The Fine Line (2 page)

Pretending that I hurt his feelings, he brought his hands to his heart and leaned back as he grinned.  “Have you no faith, Liv?”

“Faith that they’ll let a seventeen-year-old into a beer tent?” I smiled. “No.  No, I don’t.”  Pointing back and forth between Nate and Isaac, I continued, “At least you two are a little older and could probably pass for twenty-one.  Especially Nate with his scruff.  Mel and I are kinda screwed here.”

Nate and Isaac were both nineteen and had completed their freshman year of college.  Nate was a fan of the “five-day shadow,” as opposed to the “five o’clock shadow,” but it looked good on him, and Mel thought it was hot.  Melody met Nate a year ago on the strip and they’ve been inseparable ever since. 

When we got to the tent, the bouncer held up his thumb and pointer finger with a blank,
“I don’t care”
look on his face, motioning that he wanted to see our IDs.  Just as I was about to say
“told you so”
to Isaac, a young man with dark chocolate, medium-length hair and the most unique eyes I’d ever seen walked up behind the bouncer, nodded at Isaac, and placed his hand on the bouncer’s shoulder.  Then his eyes locked with mine, as he looked directly at me.

I had never seen eyes like his before.  They were a bright mixture of gray and green with a little bit of amber in the middle.  I suppose that’s called hazel.  I couldn’t seem to look away, and neither did he.  His head cocked to the side as a barely noticeable grin formed on his lips.  For some reason, unbeknownst to me, my heart began to pound in my ears, over the loud music inside the tent.  Why was I suddenly nervous?

“They’re with me, Matt,” he said.

Completely unsettled by my unusual reaction to him, I forced myself to break his stare and began focusing on the bouncer instead.  He was a brawny guy with a shaved head and tattooed arm.  I could see a vein bulging out of his neck, right above the collar of his tight black t-shirt.  He looked mad. 

“Logan, you’re going to get me fired,” grumbled the bouncer, clearly trying to control his anger.  “This is IT, man.  No one else comes in after this.”

My hand grasped Isaac’s arm as we quickly passed by the creepy bouncer.  Nate and Melody trailed behind us, hand in hand.  The tent was more crowded than I thought it would be.  Smoke mixed with the smell of beer, and greasy food filled the air.  The band had the crowd going and sounded awesome, but I didn’t recognize any of the music they were playing.  I wondered if they wrote their own stuff. 

“Liv, Logan.  Logan, Liv,” Isaac introduced me to the man with the eyes.

The corners of Logan’s mouth turned up as he studied me and with a gleam in his eyes.  He cocked his head to the side.  “So
you’re
the one we’ve been waiting for.”

My cheeks began to burn.  I hated being late. 

“I didn’t ask them to wait for me.”  I tried to defend myself.  “I didn’t even know we were coming here tonight.”

He seemed amused.  “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.  You’re worth the wait.”  With a slight grin, he turned to walk toward the bar. 

I rolled my eyes, instantly becoming annoyed.  “Oh, that’s smooth.” 

He looked back at me, still amused but clearly taken aback that I had just called out his poor attempt at some sort of pick-up line.  He must not get that too often.  I wouldn’t imagine women are much of a challenge for someone who looks like him.  After a moment, his eyes softened. 

“Really, it’s no big deal.  We weren’t waiting long,” he assured me. “C’mon, let’s get a drink.”

Melody grabbed my hand instead. 

“We’d rather dance!” she shouted and pulled me to the dance floor.  Melody and I never had a problem letting loose on a dance floor, and this time would be no different.  It had been a while since we’d been out to see a band, and this one was playing upbeat songs with pounding bass. 

We enjoyed the moment fully, swinging our hips and whipping our hair around, and before we knew it, Nate and Isaac were dancing with us.  Nate and Mel, being extremely comfortable with each other, began grinding to the beat in a more provocative way while Isaac and I kept our dancing fun and innocent. 

As the beat of the drum pounded and the strum of the electric guitar sang, Isaac took my hand and twirled me so that my back was against his chest.  In that moment, as we moved against each other, I glanced at the bar and spotted Logan, with whom I assumed was Carter.  Carter seemed to be in a deep…flirtation…with the pretty red-headed bartender, but Logan didn’t seem quite as interested in their conversation.  He was glancing our way.

Isaac twirled me back to face him, and we continued to dance.  A few songs later, we had exhausted our energy and headed to the bar to join Logan and Carter.   After we got our drinks, I noticed Logan pull his cell phone out from his pocket and answered it.  His eyes intensified, but only slightly, as he listened.

“I’ll be there in an hour,” he said into his phone, just before returning it to his pocket.

He turned to me with a minor look of disappointment in his eyes. 

“Liv, it was a pleasure meeting you,” he said as he reached out his hand.  When I placed my hand in his, one corner of his mouth turned up, and his eyes seemed to glow.  He lifted one eyebrow up and continued, “Maybe next time won’t be so brief.” 

I nodded, saying something along the lines of “nice meeting you too” and watched as he said his goodbyes to the rest of us and left with Carter.  A strange pang of disappointment fluttered in my chest as he walked away, and I found myself wondering if I would ever see him again.  I shook my head to snap myself out of the weird, unfamiliar trance I was in, remembering that I would not allow myself to be flustered by any boy.  Even if he did have the most incredible eyes I had ever seen.

We enjoyed the rest of our night, playing carnival games and going on the rides.   Nate even won a ginormous stuffed unicorn for Mel, and Isaac was thrilled when he scored a girl’s phone number.  After stuffing ourselves with funnel cakes and cotton candy, we called it a night.  They dropped me off at Frank’s Drugstore so I could pick up my aqua blue Ford Focus and drive myself home. 

I made it home at 12:25pm…five minutes before curfew.  I wasn’t even sure why I had a curfew since there was rarely anyone home to enforce it.  My mother and stepfather had opened a small pub, and it was extremely rare that they were home before me on a weekend night.  Per the “arrangement” I had with them, I was supposed to call the pub when I got home so they could verify I was home on time.

It didn’t make sense to me because, technically, I could call from anywhere and they wouldn’t have a clue about it.  They didn’t want me to text because they wanted to actually hear my voice, and they didn’t want me to call their cell phones because they were too preoccupied to notice their cells when they were bartending.  I grabbed my phone and dialed the number to the pub as I walked to my room. 

“American Pub!” a man answered. 

“Can I talk to Grace please?” I replied.

“What?!” he yelled, trying to shout above the pounding background music.

“Grace!  Is Grace there?!”  I hollered, with my voice echoing through the quiet house.

“Hang on!”

Geez, this wasn’t going well already.  It must’ve been a busy night at the pub.  I waited for a moment, listening to the laughter and fun that the pub patrons were having.  Finally, my mother was on the line.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mom.  I’m home.”

“What?!  Who is this?!”

“Mom, it’s me! I’m home!”

“What?!  I can’t hear you!!!”

Oh Lord, here we go,
“I...AM…HOME!!!”

There was a short pause.

“Livie, I can barely hear you, but thanks for calling, sweetheart,” she said in a quieter, more relaxed tone.  She must’ve looked at the time.  “I’ll see you in the morning,” she finished. 

She hung up, and it was suddenly very dark and quiet in the house.  The exhaustion from my full day hit me hard in that moment.  I slipped off my sandals, flopped onto my bed, and closed my eyes, making a mental note to sit down with my mother in the morning to revisit the texting-when-I-get-home conversation.  A simple text would be so much easier.

Chapter Two

The sweet, buttery aroma of bacon and eggs mixed with coffee, stirred me awake the next morning.  My eyes cracked open as I glanced at my alarm clock and saw a blurry, green “9:07AM.”  Crap, it was late, and I had a full day of work ahead of me.  I sprung out of bed, causing a blinding head-rush.  Once I felt normal, I dressed and went to the kitchen.

“Morning, Livie,” my mother chirped. 

She was the “mother” of all morning people.  It baffled me the way she could go to sleep later than me, yet wake up before me.  She seemed to only get about six hours of sleep per night, yet she was always so energetic in the morning.  I wished I had that problem. 

“Morning,” I mumbled.

“Hey, will you bring home my cellphone from the pub?  I left it there last night.”

“Aren’t you going there later?”

“No,” she glanced over at my stepdad who was reading the paper at the kitchen table.  “Jeff and I are taking the night off to go to dinner and a movie.”

Mom and Jeff had offered to pay me to clean the pub on the weekends, and I enthusiastically accepted when I found out how much they would compensate me to do it.  It was a dirty job, but it only took me about three hours, and I couldn’t pass up the pay.  I made it more enjoyable by cranking up the music and taking time to practice my pool game. 

The pub opened at 2:00PM on Saturdays, which was the same time I was scheduled to work at Frank’s today.  I had to get going so that I would have time to shower before Frank’s.  I quickly shoveled down breakfast and headed out the door. 

*

Mel was the only one waiting for me in the parking lot when I left Frank’s that night.  It had been a while since we had even a little bit of one-on-one time together, so I was glad to see her alone.  Leaning on the hood of her white Pontiac Grand Prix, she texted on her cell as I approached.   Hearing my heels click on the cement, she looked up with excitement in her eyes and gave me a grin. 

“Hey, Liv!  There’s going to be people at Gavin’s tonight.  You wanna go?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Sure.  I’ve had a long day. I could use a little fun.”

Gavin, a friend of Nate and Isaac, was my age but was homeschooled and seemed to have a lot of free time, even during the school year.  His house, which was the gathering place for our group of friends, had a partially finished basement with a pool table, wet bar, and a few old couches and chairs arranged in a circle.  We could either get crazy or just kick back there.  You never really knew until you got there.  Usually, his parents were MIA, but on the few occasions they were in the house, they kept to themselves, never saying anything about the extra people or noise.

We approached Gavin’s house and spotted Nate and Gavin just outside the garage, standing around a flawless canary yellow muscle car with the hood up.  Nate walked toward us as we got out of Melody’s car. 

“Do you know what that is, baby?”  He grinned at Melody with a look of excitement as he laced his fingers around hers and pulled her to the car.  I followed closely behind them.

“A car?” she responded, sarcastically.

“
That
…is a 1969 Ford Mustang.”  Then he rattled off some information about the engine.

“OK…” she said, clearly not as enthusiastically as Nate had hoped.  Noticing his disapproval, she continued with a little more encouragement, “It’s a pretty car, baby.”

“Whose is it?”  I asked

A slamming noise distracted me.  I began to walk towards the front of the car, and realized that someone must have closed the hood.  My answer stood in front of me and stopped me in my tracks. 

It wasn’t the perfectly tanned, contoured abs that caught my full attention.  And it wasn’t the strong, muscular chest and solidly shaped shoulders that drew me in.  When my gaze wandered up to a warm grin and inviting hazel eyes I became fixed on the man in front of me.  I’m not sure how long I had been standing there, staring.

“You like what you see, Liv?” a shirtless Logan whispered softly with an amused smirk, as I finally snapped out of it and began to approach him. 

Shit!  Did he just say that?

I could feel my cheeks getting red and my heart began to pound.  Of course he would notice me staring at him.  The others were already walking into the house, so I don’t think they had heard him. 

What the hell was going on with me?  I didn’t usually get so flustered around boys—even exceptionally attractive ones.  I had a lot of fun with some of them, but there were never any expectations for a relationship, and that’s how I liked it.  There was something about Logan, however, that gave me….butterflies.  This was not a feeling I was fond of, and I felt a strong need to do something about it.

“Shut up.” I inwardly cringed right after my response came out. 
Oh yeah, real nice comeback, Liv.

His eyes gleamed as he let out a chuckle. My gaze searched for something to focus on, anywhere but his eyes, as I desperately tried to come up with something witty and clever to say, but nothing came to me.

“I was talking about the car.” he replied, lifting one eyebrow.  Still smiling, he grabbed his t-shirt out of the back of his shorts and put it on.  “Better?” he teased.

I rolled my eyes, knowing full well he was not talking about the car.  Clearly, he was not lacking confidence.  In an effort to change the subject, I asked, “So, where did you get it anyway?  The car, I mean.”  I’m not sure why I felt I had to clarify that.

His smile toned down a bit, but not all the way, and his eyes became distant.  “My dad and I spent about five years restoring it.  He left it to me when he passed away last year.”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” I was floored.  Could this conversation have gotten any worse?

He must’ve noticed my panic, and his eyes softened.  He hooked his arm around my neck and began to walk me toward the house where the others had already migrated. “Don’t worry about it, Liv.  I’m okay.”