The One Left Behind (The One Series) (19 page)

I pull Morgan into a hug. “Thank you, Morgan. Not just for listening, but for not judging me.”

Morgan waves her hands in the air. “Hey, who am I to judge? I can’t even stop being a bitch long enough to keep a guy around. One worth keeping anyway.”

Morgan has always guarded her heart. She has had it rough with men in the past. I think that’s why she quit modeling. She just got tired of being used for her looks. Out of everyone, I am the only one who knows she used to model. She wanted someone who saw how smart she was and wanted to commit to her, not her looks.

“Speaking of guys worth keeping… Have you met anyone lately?” I ask hoping to get the dirt on her love life. Morgan gets a little smile on her face. I stop her in her tracks and corner her. “You are so busted!” I say, poking her in the chest with my index finger.

Morgan laughs, “What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me! Start talking, who is he?” Now I’m the one crossing my arms waiting for an explanation.

“I’m not saying any names, but he is amazing. He is sexy and has a great personality and is a good guy.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Morgan huffs, “I’m pretty sure he hates me.”

Morgan can be a huge bitch when she wants to. Anyone who is close to her and knows her past knows it is a defense mechanism. I feel bad for Morgan when I see the sad look on her face. She must really have it bad for this guy.

“Well, maybe you just need to tone it down a little with the attitude and he will come around and see the kind heart that I know is in you.”

She gives me a sad smile. “Maybe. Enough about this. We need to get you a sexy dress for your date.”

IT’S ALMOST 5:00 on Thursday, and my coworkers and I are going to my favorite place for happy hour: Docs. Brian, another attorney at the law firm, pokes his head full of fire engine red hair in my door. “Hey, you ready to get out of here?” Brian is pretty low on the totem pole at this office like me, but he still has a little more seniority than I do. I think he told me he’s been here for about eight months, compared to my three.

His walks his short, stalky frame into my office, looking at me expectantly because I still haven’t answered him. I clear my throat, “Oh, yeah, just let me shut down my computer real quick and I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”

On the drive over to the bar, I keep reflecting back on my run in with Addison on the beach. I’ve been trying to run more lately as a way to curb my drinking and direct my anxiety into something more productive. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t kind of avoiding her. Things had definitely shifted between us since her birthday party, and not for the better. I could feel the gap separating us growing by the minute. When I saw her I was immediately taken back by her gorgeousness, as always. I tried to keep my head down and pretend that I didn’t see her, but then she waved and I had no other choice but to talk to her.

She started making small talk and I was going to try to start a conversation until I looked down and noticed that damn butterfly ring on her finger. The one Pierce got her for her birthday. He told her it was meant to symbolize new beginnings or some bullshit like that. I wanted to choke the fucker out. New beginnings? She didn’t need a new start, she needed to remember how great we had it and everything would be good again. Her wearing it was a dagger straight through my heart. It was like she agreed that she needed to start fresh, to leave the past behind. Maybe this was meant to be a subtle way to get me to back off, to tell me she wanted to start fresh with someone else. That thought had bile rising up in my throat.

I suffered through a tedious conversation with her and tried to keep my answers short and sweet to keep from giving anything away. I think she was getting the hint that I wasn’t feeling it today and finally said she’d just catch me later. I started to run again but my feet suddenly felt like they were filled with lead. I’m not sure how much more I can take. I can’t bear to think of her not in my life, but at the same time this is literally killing me.

I snap out of my daydreaming as we pull up to Docs with a couple other guys, two are paralegals and the other one is an attorney as well. I walk in and the familiar scent that is strictly Docs’, with its musky wood and hoppy beer smell, hits me. It almost brings a smile to my face. It sort of feels like home.

How sad is that?

Since it’s still pretty early, we are all able to grab stools at the bar. Brian is sitting to my right and I have a wall to my left. We’re all chatting it up and having a good time when I see Brooklyn out of the corner of my eye. Guilt immediately consumes me. I was pretty wasted the last time I saw her, but I still remember the verbal lashing I gave her. I need to apologize.

“Hey Brooklyn, how’s it going?” I give her a tight smile as if to call a truce. I’m not sure it’s working since she has an icy glare on her face. Finally, she shrugs her shoulders and says, “Eh, it’s going.”

“Can I talk to you real quick?” She thinks it over for a second before nodding and pointing over to the break room.

When I get back there, the first thing I notice is what she’s wearing. She has on the tightest pair of black leather pants I have ever seen that ride almost indecently low on her hips. They leave nothing to the imagination and I can clearly see every curve of her body. They look as if they were painted on her. She has a skinny, black belt with silver studs wrapped low around her hips. With it is a dark purple shirt that fits really loose and hangs over one shoulder exposing one black bra strap. The hem is cut up and hits her above the belly button. To add to the whole sex-on-legs look, she’s got on a killer pair of black, leather boots that come up to her calves. I have to remind myself to breathe and think about dead kittens to keep myself from getting an instant boner. She is smoking hot tonight. Too bad it’s Brooklyn and I know all about her sexcapades.

Plus, and more importantly, I’m still waiting for Addison.

She clears her throat and now I’m embarrassed because she clearly caught me ogling her. I shake my head and go right into my apology.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the other night. I was really drunk, and I know that’s no excuse, but I’m having a hard time dealing with things right now. I guess you struck a nerve with the whole ‘she might not remember you’ bit and I attacked you. That wasn’t fair of me so I hope you can accept my apology.”

She just stares at me for what seems like minutes. Finally, she says, “Yeah, no big deal. I maybe should have approached it more delicately than I did. I didn’t mean to throw it in your face like that. I just care about you and don’t want to see you mess up your life over a girl.”

I clench my teeth when she says that last sentence. She acts like Addison is just some girl I met at the bar and had a fling with. I was going to marry this girl! I brush it off to keep from starting another fight.

“Okay, so we’re cool?”

She smiles in response and gives me a hug. I freeze a little since she has every inch of her body pressed up against mine. I snap out of it and hug her back in an awkward way. She steps back and says, “Come on, your friends are waiting.” She’s looking up at me from under her lashes and grabs my hand to lead me out. I’m a little taken aback by this. First the hug, now the hand holding? What was she doing? I go with it thinking I’m probably over thinking this and decide to go finish my beer.

I sit back on my stool and Brooklyn walks back behind the bar with a smirk on her face. I look over at Brian and he’s grinning from ear to ear and raises his eyebrows in a suggestive way. I just shake my head and face forward. Did he really think I just scored a quickie with her in the break room? Give me a break. He knows how torn up I’ve been over Addison. I would never do that.

After a few minutes, my mug is empty. Brooklyn comes over and asks, “Want another one, sexy?” I just look at her in confusion. There’s no mistaking that comment. She’s never called me that before. So I tell her that. She leans over the bar, pushing her breasts out and up to where I can see them perfectly down her baggy shirt and says, “You’ve never been single before.”

I don’t even know how to respond to that. I’ve been out of the game for a while, and I was no ladies’ man like Jeremy, but there is no misinterpreting what she is saying. She is definitely flirting with me. I really don’t know how to diffuse the situation, so I choose to ignore it. “I’ll have another beer, please.”

She gives me a sexy smirk and saunters off to get my beer. She leans way over into the cooler giving everyone the nicest view of her ass. Seriously, she might as well not have even worn pants. They’re so tight I can tell she’s not wearing underwear underneath them.

She pops the cap off my beer, pours it into a mug and sets it down in front of me. “There you go, I didn’t leave too much head on it. I wasn’t sure if you liked a lot of head…on your beer.” She bites her lip and I squirm in my seat. I do the only thing I can and start downing my beer. I chug half of it before I set it down. She smiles again and walks to the other end to wait on another customer, but she’s still looking at me.

Brian leans over and says, “Dude, you need to go after that. She’s pretty much offering herself up on a silver platter for you. You wouldn’t even have to try to get laid.”

I simply shake my head avoiding the suggestive look I know is on his face. I don’t want to sound like a major pussy, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. My heart belongs to Addison; I’m just waiting on her to remember so she can take it back.

“That’s okay, Brian. If you knew half the shit I knew about that girl you’d know she was trouble with a capitol T. You would run for the hills, seriously.”

The rest of the evening goes along about the same. Brooklyn didn’t make any more overly suggestive comments the rest of the time we were there, but she kept glancing at me and would touch me whenever she could. I just focused on the task at hand: drinking my beer. By the time we were ready to leave I’d only had four beers. I was trying to cut back on the drinking. I drive home feeling weirder than I had when I’d arrived at Docs. It’s like the universe is shifting or something. I had this sexy-as-sin woman coming on to me, but the one girl I want I can’t have at the moment. Even though I can’t have her, I can’t bring myself to act on any offers presented to me by other women.

Time for bed before I start to overanalyze this to death. Again.

I wake up the next morning still confused. But what wakes me up is the banging on my door. I look at the clock and it’s 11:00 in the morning. I groan but know I need to get up anyway. I walk over to the door and open it. Jeremy is standing there with a big smile on his face. I move out of the way to let him in and walk to the kitchen to make some coffee.

“Hey, Jeremy, to what do I owe the pleasure of being woken up by your smiling face this afternoon?” I say sarcastically.

“Oh, nothing. Just thought I’d drop by and hang out. Do you have a hangover from last night?”

“Actually, no. I only had four beers. You know I’m trying to watch how much I drink since people have been bringing it to my attention that I’ve been doing it a lot lately. But, I will say that last night was definitely interesting, no alcohol needed.”

I tell him about Brooklyn and the shit she said and did. Jeremy lets out a long whistle and starts smiling big again. “This is good, man. This may be what you need to get back on the saddle. Plus, I’ve taken that one for a test drive. She is a fa-reak. You won’t be disappointed.”

I just stare at him. “You and Brooklyn, huh? When? And how did I not know about this?”

“It was a while back and only happened a couple times. You apparently know how subtle she is, so I didn’t say no when she propositioned me.” He’s grinning for ear to ear like he’s real proud of himself.

I shake my head. “You know I can’t, Jeremy. I told Brian the same thing. I’m waiting for Addison. I’d feel guilty if I had sex with someone else.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if I should tell you, but you might as well know so you can rethink your moral obligation to Addison. I was at Morgan’s house fixing something for her—again—and she was on the phone. I overheard her saying that Pierce is taking Addison on an actual date. So she might be moving on, you know?”

My world completely stops in that moment and I’m finding it hard to breathe, let alone process what he just told me. She’s dating? I’m so crushed by this as I think back to our first date and how perfect it was.

Since Addison wasn’t convinced that I wasn’t a stalker or a serial killer, I was meeting her at Cup of Joes for some coffee. We were supposed to meet at 10:00 that morning, but I wanted to make sure I was early so I could see her come through the doors. I got us a corner table by the window and waited. Since I was twenty minutes early, I started to fidget with everything. I must have smoothed out my shirt a dozen times. I had on khaki shorts and an orange Polo shirt with some brown sandals. I wanted to be casual, but still make a good impression on her since she’d only seen me in my work uniform which consisted of jeans and a black T-shirt.

I look down at my watch and notice it’s 10:05. Okay, no big deal. It’s only been five minutes. I start to get nervous and I can’t explain why. I’ve never gotten nervous over a girl before. But I know it’s because she’s different; she’s special. I look down again and see it’s 10:23. I’m starting to think I was stood up when I see her come running through the door out of breath and scanning the room for me.