If someone had told me even two years ago that I would freak out about turning thirty, I would’ve laughed at the absurdity. Age didn’t freak me out. There were worse things in life than growing old.
Like never getting the chance to.
But shit fuckity shit fuck, as it turned out, I was turning thirty and freaking out.
I wasn’t where I wanted to be in life at thirty.
Glancing down at my watch as I poured a customer a draft beer, I sighed. In two hours, it would be midnight and my golden carriage of the twenty-something life was about to turn into a giant, decaying pumpkin.
My early twenties had been fine. I perfected the art of avoiding making real emotional connections with anyone and I was certain that was the way I wanted it. No, needed it. The thought of actually letting someone close enough to me for them to be worth grieving over when I lost them made me suffer full-blown panic attacks.
It was easier to be the friend and not the best friend.
Even my once best friend Rhian thought so. We used to be close in that we didn’t want to let the other too close. It worked for us. It was comforting having her there but not really there. But she married her college boyfriend, James. That changed her and we didn’t really have a lot in common anymore.
The same thing happened with my friend Jo. She worked the bar here with me at Club 39, until Mr. Good-Looking-Arty-Tattoo Guy showed up and she became Mrs. Jo MacCabe. I hadn’t spoken to Jo in … God … I couldn’t even remember how many years it had been.
The guy I was serving lifted his gaze from my breasts and gave me a big, flirtatious smile as I handed him his change. I turned away to deal with my next customer because me and men … yeah … that hadn’t happened in a while.
Like, a depressingly long time.
Like, born-again-virgin long time.
Oh, all right, it had been three years since I’d had sex. There was this incident when I was eighteen … I was sleeping around a lot and I woke up one morning with a guy on either side of me and couldn’t remember how the hell I’d gotten there.
Scary, I know.
So I quit the whole sex thing.
And then when I was in my early twenties, I had a fling with my coworker Craig after a seriously delicious kiss at the bar one night. From then on, I had a one-night stand every few months or so, to curb the need.
Until three years ago when I had a one-night stand with a guy who got extremely clingy afterwards. He started turning up at the bar and watching me. When I asked him to stop, he didn’t, and then I slammed him against the wall, grabbed his balls, and threatened to castrate him if he ever came near me again. Thankfully, he didn’t get off on stalking a woman who wasn’t intimidated by him, and I never saw him again.
So that put me off the whole one-night-stand thing.
I’d been through many a vibrator in the last three years.
God, I missed sex.
Maybe three years was enough time to trust that not every guy was a weirdo stalker.
“You’re quiet tonight, Joss?” my colleague Jeb said to me. “You thinking about writing?”
Jeb was nineteen years old and he thought it was cool that I had a book published. In fact, I’d had several published. Fantasy and paranormal fiction. They did okay. I was nowhere near as successful a writer as I wanted to be. I was currently flirting with dipping my toes into contemporary fiction. When I told Jeb that, he thought that meant I wanted my characters to be disapproving and disdainful.
I really hoped it was a case of mishearing me. I hadn’t the heart to correct him.
Plus, it was funny.
For not the first time that night, I asked myself why the hell I was still working in a club with nineteen-year-olds when I didn’t have to. My writing didn’t pay very much, but I had a huge inheritance. I hadn’t been that comfortable using that inheritance, but I started easing up on that a couple years ago. After five years of living in a student flat, I finally had enough. I was twenty-eight at the time. I needed a respectable home. So, I used a small percentage of my significant inheritance to buy a nice two-bedroom flat in Morningside. I turned the other bedroom into an office.
“So why the heck am I still working here?” I grumbled under my breath.
Oh yeah.
Because without this job, I’d be a hermit and if I wanted to write contemporary fiction, I needed to, you know … experience life. If only through others.
However, over the last year I’d started to fear getting older and ending up alone. I never thought I’d fear that. I was supposed to be happy alone.
Fuckity fuck.
My biological clock was ticking and I had to wonder if ending up alone and childless was scarier than the thought of possibly losing again to that sneaky bastard Death.
Some days I would ache deep in my chest, this horrifying longing for a child gripping me. And then other days the thought of having a child, only to lose it, scared the shit out of me.
I was a tangled mess of yucky emotions and at midnight that mess was going to look a lot messier.
“Jeb, we’re out of lime. Can you get some from the back?”
He nodded and disappeared to do so.
“A fellow American. And a beautiful one to boot,” a deep Southern voice said from my right.
I turned and found myself staring at a tall, blond, very handsome guy. He had green eyes and right now they were focused solely on me. “A fellow American. And a Southern gentleman to boot.”
He held out his hand. “Travis.”
I shook it, getting a little sexual thrill from the strength in his big hand. “Joss.”
“How long have you been in Edinburgh, Joss?”
I glanced down the bar to make sure Jeb was back and dealing with the customer who was waiting. I looked back at Travis. “Twelve years.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Twelve years and you’ve still got your accent?”
It was true I hadn’t picked up any Scottish brogue living here. I think it was because I didn’t spend nearly enough time around Scots unless I was working. And even then, we got an eclectic group of accents coming through Club 39.
“I guess not.”
“I’m here with the U.S. soccer team. I leave tomorrow.” His eyes drifted over me, blatantly sexual. “I can’t believe I’ve been here all week and I’ve only just met you.”
A snort escaped me before I could stop myself. “Really? Does that work for you normally?”
Travis grinned, unabashed. “Usually.”
“Maybe it’s the accent. That drawl probably has them panting for you over here.”
“I’m not going to lie—it definitely does.” He crossed his arms on the bar and leaned toward me so we were almost touching. “Is it working for you at all?”
I considered the handsome American. If I were a soccer fan, I’d probably be wetting my pants about now. And he was heading home tomorrow. Famous soccer player and heading home to America. Those things made me feel pretty certain he wasn’t going to turn into a scary stalker.
At midnight I was turning thirty years old.
Did I want to do that alone?
Surely that would epitomize my fears and everything I had to look forward to in the coming years.
Maybe I should fight that idea. Push my crippling issues aside for one night and have sex with this handsome soccer player to prove that I could change my life!
Before I could really think about it, I blurted out, “Do you want some company your last night in the windy city?”
Travis’s green eyes burned with anticipation. “I would love that.” He reached for a napkin on the bar and leaned over to take the little pencil I had tucked behind my ear. After he’d written on the napkin, he handed both back to me. “My hotel and room number. Stop by when you get off work.”
What the hell was I doing?
“Great.” I gave him a saucy smirk. He laughed.
“Looking forward to it, Joss.”
“See you in a little while, Travis.”
He walked away, joining a group of men who I guessed were teammates. As they were leaving, Travis threw me a smoldering look that should’ve burst my underwear into flames.
Don’t get me wrong, I tingled a little.
I think if my head weren’t so messed up, however, there would’ve been a lot more tingling.
I hated how the mind could mess with the body.
For the rest of the shift I worked in a daze, wondering what the hell I’d been thinking arranging to meet a man at his hotel room after talking to him for … oh, three seconds.
I glanced down at the napkin in my hand. He was staying in a fancy-ass hotel.
So!
Serial killers could stay in fancy-ass hotels.
He’s not a serial killer.
What was my problem? I’d gone back to strange men’s apartments.
That doesn’t make it any better.
Shouldn’t turning thirty bring with it some maturity and common sense?
“You sure you’re okay?” Jeb appeared at my side. He put his hand on my lower back and I tensed. “Su let it slip you’re turning thirty at midnight. That must be rubbish … working and turning thirty. Not having a boyfriend.”
I tried to make him spontaneously combust by mind power alone.
Unfortunately, Jeb wasn’t good at reading a situation. Instead he leaned in closer. “I usually don’t dip my wick into anything older than twenty-five but you’re fit, Joss, and you’ve got great tits. If you want, I’ll sleep with you tonight?”
Did he …
Was I …
Did he just offer me a pity fuck?
Did a nineteen-year-old boy just offer me a pity fuck?
I shuddered and shoved him away. “Ugh, Jeb, you’re a baby. Fuck. Fuck!” I made a face of revulsion and strode away from him before I decided to knee him in the balls.
I was so going to meet yummy soccer man for some sex, if only to cleanse myself of what had just happened.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I hissed at myself as I stood outside Room 343 at 1:30 a.m.
After what Jeb had said to me, I left him to clean up the bar after closing.
Idiot child.
Although now, I was seriously regretting my impulsive decision to come to the hotel to have sex with Travis.
Yes, I was afraid of turning thirty and being alone, something I never thought I’d feel. But wasn’t another one-night stand the exact opposite of what my heart was telling me I wanted?
You don’t know what you want.
Shit.
Feeling suddenly cold—and yes, I admit it, scared—I wrapped my arms around my waist and backed away from the door. I couldn’t go in there. Maybe I was finally growing up because the idea of having sex with a stranger didn’t appeal to me. My body wouldn’t react. At least not in a sexy way.
Decision made, I hurried down the hotel corridor on light feet, breathing a sigh of relief when I stepped into the elevator.
I was exhausted, and ready to sleep away my worries.
To my irritation, the elevator stopped on a ballroom floor. Oh God, please don’t let there be a function going on that involves the soccer team.
That would be just my luck.
Holding my breath, I waited as the elevator dinged as the doors opened. Only one man stood on the other side. A very tall, rugged-as-hell man staring wearily at the floor.
As he stepped inside the elevator, a strange current of electricity zipped down my spine, and all of a sudden I wasn’t exhausted anymore. He was so big, his powerful shoulders stretched the beautiful fabric of his expensive tuxedo as he moved. I felt overwhelmed by him as he filled the space.
I peeked over at him where he leaned against the side of the elevator and ran a hand through his hair. He had a sharp jawline, a cleft chin, wide cheekbones, and a roman nose. Dark stubble shadowed his cheeks and his hair was kind of messy, even before he put his fingers through it. Altogether, his rugged unkemptness seemed at odds with the stylish tuxedo.
And then he lifted his gaze to me; as I froze, he seemed to also.
He had startling pale blue eyes framed by long dark lashes.
He wasn’t classically handsome, but those eyes … gorgeous.
Eyes that instantly sharpened with interest as they moved down my body, lingered over my breasts and legs, before traveling back up to my face.
I felt like all the air had been sucked out of me, and the only way to get the oxygen back was via this man.
Oh boy.