Silas (2 page)

Most people have a bar
that’s sort of their home bar. They might visit other places, go
out drinking and bar hop. But there was one place where they could
go and feel comfortable. Kind of like a second home, where all the
faces are familiar. The brew pub was that place for me.

I was sitting at the bar, chatting with
my buddy when someone brushed up against me.

I turned to see a girl with
long, dark hair swinging her purse off her shoulder. “Oh, sorry,”
she said.

She hadn’t realized that
she’d touched me. I took her in. She was pretty. She had huge eyes.
She was wearing a pair of tight jeans that hugged her hips and ass.
She had a nice ass. I let my gaze travel higher to see that she had
a small waist and nice tits too. I was impressed. I grinned at her.
“Not a problem.”

I didn’t often pick up
chicks in this bar. This was my sanctuary. I came here to talk
craft beer and be a little bit geeky about brewing. Generally,
chicks weren’t into that.

The girl dug in her purse
and came out with her ID. She handed it to the
bartender.

He scrutinized it, looking
back and forth from her to the ID. “Texas, huh?”

She nodded.
“Yup.”

“
You really live in
Texas?”

“
Yeah,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows.
“What’s the capital of Texas?”

She made a face. “You think
my ID is fake or something?”

“
Do you even know the
capital of Texas?”

“
It’s Austin, which is where
I go to school,” said the girl. “Can I have my ID back?”

The bartender handed it
over. “Sorry. I get a lot of underage kids here in here with fake
out-of-state IDs is all.”

“
It’s okay,” she said,
putting her ID back in her purse.

My buddy, whose name was
Adam, slapped me on the arm. “Hey, you gonna stare at that girl all
night or are you going to answer my question?”

I turned back to him.
“Sorry. What question?”

“
You checked the temperature
in your basement?”

“
Why?”

“
Because if it’s too cold
for the yeast, that might be causing your carbonation problem,”
said Adam.

The girl leaned over the
bar, grinning at Adam and me. “Sorry if I’m interrupting,” she
said, “but I was wondering if you could recommend a good beer to
try.”

I slid her my glass of the
IPA they brewed. “Try that.”

She took a sip and wrinkled
up her nose. “No, I hate IPAs. Too much hops.”

Both Adam and I raised our
eyebrows. “You know about hops?”

She shrugged. “Sort of. It’s
what makes it bitter, right?”

“
Actually, it does a lot
more than that,” said Adam.

I held up a hand. “You’ll
bore the girl.” I leaned close to her. “He brews beer for a living.
He can get a little obsessive.”

Adam rolled his eyes. He got
up from the bar. “You know what, Silas, she’s all
yours.”

“
Hey,” I said. “Are you
implying that I’m making the moves on this young lady?” I turned to
her. “I would never do something that rude.”

She grinned at me. It made
her face light up. She really was pretty. “Oh no?”

“
Never,” I said. “That would
be crass. And I am the opposite of crass.” I turned to the
bartender. “Give her a blonde ale and put it on my tab.”

Her eyebrows shot up.
“You’re buying me a drink, but you’re
not
putting the moves on
me?”

“
Weeell, maybe I was hoping
you might sit down and talk to me while you nursed the beer I just
bought for you.”

The bartender set the beer in front of
her.

She tasted it. “That’s
good.”

“
Yeah?” I said. “Not
bitter?”

She took another drink.
“You’re cute.”

“
You think so?”

She sat down next to me.
“Good beer. Cute boy. I smell trouble.”

I just laughed.

* * *

Her name was Christa, and we
were heading into our third bar of the night. It had been a long
time since I
’d been so intrigued by a girl
that I’d follow her from one establishment to another. Usually, I
felt like the girls around here were interchangeable widgets. There
were cute, drunk undergrads everywhere. If one left, another would
be along soon.

“
ID,” said the guy at the
door.

I fished out mine, and Christa got hers
out too.

The guy took mine, read it, looked at
me, and handed it back.

Then he took Christa’s.
“Texas, huh?”

Christa laughed. “Why does
everyone keep saying that? Yes, I’m from Texas.”

“
You don’t sound like you’re
from Texas,” said the guy.

“
We moved there when I was a
kid,” she said. “I’m originally from New Jersey. Not that it
matters. You guys are so freaking suspicious.” She reached for her
ID.

He pulled it out of her
grasp.

“
Hey, come on, man,” I said.
“Just let us in. It’s not a fake ID.”

“
I think it is,” said the
guy. He looked up at her. “According to this, you’re twenty-four
years old.”

“
Yeah. So?” She made another
snatch for the ID.

Twenty-four? I eyed her.
Yeah, she didn’t look older than me.

“
So, um, what’s your
astrological sign?” he said.

“
You’re kidding me,” she
said.

“
You don’t know your
sign?”

She sighed. “Oh my
god.”

I laughed. “It
is
a fake ID.”

“
No,” she said, glaring at
the guy at the door.

He shrugged.

Her shoulders sagged.

“
You’re good,” said the guy
to me. “She’s not.”

Any other night, any other
girl, I might have ditched her. But I’d been having fun with
Christa. She was bubbly and fun. She had this way of turning away
from me while she laughed, running her fingers through her hair.
She had big, big brown eyes.

She did the laughing thing
right then, running her hand through her hair. She walked away from
the door to the bar. “Whatever.”

I went after her. “How old
are you?”

She bit her lip and gave me
a look that said that she was wicked, and she knew it.
“Nineteen.”

“
You swear?” I said. “You’re
not really like jail bait or something are you?”

She pulled another ID out of
her purse and handed it me. She tapped the year she was born.
“See?”

“
How do I know this one is
real?” I said.

“
Because it is.”

I scrutinized the license.
“So, you really weigh this much, or did you drop five pounds of the
total like my sister always does?”

She snatched it away from
me. “You ass.”

I just shrugged.

“
You’re rude.”

I grinned at her. “Sorry.” I
wasn’t sorry. I wanted her. Bad. I didn’t think I’d wanted a girl
this bad in a really long time.

“
You should be sorry,” she
said. “I am this close to walking out of your life right this
instant. And you would never see me again.” She held up her fingers
inches apart to show me just how close I was to losing the pleasure
of her company.

I feigned hurt. “You’d
leave
me
? I can’t
understand that. Who’s been showing you all the best places to hang
out in Morgantown?”

“
Well, if you hadn’t
noticed, that asshole just confiscated my ID. So it’s not like I
can actually get in anywhere else.”

I nodded. “That
is
a problem.”

“
I might as well just go
back to my hotel.”

“
You’re staying in a hotel?”
I asked.

“
Yeah but not alone, so
don’t get any ideas.”

I took a step back. “Wait,
are you trying to tell me that you’re not available or something,
because you’re really kind of a tease if—”

“
No.” She blushed, and she
was even prettier. “I’m here with my mom, okay? I’m a lame-ass
nineteen-year-old who’s staying in a hotel room with her mother.
That’s the real truth about me. I’m not nearly as exciting as I’ve
been pretending to be.”

I cocked my head. “I don’t
know. I’m pretty excited.”

She laughed, shaking her
head. “You’re bad.”

“
I’m not,” I said. I stepped
closer to her. “I promise you. I’m good. I’m very good.”

“
You’re full of yourself is
what you are.”

“
You’re pretty
self-confident yourself there.” I raised my eyebrows. “So, uh, you
got a curfew? Your mother going to be annoyed if you don’t come
home at a certain time?”

She shook her head. “She
thinks I’m with my brother. He goes to school here. I told her I
was heading to his place. I said I might be out late.”

I nodded. “I
see.”

“
But I can’t get in anywhere
without my ID.” She hugged herself, looking down at the toes of her
high heels and laughing ruefully.

“
Well,” I said. “The way I
see it, there are two options.”

She looked up. “There
are?”

“
We could go someplace that
I know never cards.”

“
We?” She grinned. “You
still want to hang out with me even though I’m a
lame-ass?”

“
There is nothing about your
ass that is lame,” I said. “And yeah, I could be convinced to spend
some more time with you. I mean, I got nothing better to do. And I
know you’d be really sad without my company.”

She rolled her eyes. “Right.
What would I do without you?”

“
You’d be lost,” I said.
“Lonely. Depressed. I light up your life. Face it.”

“
I don’t know how I’ve made
it so long without you.” She was still grinning. Geez, she was
gorgeous. “So, what’s the other option?”

“
We could go back to my
place,” I said. “I brew my own beer. And I don’t have a problem
with sharing it with people who are under twenty-one.”

“
Really?” she
said.

“
Really,” I said.

“
Well, that sounds like an
interesting option.”

* * *

A loud, jangling noise cut into the
air, waking me up immediately.

I sat straight up in bed,
knocking the girl whose arm was on my chest off me.

“
What the fuck?” I
growled.

She tumbled out of bed and wandered
across the room to get her purse.

I took in her nude body. She was very
nicely put together. Long legs, a curvy ass, perky tits. Did I
remember anything about her?

That fucking noise was
making it impossible to think.

She got her phone out of her bag and
pressed some buttons. Mercifully, the noise cut off.

“
Shit,” she said. “Shit,
shit, shit.”

Okay, okay. Things were
coming back to me now. Her name was Christa. She was nineteen, and
I’d had to bring her back here because she couldn’t get into the
bars. She’d found my Irish whiskey and insisted we take shots.
After that…

Well. She was naked.

Odds were we’d had
sex.

Why didn’t I remember
that?

She thrust her hands into
her hair. Her boobs bounced. “Where’s my underwear?”

“
Come back here,” I said. I
was hard. It was morning, and it wasn’t like I didn’t wake up with
morning wood most of the time, but there wasn’t always a girl as
hot as she was to stick my dick in. Or… well, a lot of times there
was a girl. But usually, by the time the morning rolled around, I
wasn’t interested anymore .

She began picking up
articles of her clothing and throwing them over her arm.
“Seriously. Do you know where they are?”

The fact that she was on the opposite
side of the room and not next to me should have been against the
law or something. I wanted my hands on her. I wanted my mouth on
her.

How could I not remember fucking
her?

“
Who needs your underwear?”
I said. “Come back to bed.”

She put her hands on her
hips. “I can’t. I’m late.”

“
Blow off whatever it is,” I
said. I got up out of bed. I enjoyed the fact that she didn’t seem
the slightest bit self-conscious about her nudity. I hated it when
girls tried to hide themselves.

“
No,” she said, “I can’t do
that. I’m supposed to have breakfast with my brother’s fiancé. I’m
in her wedding, and I promised her we’d hang out, and I have to on
try on this dress, and…” She rubbed her face.

I grabbed her hips and
pulled her against me. “One of my friends is getting married. If
you ask me, he’s too young. I don’t think people should rush into
stuff like that.”