I can’t escape mine.

Mila flashes those big green eyes my way as she opens the car door. “Why do I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those incredibly uncomfortable situations where I watch you get pulled across the bar and kissed by old girlfriends all night?”

Her smile makes me smile. “Didn’t I just get all sappy about how much I like you? If you see any one of them trying to sneak a kiss, you have my permission to go all psycho girlfriend on them.”

At the word
girlfriend
Mila inhales a hissed breath, but all her upset is gone by the end of my sentence.

“I’m so not a psycho girl type, Landry. How about this? If you really like me, you’ll find a way to wiggle out of having to kiss anyone else all night. And if you do manage, maybe we can kiss more later?”

She doesn’t say it to be flirty or sexy, and that may be exactly why it’s pretty much the most exciting offer I’ve had in my life.

“So is this like a bet?” I ask as I come around to her side of the car and take her arm, leading her in.

Before she can answer, we step into a den of pure and utter chaos. Dad hooked up the
karaoke
machine, unfortunately. By the end of the night, my ears will bleed anytime Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” gets decimated by another half-drunk hottie planning on giving her boyfriend a lead up to some Christmas nookie.

The dartboard is the focus of another huge clump of young, roaring beer guzzlers, and I predict the wall behind the target collapses from millions of infinitesimal holes pierced into every square millimeter of drywall.

The pool table is a wide open humping ground. Pretty girls are boxed in by eager guys, who can’t wait until the next shot so they can lean over and press into their dates in the guise of mentoring new moves.

As crowded as all these outlying locations are, it’s the bar that’s the showpiece of pure and total lunacy. I grab her by the hand, and glare at one of the
old-timer
regulars who’s sipping the last watery drips of a Jack and Coke.

“Ronald, the lady needs a seat.”

Mila’s eyes pop wide, like she’s either embarrassed that I just told Ronald to get lost, or not used to being called a lady. Or both.

From down the bar, my father frowns at me as he refills glass after glass of beer. He’s told me a million times that our regulars are the bread and butter of this bar, but this is Christmas Eve...and Mila. I need this to go well, and I don’t give a shit what my dad thinks.

All Ronald really wanted to do was ogle the girls gyrating to some young guy with a soldier’s haircut butchering Elvis’s “Blue Christmas,” and he can actually do it better from a vantage point across from his current stool.

“Of course, m’lady.” He dips a drunken bow and starts to totter away, but I grab his glass and pour him a refresher.

“Merry Christmas, Ronald.” I give him a quick smile and he raises his glass at me and shakes the ice before taking a long, loving sip.

“You have a gift, Landry-boy. A true gift with booze.” He stumbles closer to the dancers, and I gesture for Mila to hop on his vacated seat.

“That’s a girl.” I whip up two Tom Collins, working so fast it repeatedly seems like I’m a second away from dropping a glass or a bottle and smashing it all over the floor. But that’s the best pace to work at, in my opinion. Breakneck or bust.

I pass one her way and lift my glass to her, ignoring my father’s irritated call to me from down the bar.

“So, we were talking about me avoiding kisses tonight. How
'
bout
that goes for you too, and if we make it to the end of the night with no kisses on either side, we make out hot and heavy in my parents’ basement later?”

I raise my eyebrows at her and her laugh draws looks and instant smiles from across the entire bar.

Her laugh is a sound that I want to record just to playback when I feel like shit and need a reason to smile.

“Well, if those are the kinds of offers you’ve been giving girls all this time, it’s no mystery why you have to beat them away.” She picks up her drink and bats her lashes at me slowly. “I accept your terms.”

She tries to sound like she’s still just playing along, but her voice sticks a little.

“To me proving that I only have lips for you and the promise of mad
make outs
,” I declare.

She lifts her glass and says, “Cheers” as she clinks.

“Cheers.” My voice is soft and low, and I love the way her eyes focus on my mouth as I throw the drink back in a single seductively
fire hot
sip.

I don’t have to turn to know she’s watching as I stride down the bar to my dad, cuff my sleeves, and get to work mixing and pouring, refilling, closing out tabs, hopping the bar to fix the feedback on the karaoke machine, and making myself generally useful while avoiding my old man as much as humanly possible.

I have a little bit of a hard time keeping my promise to Mila. Not because I’m fishing for kisses or anything else. I’ve never been so keyed up by a girl that all other
girl’s
kind of fade to the background like this, but that’s how it feels with Mila.