Chapter Five
PAXTON
*
Well, the creep is back. Apparently, he's still determined to talk to me for some reason, to apologize for his colossal act of shoving his foot down his own throat.
And me, being the fool that I am, I'd given in and agreed to hear him out.
Inside my head, I sighed at my own foolishness. Paxton, you really need to grow a spine, I admonished myself. Here I was, out at a club where I didn't want to be, listening to a man who, only minutes earlier, had commanded me to show him my tits. What was I doing with my life? At some point, clearly, everything had gone wrong. If I was at home, in my bath with a glass of wine and a book, I might think back and try to identify that zero hour, when it all went off the rails.
But I was here, still in the noise and the hubbub, leaning against this gross and sticky bar counter, listening to the creep talk.
He was saying some nonsense about how we didn't need to stand up, how he had his own VIP booth. Figures. He was probably one of those rich assholes who thought that, because they had a job that brought in the big bucks, they could get away with possessing zero manners. Anna-Claire knew a few guys like that from her own job, and they were all the same – big gasbags in desperate need of a stabbing.
This was a cute gasbag, at least, I reluctantly admitted to myself, looking at him as he talked. I didn't let any sign of my inner thoughts reach my face, carefully keeping it blank and expressionless, but... wow.
He was tall. I guessed that he stood an inch or two over six feet – a good twelve inches taller than me, unless I was wearing heels, which I wasn't. He had light brown hair, almost copper colored, gleaming and looking full and lustrous even in the unflattering club lights. That head of hair was cut in a stylish fade, but on top of his head, it couldn't quite hold in place and sprang out in invitingly tight little curls. Along with his flawless skin, the hair gave him the appearance of a Greek statue, the kind of man that might make Michelangelo bite through his chisel handle as he sprang to capture such beauty. Green eyes danced, somehow managing to sparkle even in the dim light of the club.
And he had a hell of a smile.
He flashed it at me in little bursts, not leaving it up for too long, as if he guessed that it might blind me with its brilliance. It revealed white, even teeth whenever he drew back his lips, set evenly like tombstones with no gaps between them. He could be a model in a toothpaste commercial. His lips, full and strong, curled up a little more at the right corner than the left, giving the grin a slightly crooked and incredibly endearing emotion.
That, I thought distantly to myself, was the kind of grin that could land just about any woman in bed, naked and willing, before a single thought had time to penetrate her head.
Penetrate. Bad word choice, I chastised myself as I once again thought longingly of that bath, warm and private, where I could let my fingers wander...
Wait. He'd said something to me, some sort of question. I hastily dragged my mind back from the edge of the chasm of thinking about how this creep would look spread out naked on someone's bedsheets.
"What was that? Sorry, I missed the question."
He didn't seem bothered overmuch by my rudeness. "I asked," he repeated, his lips still threatening to curve upward in another smirking little grin, "what's bothering you."
"Why do you think that something's bothering me?" I snapped back, my tone short and my words clipped.
He didn't answer, but just raised an eyebrow. Surprisingly shapely eyebrows, of course, I noted with a resigned sigh.
"Fine," I gave in, sensing that I wouldn't be able to hide such an obvious emotion from him. "I'm bothered because I hate every second of being in this place, and talking to you, and dealing with absolutely everything in my life. How's that for an answer?"
If I'd been hoping to scare him away with this response, it didn't seem to work. "It is pretty warm in here," he admitted. His eyes flicked down to my sweater. "You want to go outside and get some fresh air?"
Was he making some sort of veiled comment about my outfit? I opened my mouth to tell him that I'd worn it on purpose, to communicate how much I didn't want to be here, but decided that it wouldn't help at all. Besides, he was giving me an out.
"Yes, that sounds like a good idea," I said. I turned and stalked away, towards the door, ducking into the crowd to leave him behind.
It didn't work, regrettably. A second later, he caught back up with me, and I muttered a silent curse to my genetics for giving me such short little stubby legs. "That was abrupt," he called out.
"I didn't mean for you to come out and join me." I tried cutting through an especially thick area of the crowd, but it ended up slowing me down more than it did the creep. Annoyingly, he seemed to know just how to tap people on the shoulder so that they automatically moved aside, instead of just turning and frowning down at me when I tried the same thing.
Finally, I hit the exit – and there he was, hitting me with another dose of that smile as he held the door open for me. I scowled back, but it had no effect. But inside my sweater, I could feel beads of sweat starting to trace their way down my skin, and I really did want a deep breath of fresh, clean air.
"So, are you just going to keep following me around like a lost puppy?" I snapped at the creep as he came out after me.
"Perhaps," he replied, shrugging. "I do have a pretty good puppy dog expression, if you want to see it."
"No!" I definitely didn't want to deal with the conflicting feelings of having an utter asshole looking all cute at me. "Look, what will it take to get you to leave me alone?"
He pretended to tap his chin as he considered an answer. "Two things," he finally replied.
"Yeah? What?" He better not ask me to flash him again. If he did, witnesses or no, I was going to kick his nuts up into his throat.
He held up one finger. "First, your name."
I scowled, but he just waited, clearly expecting me to fill the first request before he revealed the second. I took a moment to weigh the two sides.
If I told him my name, that was a bit of personal information that he might otherwise not have. I should definitely give him a fake name. If he was some kind of freaky stalker, a pervert insistent upon raping me or something, he could probably use my real name to track me down and find out where I lived, where I worked, and then he could kidnap me and tie me up in his basement somewhere so that he could do all sorts of horrible things to me over the next decade-
"Hey, Paxton!"
I jumped, turning instinctively at the sound. Anna-Claire had come out of the club a few seconds after me, it seemed, joined by a tall and stately looking fellow in a full three piece suit and vest getup. She gave me a wave, as Mister Fancy Suit turned to hail one of the waiting taxis.
"I'm taking off, now," she called out to me, not realizing that she'd just ruined my plan to stay anonymous. "You're free to go back to your books and bath, now!" Her eyes flicked over to the creep, standing next to me. "Or wherever else you want," she added, giving me a wink before ducking into the backseat of the taxi alongside Mister Fancy Suit.
Still wincing, I turned back to the creep, hoping that maybe he hadn't heard any of that. The little smirk on his face immediately told me otherwise, although he tried to hide it with a blank expression.
"You can still choose not to tell me, if you want," he said, as if that would make any difference now.
I sighed, rolled my eyes. "Paxton," I said. "Paxton Davies." It wasn't like Paxton was a super common name around here, anyway; he'd probably be able to track me down with a Google search anyway.
"Alex Hamilton," he answered, smiling and holding out his hand. I studiously ignored it, and he withdrew it after a second.
I raised my eyebrows at him. "Really? Hamilton? Like the Founding Father?"
"Unfortunately," he returned, with a little sigh that told me this wasn't the first time someone had pointed out the similarity to him. "I don't think that my family's related, though. Our ancestry goes back to somewhere in England."
"Well, you have my name. Now, what's the other thing that I need to tell you so that I can get rid of you?"
"Very direct," he murmured, as if standing here and chatting me could be the slightest bit pleasant for him. I'd been doing my best since he first approached to shut down this conversation, and it was only through his sheer force of will that he'd kept it going this long. "But for the second item, you can tell me what, exactly, you'd clearly rather be doing than standing here outside this club, and why you aren't there."
I tried to glare at him. Really, I did. If I was Superman, he'd be a bubbling little pile of ashes by this point, fried by my laser vision. But I'm not a superhero, and my glare seemed to just slide harmlessly off him, like he was coated with Teflon.
And really, I did want to just unload all my complaints on someone. Why not this total stranger, whom I would never see again?
"Fine," I eventually said. My stomach grumbled. "But is there any chance that I could get a snack out of this, at least?"
Mister Alex Hamilton, Creeper, carefully kept his face neutral. Good. If he'd laughed at me, I might have slugged him. "There's a place around the corner with halfway decent appetizers," he suggested. "Up for walking a block?"
"Sure. Lead the way."
He wasn't lying, at least. Just around the block from the club was a late-night diner, decked out in retro red and white booths, Formica counters, and black and white tile underfoot. We dropped into one of the dozen open booths, and I felt my mouth start to water as I ran my eyes over the menu.
"You're paying," I told him, not intending it to be a question.
He shrugged. "Fine with me, as long as you don't get anything with red onion on it."
The waitress showed up a moment later, smiling down at us in her pink-and-white throwback uniform, a little white apron tied around her waist. "And what can I get for you two?" she asked.
I went down the menu, ordering every appetizer that sounded even vaguely interesting. "Oh, and can you put some raw red onion on top of all of them?" I finished. "Just chop it up and cover everything. Bake some more in, too, if that's possible. I can't get enough of it."
"Funny," Alex remarked as the waitress left.
I grinned back at him, feeling a little better for the first time tonight. "What can I say, I'm a hilarious prankster. You never see me coming. Now, what do I need to tell you?"
"How about why you're acting so bitchy?"
I started to form a hot reply – but I did have to admit that the description seemed to fit me, at least for the last couple hours. Which was funny, because I'm the last person that I'd imagine anyone ever calling bitchy.
"Look, I just want to be at home in my apartment," I said instead, dropping my hands down to lay them flat on the table. "At home, I've got a hot bath, and some wine in an easy-open screw-top bottle, and a whole stack of paperbacks just waiting for my attention." I decided not to mention that they were romances; didn't want this man judging me even more harshly than he probably was already. "I don't want to be out, dealing with loud music and flashing lights and gross, disgusting guys that shout at me to take off my clothes for them."
At least Alex had the decency to wince. "Yeah, I said that I was sorry for that, but I'll say it again. But why were you out in the first place?"
"My friend, Anna-Claire, who shouted out my name as she left. She had an after-work gathering at the club, and she invited me along for moral support."
I waited for Alex to ask about her. That was what everyone tended to do, when they saw the two of us together – or they asked, generally in rather disbelieving tones, how the two of us met each other and first became friends. We weren't the most obvious pair.
But he fastened onto another part of my complaint. "Books, huh?" he echoed. "Anything I might have read? Fantasy stories, superheroes?"
I raised my eyebrows. "Not likely, unless they've got a gorgeous, shirtless man with six-pack abs on the cover."
"Some superhero books do."
I shook my head. "Romances, mostly. My job makes it easy for me to get my hands on plenty of reading material."
Oops. I didn't want to keep on giving him more personal information. I hoped that he'd miss the little thread in that last answer.
He didn't, of course. "What's your job?"
"I work for my uncle's used bookstore."
At that point, our food arrived – and, I noticed to my annoyance, the waitress hadn't followed through on my request for red onion on everything. Alex caught my frown, and although he tried to hide it, I saw that corner of his mouth tug ever so briefly upward. He must have somehow communicated to the woman to countermand my order, sneakily, even though I hadn't seen him do anything.
Creeper.