Justin
Torture.
It was torture being in my empty childhood home with Hadley and my mother.
I’d never been more surprised than when I opened the door and saw her standing there, professional and sexy as fuck. Pencil skirts were officially on the top of my list of things I wanted to peel off her body. But then, even though I was expending all my energy trying not to imagine her naked, my mom showed up and so did most of my urge to press her up against the wall and kiss her senseless—most of it, anyway.
No, being with Hadley and my mother was a wholly different experience. I wanted to introduce them, tell my mother everything impressive thing I knew about Hadley, tell Hadley how great of a mother I had. I wanted them to get along, to like each other, with a ferocity I hadn’t felt before.
I’d never brought a woman home to meet my parents. Not since high school when your parents met your dates out of necessity because you needed them to give you rides to and from the mall or the movies.
No, my mother had never met a woman I’d been interested in. Mainly because I’d never been interested in a woman long enough to bring her home. Like Hadley had so eloquently stated—I spent one night with a woman and then I said goodbye.
I was going to do everything in my power to never say goodbye to Hadley, though.
“Any particular place you’d like to go?”
“Preferably someplace close by so we can get off this freeway,” she said, eyes glued to the road.
“I know just the place.” I took the next exit that took us into the Hollywood district of Portland. I navigated my big SUV through the streets, cursing the giant rig. I’d gone to college in Texas—not my best decision—and driving a big truck or SUV was almost expected there. No one gave you a second look for it. Here, though, one of the greenest cities around, where people took bike riding and recycling to a seriously obsessive level, this SUV got me a lot of dirty looks.
Parallel parking was usually out of the question, and I’d try like hell to find a parking garage if I could, but I knew there weren’t any nearby. Luckily, I found a spot at the end of a block, so I was able to pull in effortlessly instead of embarrassing myself by trying to maneuver the rig into a tight spot.
I put the SUV in park, turned off the ignition, and faced her. “I only have one question: do you like themed bars?”
“Themed bars? You mean, like, biker bars?”
I smiled at her but didn’t answer. Instead, I opened my door and hopped out, making my way over to her side. I opened her door and held my hand out, watching as she hesitated before taking it. Once she was safely on the ground next to me, I reluctantly let her hand go. I wanted her to enjoy our time together, not piss her off by taking liberties. My hands had been on every part of her body the other night, but in this moment, she wasn’t giving me the same permission. I’d have to earn it again and I was determined to do just that.
I gestured in the direction we were heading and took the lead, making sure I was between her and the street—an old habit my mother had drilled into me. I wasn’t into oppressing women, and I was fairly certain Hadley could handle anything that came her way, but much like the way I wasn’t going to let her get into a car with a stranger if I could help it, I was going to protect her from anything I could, so I’d stand closer to the street. She either didn’t realize what I was doing, or she didn’t care, because she just stormed on in her fucking sexy heels.
“Right in here,” I said after half a block, pressing my hand lightly against her back between her shoulder blades.
She gave me a questioning glance.
“Trust me,” I said with a smile that occurred naturally.
She sighed and I pulled the door to the bar open.
The red tint washed over us, as did the fog coming from the man-made volcano to the left. We walked over a wooden bridge and I led her to the back of the bar, watching with amusement as her eyes took in one of my favorite bars in Portland. Hale Pele was a Hawaiian-themed bar, volcano included, with palm fronds and pineapple drinks galore. The walls were lined with bamboo and lit candles sat on every table to offset the darkness.
There was an empty booth all the way at the end of the wall, so I led her there, indicating she should slide in first. The booth was a semi-circle and could probably fit five people comfortably, but instead of sliding into the opposite side, I sat right next to her, purposely ignoring the irritated huff that came out of her when I did.
“This is one of my favorite bars,” I said over the loud music, leaning closer to her so she could hear me.
“It’s charming,” she replied with no small amount of sarcasm.
“What? Riley and Camden are in Hawaii. Now we can pretend we are too. In fact, they’d probably be jealous if they knew we were here.”
Hadley gave me a look that said, “Oh, please,” and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Okay, maybe the real thing is better than fake Hawaii, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
She raised one eyebrow at me, then swiped the menu out of the holder in the middle of the table.
“Oooh,” she cooed, voice softer than it had been since I opened my door to her an hour earlier. “It’s happy hour.”
“Indeed. The best hour of the entire day.”
She shrugged with one shoulder, eyes never leaving the menu. “Meh, maybe.”
“You like another hour better?”
“I like the hour I spend in the bath almost every night.”
The one thing I didn’t need when I was trying my hardest not to perv all over Hadley was the visual of her in the bathtub.
“For both our sakes I’m going to assume you bathe fully clothed.”
She smirked but didn’t respond otherwise, just went on perusing the menu. I kept my eyes on her for a moment, taking the opportunity to look my fill, when I was interrupted by our waiter.
“Good evening, welcome to Hale Pele. Are you familiar with the menu, or would you like a run-down of what we offer?”
“Run-down, please,” Hadley replied, her voice even softer than it had been a minute ago. She was also smiling at our waiter, although I didn’t think he was her type. He looked like an IT nerd who pulled a Hawaiian shirt off the floor of his closet. He was skinny with black hair, almost emo-looking. He looked like a nice enough guy, but Hadley was far, far out of his league. In addition to that, she must not have been on his radar at all because with the amount of flirt she was throwing his way, he didn’t even bat an eyelash. He was friendly, but definitely not picking up on the fact that she was turning on the charm.
I knew she was doing it just to aggravate me, but I also knew I couldn’t let her see it was working. The best way, it seemed, to get Hadley’s attention was to act uninterested, which was the exact opposite of what I was feeling. I was more than interested. I was invested.
The waiter took her through the menu, which was involved, and let her know about the happy hour specials.
“I’ll take a shark’s tooth, please,” she said sweetly, still smiling at the waiter.
“Good choice,” he replied, then focused his attention on me.
“The same, please.”
“Awesome, I’ll be back with those shortly.”
A silence fell over the table and it was a bit uncomfortable. I hated that there was awkwardness between us. There were so many things I wanted to say to her, but I knew I had to rein myself in, keep myself if check, because Hadley was a runner.
“So, how’d you get into staging houses?”
Her hand came up and pushed some of her blond locks behind her ear and I noticed the diamond stud winking at me from her earlobe. It wasn’t ostentatious. They were tasteful and just so Hadley. She was beautiful, sparkling, and stood out in a crowd, but not overbearingly so. When she was around, you couldn’t help but notice her beauty.
“I wanted to be an interior designer, went to school for it, actually, but didn’t like the restrictions.”
“What restrictions?” I asked, genuinely confused. Granted, I wasn’t really in tune with interior designers, but I’d never heard anyone talk about restrictions in the trade before.
“Well, generally when someone hires an interior designer they already know what they like or what they want, they’re just hiring someone to make it look nice and do all the legwork. A designer is usually given a color palette or even specific criteria to work within. And that’s fine, it can be a fun and fulfilling job sometimes, but I like more control. When people hire me to stage their houses, they’re not looking for something that fits their taste, they just want their house sold. There’s a lot more freedom there.”
“Makes sense.” I nodded. “You like adding your own touch.”
“I like being able to make the best decision for the house. I don’t stage every house to my own personal preference. I stage it to sell. Even though someone hires an interior designer to work on their space, it doesn’t mean it’s always the best look for the house. Each house or space has its own story to tell.”
“You would know better than I would,” I replied honestly. “It sounds interesting.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “It pays the bills.”
“But you enjoy it, right?”
“Best job I ever had,” she said with a smile.
“Here you go,” the waiter said as he put our drinks down. “I’ll be back in a while to check on you.”
“To making houses look great,” I said, lifting my glass.
Hadley gave me a warry look for a moment, then lifted her glass and clinked it against mine. We both took sips, but it was Hadley who spoke next.
“Holy cow, those are strong,” she said, stirring the concoction with her straw, making the fruit inside it swirl around.
“They don’t make weak drinks here,” I replied, laughing.
“Apparently not.” She brought her lips to the straw again and I watched as they wrapped around it, pursed, and I had to look away. After a moment or two she spoke again. “So, what made you want to become a lawyer?”
“Family trade.” I shrugged.
“Your family trade is entertainment law?” She sounded unconvinced.
“No, just law in general. My dad is a lawyer, his dad, his dad, and so on. It was just accepted that I would become a lawyer. My grandfather was less than impressed when I took a job as an entertainment lawyer, but I didn’t care enough to make a different decision.”
“Why’d you choose entertainment?”
I took my time answering for two reasons. One, that was the first genuine question she’d asked me since I met her. Well, except for Vegas. Other than the one night of random openness and sharing, everything else had been surface-level. Skin-deep. Which led me to reason two; I didn’t want to give her a lame reason. I could just shrug and give her a shitty response, but I wanted her to have the truth from me.
“The truth is I took a lot of theatre classes in college and met a lot of people who would spend their life in poverty for their art.” I looked down at my drink, trying to play my answer off as meaningless. “I never wanted to be an entertainer, just liked the rush of being on stage, but my friends were going into that life and I saw them struggle. Even when I had enrolled in law school and my former classmates were trying to make it in the acting world, they complained to me all the time about contracts and being taken advantage of…” I shrugged again. “I just wanted to be able to help. Thought at least if I went into entertainment law I’d be able to help the people who were actually living their dreams.”
“Somehow you don’t strike me as the settling type.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said, then took a small sip of her drink, “you seem like the kind of guy who wouldn’t become a lawyer just because his family wanted him to.”
“It was a little more complicated than that.”
“Enlighten me,” she said, a small smile coming over her face.
“My grandpa left a trust for me, but I could only collect it if when I turned thirty I had a law degree. My parents paid for college, but only if I got a law degree and only if I signed a contract stating I’d pay them back when I turned thirty and collected.”
I kept my face stoic as her smile faded and a look of irritation came over her features. “Your parents made you become a lawyer and then forced you to pay them back?”
Obviously, that pissed her off and I couldn’t help but feel a little glee at the idea of her being protective of me.
“I haven’t paid them back yet. I don’t turn thirty until next year.”
“Oh, well, in that case…” She swallowed an angry sip of her drink. “That’s pretty shitty.”
“I don’t mind paying my own way.”
“It’s not your way, though. You didn’t choose to be a lawyer. They forced it on you.”
“Never said I didn’t want to be a lawyer.”
Her shoulders jerked back a little, almost as if I’d shoved her with my words.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t want to be a lawyer,” I said with a faint smile.
Her shoulders sagged with what seemed like relief at my words. “What did you want to be?”
“I’m not sure exactly.” I let out a breath and leaned back in the booth, letting my arm drop behind her shoulders. “I thought about getting into animation. I always liked to draw and only got into theatre to learn about spoken word and dialogue.”
Hadley blinked at me a few times, clearly unable to process my words.
“What? Not expecting that?”
“No,” she said, almost a whisper.
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Had.” I lifted my glass and moved the pineapple garnish out of the way to take a long sip, hoping my words would sink in.
“Do you draw tentacle porn?”
I choked on my drink, sputtering loudly, but managed to swallow it down before more than a dribble got past my lips. I quickly grabbed a napkin and wiped my chin. “What?” I asked, still trying to hold back a coughing fit.
“Tentacle porn. It’s pretty popular.”
“Wow.” I stared at her, hoping for some sort of explanation, but she gave me nothing, just took another drink with her perfect mouth wrapped around the straw. “What the hell is tentacle porn?”
“Japanese pornographic anime where, usually, a female engages in sexual intercourse with some sort of creature with tentacles. Sometimes an alien, but usually some sort of octopus.” She wrapped her lips around her straw and took a sip, blinking at me as though she hadn’t just spoken the weirdest sentence ever strung together in the history of forever.
I tilted my head at her and narrowed my eyes.
“You seem pretty informed on the subject.”
“Jasper showed it to me one day,” she said, shrugging one shoulder.
I nodded, thinking about Jasper and getting to know him a little while in Vegas. He was a nice guy, but a little on the unpredictable side. It made sense he’d tell Hadley about something as strange as tentacle porn. I’d file that little tidbit away for later. “No. I don’t draw tentacle porn. Or any kind of porn for that matter.”
“Well, what do you draw then?”
“Mostly superhero stuff. You know, supervillain versus superhero. Villain endangers city, hero swoops in and saves the day.”
“Are there any heroines involved? Or can only boys play?”
“There’s a fair representation of the sexes” was my answer, but I didn’t volunteer specifics. I definitely didn’t tell her I’d drawn her countless times since the first time I saw her. That wouldn’t work in my favor.
Both our eyes went to the door as a group of people barged in, all laughing and yelling, obviously jovial and ready for drinks. Pretty much anyone would look out of place in the Hawaiian themed bar, but Hadley and I looked like especially sore thumbs in our work clothes.
“This is a good bar for people watching,” Hadley said, drawing my gaze back to her. She nodded her head toward the group of people who had just entered. “Sometimes I watch people and make stories up about them. They look like they might have climbed out of a Volkswagen van. Cross-country wanderers. Vagabonds.”
I turned my head to assess the group again and found I agreed with her. The men had shoulder-length, stringy hair, and the women were wearing flannel in the middle of summer.
“Or they’re regular Portland hipsters. Home-grown or implants. Full-time day-wasters.”
“Someone’s salty.”
She smirked and I had to adjust the way I was sitting, not wanting my half-erect penis getting uncomfortable. Looking at her lips was always a bad idea, but something about Hadley insulting me and smiling about it got my blood pumping. Regular insults weren’t good—I didn’t want her angry at me. But playful insults? Flirty insults? Those were my absolute favorite kind.
“I don’t find idleness attractive. I’m a fan of relaxing, of taking a break, but only after you’ve worked for it.”
“So, you think those people over there—even though you’ve never spoken a word to them ever—are lazy bums?”
I pried my gaze away from Hadley and her sexy smile and gave the group of loud patrons another look.
“Yup.” My answer was just that one word and I delivered it just before I took a long swig of my drink.
Her eyes narrowed, but the corner of her lip quirked up, clearly trying to hide a smile.
“Is that why you go to basketball games so often? To unwind from your taxing work schedule?”
I laughed softly, inwardly celebrating that Hadley had kept track of at least one part of my schedule. The fact that she knew Camden had frequently taken me to Renegades games before he met Riley was a point in the win column.
“I work long hours, so yes, I feel like I deserve those games. But, to be honest, I haven’t been to as many since Riley came along. They met in the middle of basketball season and my games were few and far between.”
“Poor baby,” she crooned, mock sympathy dripping from her words.
“Hey, we both probably lost a lot of best friend time when they hooked up. And from what I’ve been told, that’s your fault.”
“Me?” she exclaimed, laughing the word out.
“Weren’t you the one who gave him her last name?”
“Ah, yes. Guilty, I suppose. And I have lost a lot of Riley time, but it’s been worth it to see her so happy.” Her voice became wistful and soft, as did her eyes. In the tiniest, infinitesimal fractions, she was slowly opening up to me, letting me see her with less and less of a shield.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Their happiness is pretty potent.”
“Right?” She laughed again and my fingers itched to reach out and touch her hand, or run through her hair, anything. Any contact would do.
“Do you guys want to order anything to eat? Or would you like another round?” Our waiter’s words snapped us both out of the conversation and I would have paid him to disappear, but surprisingly Hadley lifted her glass just slightly.
“I’ll take another,” she said sweetly, but the flirty tone she’d used earlier was gone.
“Me too,” I added. “Want something to eat? It’s about dinnertime. My treat.”
She looked at me for a moment, seeming to weigh her options, but then relented and picked up the happy hour menu table-topper. After a few short moments she said, “I’ll take the Aloha Sliders.”
“I’ll take an order, too,” I said, giving our waiter a polite nod.
“I’ll get your drinks right now and bring the food as soon as it’s ready,” he said, then walked toward the bar.
“You’re a copycat,” Hadley said after he was out of earshot.
“It’s not my fault you keep ordering the best things on the menu.”
She laughed but didn’t say anything more, just fidgeted with her straw some more, swirling it around, the ice clinking against the glass. The silence between us, although it wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable at that point, made me nervous and it was desperation that forced out my next words. “I had a really great time with you in Vegas.”
It became immediately obvious my words had been a mistake. The wall I’d watch her slowly let down in the last half hour was instantly back in place, just as high and impenetrable as before. Her shoulders went back, spine straight, and her smile disappeared.
“That can’t happen again.”
“Which part?” The words slipped out before I even realized I’d said them.
“All of it.”
“Listen, the way I see it, there’s no harm in hanging out. I’m not asking for you to move in with me or introduce me to your parents. Why can’t we just go out on a date—a real date—and see what happens?” I watched as she shut down further, her arms crossing over her chest, back pressing into the seat behind her.
“I don’t date.”
“You don’t date?”
“No. I go out. I meet people. I go home with them. Which, I might remind you, is what happened in Vegas.”
“It was a little more complicated than that,” I started, but she jumped in before I could continue.
“No. It was Vegas. We were drunk. Drunken hook-ups are what Vegas is famous for.”
“Drunken hook-ups?”
Her eyes looked around at anything but me and she drawled out the word, “Yeah… drunken hook-ups. One-night stands. No-strings-attached sex.”
“That’s what you think happened in Vegas?” How could we both have such different views of what had transpired between us?
“Listen, Justin,” she began, relaxing a little, her clasped hands coming to rest on top of the table, but far enough from mine to make it clear she didn’t want me touching her. “Vegas was a mistake. I don’t make a habit of hooking up with people I’ll be forced to see afterward. I almost made that mistake at the gala, but it was obvious you didn’t want a one-night stand, so I walked away. Had I been sober in Vegas, I probably would have walked away again. I love Riley and I can’t risk making things uncomfortable. We’ll be seeing each other a lot now that our best friends are married. Do you want it to be awkward? Let’s just pretend it never happened and move on.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear but wouldn’t meet my gaze.
Her words were sure and firm, and I knew she thought she was putting on a good show. Her practiced and polished façade of being untouchable and unmoving was almost convincing, but I knew there was more to what she was saying, a deeper level she wasn’t unearthing. Yet. This wasn’t worried about being awkward around each other—things were only awkward when she was withholding herself from me. Both physically and emotionally. My mind immediately flashed back to Vegas when, for one night, Hadley was unencumbered, flying high, and living life. Most importantly, she had let me in, let me past the wall I was currently up against. I couldn’t figure out what the difference was between that night in Vegas and any number of nights we could have here in Portland. A piece of the puzzle was missing.
There were a few things I was sure of in that moment: Hadley believed every word she said, she wasn’t telling me the whole story as to why she wanted to leave things between us as just friends, and I was going to do everything in my power to convince her we were better off together.
“Wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” I answered coolly.
A weak smile crossed her face and then the waiter set down our second round.
“Should only be a few more minutes until the sliders are done.”
“Thanks,” I said with a nod.
Hadley gave him a weak smile and he turned, making his way to the table next to us.
“We can be friends, right?” Hadley asked, her voice soft and unsure.
“Sure. We can be friends.”
I wasn’t sure if she believed me, but then again, I wasn’t trying to convince her. I didn’t even believe myself.