Chapter Twenty-Five
Mackenzie
Jake grinned devilishly at me.
“I knew you'd come around,” he said. “They always do. Sure as shit, they always do. What do you wanna start with? Shooters or what?”
“Sure. You pick 'em,” I gave him the go ahead.
“I'll be right back, you gorgeous thing! Don't you go anywhere, y' hear?”
As he left, I took out my phone again and opened Facebook. I scrolled through my newsfeed for a while, but the picture with Chance and that whore Tina was gone. I went to her profile and looked at it – she had it set to public, so even though I wasn't friends with her, I could still see everything – and saw that the pic had disappeared. Someone had taken it down, and I suspected that it hadn't been Tina. After all, why put up a pic and then take it down just a few minutes later? I guessed that Chance had been the one who’d had it removed somehow. He had obviously wanted to hide the evidence of what he'd been doing. And what the hell had he been doing? How had he ended up with Tina naked on his lap? I knew they worked together, but this wasn't at the radio station. Hell, the background looked almost like his ranch!
I felt like I was going to be sick. I couldn't go through this again, I just couldn't. The whole thing with Brad had almost killed me. And if I had to go through that again... well, maybe it would.
I didn't know what to do. I couldn't get hold of Chance, and now I didn't really want to. But I needed to know how the hell that picture had even happened, and what the hell he was doing with that slut naked on his lap.
All I knew was for the moment, right now, it was too much of a shock to handle. I needed a drink, and I needed a distraction, and Jake happened to be the perfect person to take care of both.
He returned with a waitress following him. She was carrying a platter of shooters.
“Time to get the party started!” he exclaimed with a grin. “Check it out, all the colors of the rainbow!”
“Wow, that's quite a spread. I don't wanna do them too quickly, though,” I said.
“Sure, don't worry, we ain't gonna slam 'em all in ten seconds. Maybe, uh, twenty!”
His facial expressions were priceless. I couldn't help but laugh. Despite his enormously off-putting arrogance, he was entertaining and already had me laughing.
“I don't mean that, Jake. Now come on, I'm a lady, not some cheap bar skank. Don't treat me like one. We're gonna do these shots like civilized folk, got it?” I announced.
“All right, all right. Well, go on then with your civilized self. Pick which one you want first.”
“What are they?” I asked, looking them over.
He cackled maniacally and rubbed his hands together like he was a villain on a TV show. “That's for me to know and you to find out. Just pick a color, and we'll hit it.”
“All right. Let's start with . . . yellow?” I said with a lot of uncertainty.
He grinned and picked the two yellow shooters off the tray slowly, taking one for himself and handing me the other.
“You ready for this?” he asked.
“As ready as I'll ever be.”
“Excellent. Well, in that case, three, two, one... go!”
He threw back his shot and then roared with triumph. I drank mine and felt it burn mightily all the way down my throat, and I couldn't help but cough as it went down.
“Jesus Jake, what the heck was in that thing?” I asked.
“Oh boy, wouldn't you like to know? But I ain't gonna tell ya, I'm afraid. These here shots are all my own secret concoctions. Maybe if you ask me nicely... and I mean real nicely... you'll eventually find out the secret recipe. Until then, though, you're just gonna have to enjoy 'em with all the mystery that comes with them.”
“You're a tease, Jake.”
“So are you, Mackenzie Shay. So, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you anyway?”
“Older than you,” I declared.
“Bullshit! I'm a damn monkey's uncle if you're a day over twenty-three.”
“I hope your nephew likes bananas then.”
“What? Seriously, you're older than twenty-three?” his eyebrows raised.
I nodded. I could feel the warmth of the alcohol spreading slowly through my body now.
“Twenty-eight, to be exact.”
“Well then, we must have been born the same year.”
“Maybe we were, Jake, maybe we were. But I'm not here to talk about our life stories,” I said. “Now, are we gonna do another one of these shooters or what?”
He flashed me a cheeky grin.
“You're enjoying this lil' drinkin' session, ain't ya? All right, like before, pick a color.”
“Let's try the green one, how about that?”
“Excellent choice. Green it is. Bombs away!”
He handed me one of the green shooters and then grabbed one himself, knocking it back with as much speed and ease as he had the first one. I drank mine with a bit more caution this time, but even so it burned on the way down. I didn't know what was in these shots, but they sure were strong.
“Whew, another kick from a horse!” I exclaimed. “You ain't playin' around, Jake.”
“I always play around... but I never play around,” he said, and a look of intensity entered his eyes.
I felt a sudden and sharp stab of guilt rip through my stomach. What was I doing here? Yeah, I was mad at Chance, but I didn't even know what had happened between him and Tina. Maybe it had been like the time before when I had totally misread the situation. After all, if what I’d seen on that video was any indication, Tina was a conniving little slut at that.
But that was in public and fully clothed. And in hindsight, it was understandable how it had happened. But this, with her naked on his lap? Whatever had happened, if he’d wanted to stop it, he should have way before all of her clothes came off. This was way different and more than coincidence. It had to be.
I forced the guilt out of my mind, replacing it with anger. Anger motivated me to keep on drinking. I didn't want to lead Jake on, though. As much of a douche as he was – well, was according to rumors, anyway – I didn't want to play his game. I wasn’t that kind of person.
“Look, Jake, I’m a smart girl. I know you're wanting to take this to a certain level,” I began.
“And I'm pretty damn sure that you want it to get to that level yourself,” he interjected. “I can see it in your eyes. I can feel it, I can feel the heat of your blood rushing through your veins – that's the heat of desire, Mackenzie. Raw, animal desire. You can see how bad I want you – and I know you're feeling the same thing for me. I know it. Don't try deny it.”
I shook my head. “No, Jake... that's your desires talking. Don't presume to speak for me or understand what I'm thinking or what I want. You have a lot to learn about women.” I grinned at him. “And I'm telling you straight up, nothing is gonna happen between us. Not one thing. I want to have some drinks, have some laughs, and have some fun – and that's the end of it. You aren't gonna lay a single finger on me. So get that through your head, playboy.”
He smirked. “That's what you say now,” he said, “but if you can really resist me – really resist yourself and your own desires – then I'm a damn—”
“Monkey's uncle. Yeah, I’ve heard,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Don't you know it!”
“Well, that's it, I'm telling you,” I retorted. “And if you're gonna try to force something to happen, I'm gonna tell you now, you can go off and find someone else to drink with.”
He smiled, and the atmosphere seemed to lighten up a bit.
“All right, fair enough,” he said, holding up his hands. “Let's just make good use of these drinks, shall we? No pressure. Like you said, we'll just drink 'em and have fun. That's it, nothing else.”
“All right, since we've agreed on it, that's what we'll do. Shake on it?”
He extended a hand to me, and I took it and shook it. We held hands for a little longer than we should have, though, and again a quick, sharp stab of guilt pulsed through me. Still, I managed to pull my hand away – but he maintained eye contact, staring intensely at me with his strikingly handsome eyes until I had to look away.
“Come on now, Mackenzie,” he said, “it's time to pick a color.”
With the warmth of the alcohol now heating up my whole body, I prepared to keep on drinking.
“All right, all right... let's go with... red!”
“Excellent choice!” he said, and once more, we tossed back another shot each, and I began sinking quickly into a state of tipsiness.
***
A few hours later, I was pretty drunk. In fact, I don't think I could remember the last time I'd been so drunk. It had to have been years. Jake and I had long since left the Buzz Bar and taken to the age old weekend tradition of bar hopping, having shots and beers at each one we stopped in.
I kept hoping the alcohol would kill the flashbacks that kept running through my head, from Brad and his betrayal all those years ago to the picture of Chance and Tina. Mostly, I thought about that last one.
How the hell was he planning on explaining that away? Pretty damn sure there was no dashboard camera to prove his innocence. What was done was done, and whatever had happened between him and Tina, no matter who had started it, had happened. I would just have to accept what came next – and he would have to live with the consequences of it. He had to know exactly what those consequences would be: the end of everything between him and me.
I was done. Chance and me . . . we were done. There was no way in hell I was gonna allow what had happened once between Brad and me to happen again. This was my heart we were talking about.
And I was gonna tell him. I was gonna let him have it, I was gonna tell him right this minute exactly what I felt about him and Tina, and whatever disgusting thing had happened between them that had ended up with her sitting on his lap naked like that.
I reached into my handbag to get my phone – and after digging around in there for a while, I realized that it was gone.
I also remembered that I hadn't been able to get hold of Chance before anyway... And now there was definitely no chance at all of getting hold of him, or anyone else for that matter. Ugh, my head was starting to spin; this night had gone far enough. I stumbled over to where Jake was at the bar, ordering yet another round of drinks, and grabbed his shoulder.
“Jake, I need to go, and I've lost my phone. What am I gonna do?”
He smiled cockily. “I have a very comfy bed at my place. Oh, and did I mention that it's a penthouse, with a pool and a hot tub, and—”
“I'm not going back to your place. I want to go to Judd's ranch, where I'm supposed to be staying. Take me back to the Buzz Bar, please, so I can get the manager to call me a car.”
“Pssh, the Buzz Bar is boring! Let's stay at this bar and keep drinking!”
I'd done a very good job of resisting Jake's charms up to that point, even though I was both drunk and in a really terrible mood. I wasn't about to give in now. In fact, as handsome and charming and sexy as he was, I didn't want to have anything more to do with him.
“Come on, Jake! Just please take me back to Buzz so that I can go to the ranch! I've lost my flippin’ phone, and I don't know this city, and I don't know anyone here except you and the manager at the Buzz Bar, and I'm drunk, and—”
He stepped up to me and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into a close, tight hug. I tried to resist at first, tried to push him away – but then I simply gave in and collapsed into his arms, and started crying on his ridiculously muscular shoulder.
“There there, Mackenzie,” he said, stroking my back and shoulders gently. “It'll be all right. You'll be fine with me.”
Then I felt his hand sliding lower down my back and his head moving across to my neck, and he started planting soft, delicate kisses on my neck as he reached down to softly caress my ass.
I pushed him away immediately.
“Hey! What are you doing?” I shouted. “I told you, Jake, nothing is gonna happen between us, nothing! And when I say no, I mean no! What part of that don't you understand?”
His eyes grew cold, and the expression on his face hardened.
“You're a tease, Mackenzie, a real tease... and I don't mean that in a good way.”
“I am not! I told you from the beginning that nothing was going to happen. I told you, dammit!”
“And what? What about the way you've been looking at me all night? What about that, huh? Those looks you were throwing me, the flirty conversation, the—”
“Stop, just stop. I was not flirting with you. Maybe in your head I was, but I promise you, I was not. And nothing at is gonna happen, I'm serious about that.”
He nodded, the expression on his face cold and pitiless.
“So that's how it's gonna be then, huh?”
“I told you from the beginning, Jake. Don't act so surprised now.”
“Whatever, you bitch. You know what? I'm leaving. And you can come with me back to my place, or you can stay here. Your choice.”
Red anger flashed before my eyes.
“Fine. Leave, you jerk. I don't need your help anyway.”
“You say that now, Mackenzie, but you'll be crying in a few minutes. You're gonna regret this. You're really gonna regret this.”
With that, he took the beers he had ordered, slammed one down on the table in front of me, and then downed his in one go. He wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand and shot me one final glare.
“Hope you enjoy your beer, Mackenzie,” he snarled, and then he stormed off, like a brat throwing a tantrum.
I was initially glad to see him go, but then, it turned out that he was right. I was alone in a strange bar, and I didn't know where I was or where my phone was. I was lost and feeling worse and worse with every minute that passed.