Saving Grace (11 page)

"You need to get your ass over here before Shane goes home with the first skank he catches!" she hissed into the phone. A bubble of jealously surged through my belly making me bolt up.
What the hell?

Okay.
Normal Shane behavior.
I really shouldn't be jealous
,
it's
Shane
.
Fuckshitfuck
. I'm jealous. "I'll be right there." No use trying to deny it. I can't even fight with myself against the feelings.
I wanted to be the skank he took home
. Centuries of being true and moral, I g
o
t my heart broken, then I meet Shane Maxton and I throw all my ethics out the window.
I'm so going to enjoy this. I'm so not ever going to get to see my angel again in heaven, because I'm so going straight to hell
.

Knee high black stiletto heeled boots, tight low rise hip hugging jeans, halter top, wild jet black waves and lipstick the color of deep red wine, I sauntered into the bar.

My stomach plummeted when I saw Shane with a stunning brunette on
his lap.
Did he ever pick anyone not stunning, someone just average? Why did they all have to look like super models?
The butterflies in my stomach slammed themselves against my insides cursing profanities at me. Hot bursts of adrenaline spiked across my chest and my fingers trembled. He sat in the middle of the group staring vacantly into a half full beer bottle. One of his hands played with the label of the bottle, peeling it back. The other hand rested on the empty chair next to him,
he wasn't touching the girl on his lap
.

The skank, on the other hand was nuzzling her mouth in his neck. Watching her tongue flick out between her hot pink (Yes, I said
hot freaking pink
, who wears that color but thirteen
year olds?) lips, I almost gagged on my own heart as it tried to projectile vomit itself out of my mouth.

I stood there paralyzed, trying to process the messy mudslide of emotions that were screaming through the long dark empty corridors of my insides.
Damn, I hated how this man made me feel, but God, I felt human, alive
.

Conversation was spilling out around the table, yet he sat there unaffected by everything, and everyone, like he didn't belong. Alex sat on the other side of him crooking his finger down the front
of one of the waitresses' shirt
s
as she giggled.
Brayden
, Ethan, Conner
,
and Lea sat with their backs to me and were talk
ing in some heated conversation,
their hands flailing about. Tucker, like the dog
he
is
,
was
s
itting
drunkenly ogling Shane's skank and poking her arm to get her attention.

Then Shane noticed
me
. As if he were trying to memorize each and every contour, his eyes roamed every inch of my body until they locked on my eyes and his lips parted open. His face was tense and
pained;
he was so fucking perfect
it took my breath away. I ignored his stare, because really, it made my f
rea
king heart flutter and my knees weak. And, let's not even think about what I was imagining I could do to him with my tongue or how I wanted to scream at the skank to get off his lap.

"Wow, now that's a beautiful sight right there. Hel...lo
,
Grace," Tucker called out to me. Everybody turned their heads and smiled.

Except for Shane, who lifted up his beer and drunkenly shouted, "Hey look who it is boys, the Holy fucking Grail of Pussies." He offered me a stupid drunk smirk and downed the rest of his beer.
Uh oh
.

Alex reached over and shoved him on the shoulder, "What the fuck is
your problem today,
jackhole
? Sit
dow
n,
Grace, don't mind Shane, I think he's on the rag."

Lea pulle
d
over a chair
for me
and sat me across from
Shane,
at the very same minute he started shoving his tongue down the
girl's
throat. I died a little right there, just then.
Died
.

The waitress who was hanging all over Alex stood up and cleared her throat, "Hey Grace
,
what can I get you tonight?"

Before I could
answer,
Shane yelled from in between the skanks lips, "Mind Erasers with
straw
s,
Mollie. And keep them coming, it's time to play a game." He stood up and the brunette fell to the floor and yelped. He looked down at her and laughed, "Whoops, psf.
Better sit in your own seat Marie, this shit is going to get wild." The girl sat down and pouted.
Yes, pouted, the lower lip stuck out and everything
.
Hot pink lipstick everywhere.
Ugh, even on Shane's face.

I gave her a little wave, "Marie, wow." I looked Shane dead in the eyes smiling. "Shane I'm impressed, usually you don't ever get their first names. She
must
be
special
."

Tucker
burs
t
out laughing, "Yeah, for tonight at least.
Righ
t,
Shane!" He slapped his hands against the table. "Hey Grace, you need someone special for tonight?"

Ethan stood
up, walked behind Tucker laughing,
and smacked him in the back of his head. "Shut the h
ell up, are you freaking twelve?
Haven't you hit puberty yet, did anyone ever teach you how to speak to women?" he laughed.

Shane's jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed a fract
ion. "How frea
king sweet, Ethan's protecting the Holy Grail."

"
Oookay
!" Lea cut everybody off. "What drinking game are we playing?"

Mollie returned with our first round of Mind Eraser's
with straws
. She handed them out and left like her ass was on fire.

Shane scooped up his drink in his hand and held his arms out stretched. He flailed his arms and his drink sloshed over the side of his glass and spilled down the front of Marie's shirt. She didn't even notice. "We're going to play a
little game called Answer This. Rules are
,
you get to ask anyone a question and they either have to answer TRUTHFULLY
,
or if you're a pussy and don't want to answer, you have to drink your Mind Eraser. Whole
damn
thing through the straw." He st
ared straight at me, "And no fuc
king lies!"

Alex raised his hands, "Oh, me first
,
and this is to everyone at the table. Okay, answer this...Where is the craziest place you have ever had sex?"

Shane rolled his eyes and sat back down while everyone went down the line giving their answer.

"Bathroom,"
Brayden
said.

"A fast food ball pit in the kid's play area," Alex laughed answering his own question. Everybody moaned. "
What?
"
He said red in the face.

Conner and Lea both giggled and said, "Ferris wheel."
How is that even possible?

When it was Shane's turn
,
Alex laughed and said, "Please do not say jail cell, because I'll
piss myself right here, dude."

"Shut up," Shane laughed. He looked at Marie, "My answer is probably going to change later, but right now fire escape."

"Boozer's bathroom," Marie giggled.
Eww
!

"Car," Tucker said.

"Park," Ethan whispered.

When it was my turn
,
I leaned forward, wrapped my lips around the straw,
and drank my entire drink.
Holy Mother of All That is Good and
Alcoholy
! What a head rush. Brain Freeze
!
Yum, it was like chocolate coffee.

Shane didn't take his eyes off mine. For a fleeting
moment,
tightness
settled around those
ice-cold
blue eyes of his and I wondered what his point to playing this game was. Then my knees started to tingle and my teeth went numb.
What the heck was in that drink?

This went on for three more rounds. People pegged other people in particular or the whole group. I drank two more Mind Erasers, the last one when Alex point blank asked me how many people I
had
slept with. Shane
flipped out when I did and he slammed his hand
s
down on the
table and drunkenly yelled, "The point isn't to get fucking smashed
,
Grace! Be fucking HONEST!"

I just sucked on the straw, with my eyes locked on
his,
until it made that
slurpy
nothing is left on the bottom
sound and smiled, "Is that what the point is Shane?" I threw my straw at him.

He bolted up out of his seat. "My turn for a question!" he yelled. His ridiculously beautiful face twisted in a scowl, "Answer this
,
Grace, how was it to fuck Ethan? While
you're
at it, answer this, while you were fucking Ethan
,
did you think about that ex-boyfriend of yours that you loved so damn fucking much you couldn't be with me? Remember Grace? The night you told me about him while your hands were wrapped around my dick!" He slammed his palms against the table and his drink spilled across the top it.

Everybody fell silent. Next to me, Lea dropped her head in one of her hands and grabbed one of my hands to hold with the other. My head spun. Thank
God,
I had
a few
Mind Eraser's
already, because if I
were
the least bit sober
,
I would have smacked him. Again.
Harder this time.

I sat up straighter, leaning forward so I could be perfectly clear when I gave my answer. I gave Lea's hand a little squeeze. "I don't know how it is to fuck him Shane, I did not
fuck
Ethan. I have never slept with anyone, actually.
I was saving myself for that ex-boyfriend...
he was in
..
.
um
...
jail, but when
he got out, he didn't want me anymore and left."
A sharp wave of embarrassment spiked through my veins. It spread out across my cheeks and down my neck,
which
I was sure
, was
leaving crimson streaks through my ivory skin.

Shane dropped back down in his seat
,
speechless.

Alex looked at me and then looked down into his lap, "Well, good evening there
,
Bruce
McHardon
, would you like to come out and me
et
the prettiest little virgin in the world? Grace, please, please, please, may I have your V-card. I will take such good care of it, I promise."

I smiled at him and laughed sarcastically, "Thanks
,
Alex, but I'm pretty sure I've just been royally fucked over, so I'm good for now. Thanks."

"There's no way you are a virgin! Like, you've never been with a guy before? What do you do?" Marie asked giving me a quick bark of laughter.
Like the dog she was
.

I locked my stare on Shane again, "I've been with guys, just not full blown sex. And what do I do? Well one of my best friends is a vibrator. It goes from
Oh Yeah
to
Who the Hell Needs a Man
in ten seconds flat." I turned my gaze on her, "
You should try it,
Marie
. I
n the long run
,
it'll be a lot less heartbreaking than Shane can be."

Tucker jumped up, stumbled around the table and drunkenly threw an arm around me, "Grace, you're so beautiful. Please don't give Alex your V-card. I took you to
Masa
, Grace. We could go there again and get that champagne you love,
and then
we could get a room at any hotel in the city." One of his hands grasped my knee and I flung it off me enraged. Vomit burned the back of my throat.

"Oh, wow. Hmm
..
.
um
...I rather stick burning hot pokers in my eyes and eat crap, but thank you so much for the offer Tucker. It was so kind of you, seriously," I said through clenched teeth.