Crushed (5 page)

I turn to meet his familiar blue eyes. “Don’t be all nice to me about this. I know
kind
is written into your DNA, and that’s usually super-charming, but I know what I look like, okay? I’m no Kristin.”

He opens his mouth and shuts it just as quickly, and because I know him—because I know Devon Patterson so freaking well—I know what he was going to say.

I like you the way you are.

But he
can’t
say that, because he’s not
dating
the girl with the soft thighs; he’s dating the one with the skinny, toned ones.

He may very well like me just the way I am.

But he doesn’t
like
like me just the way I am.

Not like he likes Kristin.

And for the first time, it occurs to me that maybe Devon’s not quite so unaware of my little crush as I’d imagined.

The thought bugs.

And then an even worse horror occurs to me: What if
Kristin
knows?

What if she knows that I’m breaking the ultimate sister code? What if she and Devon talk about it in the
Oh, poor, chubby Chloe
kind of way?

My face burns at the prospect, although not with embarrassment so much as shame.

Is this what I’ve let myself become?

Really?

I’m terrified that it is.

At school I can fool myself into thinking that I’m in control; that I’m at the helm of my own future.

But back home in Cedar Grove, where everyone overlooks Kristin’s imperfections and where the boy I’ve always adored pops in and out of my life in an ever-platonic nightmare, am I really in control?

Or am I just a passive spectator of my own life?

God.

I
am
.

That stupid Michael St. Claire and his smug lecturing about my out-of-shapeness being a symptom of my lack of control over my own life is freaking true.

I’m not one of those girls dumb enough to think that a certain number on the scale or certain size on my dress label is going to bring all kinds of happiness. I mean, my sister is a stick and sometimes when she thinks nobody’s watching, she looks thirty seconds away from a breakdown.

But I am sick of feeling like food controls me.

The ice cream and the candy and the chips and, yes, the damn Coke.

And, yeah, maybe a little tired of my lack of energy, and the fact that nobody ever looks surprised to find me sitting on my ass on a gorgeous summer day when the rest of the club is playing golf or tennis or, you know . . .
moving
.

And worst of all . . . maybe I’m just a little sick of mooning after a guy who seems perfectly content to use me for conversation and friendship while he can’t keep his hands off my sister.

Maybe it’s time that Chloe Bellamy got in the driver’s seat of her own life, starting with giving the couch-potato Chloe the ol’ boot.

I stand abruptly and Devon looks at me in surprise. “Where you going?”

“Gotta call my personal trainer. I didn’t put my best foot forward today, and I want to make sure he doesn’t stand me up tomorrow,” I say, giving his shin a sisterly pat as I pass his chair.

Well, would ya look at that? I didn’t even try to cop a feel.

Progress. Definitely progress.

Chapter 5

Michael

The pay at Cambridge Country Club is decent, but picking up an occasional bartending shift at Pig and Scout is always welcome.

For the most part, I left my cushy Manhattan lifestyle without a backward glance.

But there is one area of my old life that came with me to Texas, and she needs coddling.

Let’s just say the paycheck for coaching tennis and showing housewives how to do biceps curls won’t keep my baby in the condition she’s grown accustomed to.

And by
baby,
I mean my Jaguar F-TYPE.

And if affording that top-notch detail job on her means pulling Stellas and draft Coors a couple nights a week? It’s worth it.

Except tonight.

Tonight I wish I were on the
other
side of the bar, because I could use a Jack and Coke right about now.

Once upon a time it would have been Pappy Van Winkle, but my paycheck-to-paycheck self has learned that Jack Daniel’s does the trick just as well.

The trick, in this case, being helping me to forget about the day from hell.

It had started with Chloe Bellamy dropping a dumbbell on my foot. A five-pound dumbbell, but still.

And the day had
ended
with Margot Varni propositioning me with a not-so-subtle grab to the groin.

Not that I minded the proposition part. Margot is a tight-bodied divorcée and I’ve taken her up on her offers before.

But in the past, my boss hadn’t been around to see Margot’s wandering hands.

Today, he was.

Now, if situations were reversed, and Margot was a doddering old man and me a nubile young girl, I’m pretty sure
Margot
would have gotten the lecture.

But as it was, I’d spent the last part of my shift listening to Joe Nehrs telling me that Cambridge wasn’t “that kind of place.”

Bullshit
. Cambridge Country Club was
exactly
that kind of place, but there was a rich-people rule that I’d broken: You didn’t get caught.

So now my foot was throbbing, my temper was ignited, and I was stuck listening to Lazy Del, one of the bar’s ancient regulars, tell me how the young kids just don’t value God and country anymore.

“Dude, St. Claire,” my fellow bartender says under his breath, as Del droned on. “Babe at three o’clock. Just walked in.”

I finish pouring the Jim Beam and slide it across the bar to Lazy Del before I turn to look at Blake’s latest piece of eye candy.

Blake Johnson ogles every woman who walks into the bar like each one is his very first tit sighting.

The redhead is cute in a down-home kind of way, but she’s not my type. I like ’em tall, lean, and classy.

Much like Kristin Bellamy, with whom I have a tennis lesson tomorrow.

My interest in Kristin is purely as a means to get closer to the Pattersons.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the fact that she’s hot in the meantime.

“So?” Blake prods. “Whaddya think?”

I lift a shoulder, and Blake shakes his head as he carelessly pulls a Stella. There’s not enough foam on it, but the wasted cowboy at the end of the bar waiting for it isn’t likely to care.

“You sure you’re not gay?” Blake asks. “I’m cool if you are, and it would explain why you don’t appreciate the fine wares of this place.”

“Not gay,” I say, moving toward the end of the bar to serve the two middle-aged women who just sat down.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” one of the women says with a bold smile, having clearly overheard my conversation with Blake.

I give her a wink and reach out to grab the ticket one of the cocktail waitresses slides at me. Then a familiar face catches my eye. No,
three
familiar faces.

It’s the Bellamy sisters and Devon.

I’m not all that surprised. Cedar Grove is a small town that’s not exactly bursting with drinking holes, and Pig and Scout is one of the few that tends to be a parent-free zone.

My eyes stop only briefly on the half brother who doesn’t know I exist. I haven’t run into him since that first day at the club when I realized that he had both Bellamys wrapped around his finger.

I watch them out of the corner of my eye.

I try not to hate the guy on principle.

But it’s easy. Easy to hate the legitimate son of the man who knocked up my mother on a business trip twenty-three years ago.

Devon’s arm goes around Kristin’s waist.

I turn away.

The stab of jealousy brings me too close to bad memories.

Memories of falling for my best friend’s girl and feeling like I was ripped apart whenever I saw them together.

And they were
always
together.

Every time I’d had to watch Ethan touch Olivia, I felt a ripping pain, not just of possessive longing for a girl I couldn’t have . . . but also out of a searing knowledge that I was betraying every sort of friendship code there was.

Ethan had been one of my best friends.

Olivia had been the other.

They were made for each other, and I’d gone and ruined it.

For all of us.

The stab of jealousy in my gut is familiar. But at least this time there’s no guilt over wanting another guy’s girl. I don’t owe Devon Patterson shit.

It’s not the same. I merely
want
Kristin Bellamy, whereas Olivia had been a part of my soul. On the bad days, I think she still is.

Seeing Devon and Kristin is less intense, because no way in hell will I let myself care that much about anything again.

But it’s still a damn shitty case of déjà vu.

My fingers tighten around the cocktail shaker in my hand while I methodically fill it with ice to make some sort of pink cocktail for the girls at the end of the bar.

Kristin and Devon don’t notice me—why would they?—and I’m glad for it.

Instead, I focus my annoyance on Chloe.

Despite the fact that we’ve had three very productive—okay,
sort of
productive—workouts this week, it’s apparently done nothing to increase her self-respect.

I glare at her even though she hasn’t seen me yet, trying to convey my displeasure over the fact that she’s allowed herself to be a tagalong.

As though she senses my annoyance with her, her blue eyes bounce around the crowded bar until she finds me.

Normal girls would widen their eyes in surprise, maybe give a little half smile of recognition, but not Chloe. Without missing a beat, her wide mouth bursts into an even wider grin and she gives me a wave that’s too enthusiastic to be cool.

Well, at least I know one thing: Chloe Bellamy isn’t interested in me as a man, because she’s not even remotely trying to flirt.

Or if she is, her flirting skills need even more work than her coordination on the elliptical.

Chloe says something over her shoulder to her sister and Devon, but they’re already chatting it up with another couple at the table in the corner, and neither responds.

It’s a little pathetic, actually, but Chloe must be used to it because she doesn’t so much as pout or flinch as she makes her way toward the bar.

God save me.

“Beefcake!” Again with one of those dopey, guileless smiles.

She plops down at one of the few vacant spots at the bar, and unlike the usual solo girls that daintily perch themselves on the stools, there’s no glancing around to see who’s noticed her arrival. No careful positioning to ensure her posture’s just right to show off her best side. She’s just there . . . and happy.

So annoying.

“Beefcake?” Blake repeats from beside me.

Chloe smiles at my coworker and explains. “Michael’s my personal trainer. He thinks my life will be complete if I can run an eleven-minute mile.”

“No,” I say through clenched teeth, “I just think you’ll live a little longer if you don’t have cheese-puff crumbs trickling through your veins.”

Her smile grows wider as she beams at Blake. “He cares. We’re best friends.”

“We’re not—damn it—” I inhale through my nose, praying for patience. Generally speaking, I’m not much of a talker, but Chloe Bellamy has this way of making me talk just as a means to counteract her ridiculousness.

“You have to order a drink if you’re going to sit up here,” I finally manage. Irritably.

She shrugs and smiles. “Okay! Make me something alcoholic.”

This time I don’t bother responding, but I hope my withering look clearly conveys that appropriate bar behavior demands she be more specific.

“Um, do you have anything that tastes like bubble gum?” she asks, tilting her head.

In the gym, Chloe’s been better about pulling her hair back, but tonight it’s all crazy and everywhere. Add the busy purple pattern on her blouse, and looking at her is dizzying, even if she demands a second look. And a third.

“Actually, we do have this new bubble gum vodka,” Blake says, his eavesdropping skills in full force.

Chloe’s eyes light up, but I put a hand on Blake’s shoulder and push him toward the other end of the bar that he’s supposed to be manning. “No. You’re not drinking that,” I mutter. “You’re drinking something respectable.”

“But I want . . .”

Ignoring her, I pour gin into a glass, watching her pout as I fill it to the top with tonic and then drop in a lime.

“Here.” I set the drink in front of her. “A reputable gin and tonic.”

She takes a sip of the drink.

“Well?” I ask when she says nothing.

Chloe rolls her eyes. “I’ve had a gin and tonic before,” she retorts before reaching across to the condiments container and helping herself to a few maraschino cherries.

One goes in her mouth before the other three drop into her drink.

I watch and frown. “You know there aren’t supposed to be cherries—actually, you know what? Never mind,” I mutter, nodding acknowledgment at the two women down the bar pointing to their empty pinot grigio glasses.

Chloe Bellamy could coax even a mute into conversation, and it annoys me.

“Shoulda given me the bubble gum vodka,” Chloe calls after me as her arm reaches forward to grab yet another cherry.

Things at P&S pick up then, as they generally will on a Friday night, and several minutes pass before I can get back to Chloe. Not that I need have worried about her. She’s busy chatting it up with an aging businessman on her right who’s showing her something on his phone.

When things finally calm down enough for me to check on her a second time, her drink has turned pink from the cherries and she’s about to launch into another conversation with the couple on her left. I snap a finger in front of her face. “Hey, I wanna talk to you about something.”

She sighs. “Is it about the calories in this drink? Because I’ll give you another minute on the treadmill to make up for it, but not a second more.”

I almost smile. “No, it’s about the fact that you came here with your sister and her boyfriend.” A quick glance across the bar shows that they’ve settled in with their friends in the corner, and neither seems to be the least bit worried—or
aware
—that one of their companions is all by herself.