“Fuck. Me.”
I blinked awake to see Katie blinking down at me, the sheet clutched around her body.
“Are you asking?” I wondered, clearing my throat and trying to wake up properly enough to assess if I was threatened and needed to hightail it out of there.
“Tell me… Goddammit.” She risked dropping the sheet to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“You’d know better than me where to start,” I told her. “You’re the one who showed up at the bar already drunk.”
She squinted at me. “What? I was at the bar?”
“Wow.” I gave her a slow clap in lieu of a round of applause. “I, Ace Black, legally and ethically do not want to even ask you how you got there if you can’t even remember doing so.”
“Jesus Christ.” Katie sat heavily in the ratty armchair by the desk. “If this isn’t the worst day of my life, it is definitely in the top three.”
“We didn’t do anything, if that’s what you’re implying,” I said, ignoring the spike of indignation that rose inside of me.
“You don’t have to lie, and you’re under no obligation to make me feel any better.”
“I’m not lying,” I said, sitting up and blushing a little, remembering that I’d kicked my jeans off before climbing in bed last night. Damn. I never thought I’d see the day when I was actually embarrassed the morning after, even if nothing had happened.
“You’re in your underwear, and I woke up naked and hungover,” Katie said. “I’m not stupid.”
“No, just prone to drunken blackouts,” I said, trying to regain some of my dignity. I’d been a gentleman, dammit, and being insulted was the thanks I got?
“Thanks for the reminder,” she said, sarcastic.
“You want to know what happened?” I asked, feeling brutal since she was right in the middle of emotionally brutalizing me. “Okay. You showed up at the bar. You were happy to see me. You were already drunk, but you made me keep pouring you shots. I got you to promise not to take your bike back to the motel when you wanted to leave, but Katie”
“How do you know my name?” she demanded, her face white as the sheet she clutched around her naked body.
“I checked your ID, at the bar.”
“What? I’d been drinking there for days.”
“Why do you hate the idea of me knowing your name? You know mine, after all. I don’t think there’s anything super terrible about Katie. It suits you.”
“Did I tell you anything else?” she asked, her voice shaking as she tried to keep it light.
“Only that you wanted me to fuck you six ways till Sunday.”
She gaped. “I did not.”
“You wanted me to take you in the bathroom at the bar, but I convinced you to wait until the motel, so I could get you home safely. You talked briefly about…what was it called? Edging?”
“What the fuck.” Katie hit her forehead with a tightened fist. “What the fuck.”
“It was because I told you I was into delayed gratification, because I didn’t want to sleep with you,” I said.
“That’s what I’d call insult to injury,” she muttered, looking away.
“Don’t get me wrong,” I said quickly. “I would, under any other circumstances, be really into you. Be completely up for it. But not when you were so drunk last night. And acting…out of character.”
“You don’t even know me well enough to understand if I’m acting out of character,” she said, exasperated.
“I know I don’t. That’s why I didn’t, why I couldn’t…”
“I do, however, know enough about you to understand that you were acting out of character by not sleeping with me,” she said. “Why didn’t you fuck me last night?”
“I couldn’t. I just couldn’t do it.”
“Why? I told you I wanted to do it, apparently. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I want to know you better,” I said. “I want to know whether you’re truly acting out of character. I want to know more than just your name. I want to…goddammit, I have feelings for you. I care about you.”
Katie’s face had frozen in a mask of fury and horror. “Get out. Get out of my room. Now.”
I pulled on my jeans. “What did I say wrong? Isn’t that something women want to hear from men? No?”
“Leave me alone!”
“I’m going.”
I grabbed my boots and stepped quickly out the door, resolving to put them on out in the parking lot rather than risk the considerable ire of Katie by delaying my departure even a few seconds more.
I was ready to make my escape, striding toward my motorcycle, boots on feet, when the door opened behind me.
“Um, Ace?”
I turned, hating myself for the surge of hope that shot through me. Katie had thrown on an oversized T-shirt, but I couldn’t be sure what she was wearing under it… Ugh, why did I care? I just wanted to get out of there.
“You, um, don’t happen to know where I might’ve left my purse last night, do you?”
“I was a little bit preoccupied with you last night, not your belongings,” I said pointedly. “You vomited like two gallons of liquid. It’s not around your room anywhere?”
“Not that I see,” she said, sounding sheepish. “And that would explain the taste in my mouth. And almost the damp clothes hanging up over the shower rod.”
“You puked down the front of yourself, as soon as we got into the room,” I said. “I just rinsed them out really quick, after I got your hair washed.”
“You…washed my hair.”
“Which also had puke in it.”
I looked at her, her head lowered in shame, and softened a little. She’d piled her red hair in a messy knot on top of her head, and that big T-shirt practically screamed “property of an ex-boyfriend.” It nearly hung to her shapely knees, and I again tried not to guess if she had shorts or panties or anything on underneath it. There was no point in guessing. Guessing would only lead me to trouble, and I just needed to go.
“Would you look in your car?” she asked, plaintive.
“You mean on my bike?”
“Bicycle?”
“Motorcycle.” I rolled my eyes.
“Wouldn’t be on that,” she said, rubbing her face. “Would it.” It wasn’t a question. It was a flatly put assumption, like she had already resigned herself to the fact that she would never see her purse again.
“I’ll check at the bar,” I offered. “You might’ve left it there. You were drunk enough.”
She sighed and her shoulders sagged. “Don’t even bother.”
“I don’t mind, and it’s no bother.”
“It won’t be there.”
“You never know.”
“It’s a purse. If I left it at a bar overnight, it’s not going to be there in the morning. No point obsessing about it.”
I laughed. “That’s a pretty low opinion of my bar.”
“Can I enjoy my hangover in peace, please?”
“I was just going.” I tipped an imaginary hat to her and swung a leg over my bike, not even looking back as I zoomed out of the parking lot.
I didn’t go right back to the bar, though. I steered my handlebars to some wide-open roads, just to feel the wind in my hair, the sun on my skin. What in the hell had happened to me? I wasn’t used to being so unsure of myself, but Katie really threw me for a loop. It felt good to be out on a ride, even if the tires rolling on the pavement didn’t give me any clear answers about how I should proceed.
It was already past noon by the time I got to the bar.
“Hey!” I called, letting myself in through the front door. “Brody? Jack? Anyone here yet?”
“Office!” Jack’s answer floated out to me from the back of the bar.
I left my helmet on the bar and walked over to the open door, next to the bathrooms. It wasn’t the most glamorous place for the office, but it worked. “What are you up to?”
“Just waiting for you to get here so you could debrief.” Jack looked up from a spreadsheet he’d been going over with a highlighter. “How’d last night go?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Nothing?” The raised eyebrows told me he didn’t believe me.
“I got her back to her motel, where she proceeded to vomit everywhere.”
Jack winced. “Bad luck.”
“Good luck, actually. I didn’t want to sleep with her.”
“See, this is the part you’re going to have to really explain to me. Use small words. Pretend I’m an idiot, or at least someone who doesn’t understand how you could let a sure thing get away like that.” Jack studied me. “Chuck thinks you’re in love with her.”
“I heard that,” I said with a grimace. “I don’t…well, I don’t know what to say.”
A sharp intake of breath. “You are in love with her. Ace, how did this happen?”
“How does anything happen?” I asked, shrugging. “This isn’t the worst thing that has ever happened to me.” Not even close. It perhaps ranked up there as one of the most confusing things to ever happen to me, though, so there was that.
“You don’t even know who she is,” Jack said, a pinched, pained look on his face. “How could you fall in love with her?”
“Well, her name’s Katie Kelley,” I said. “Found out at least that much last night.”
“Seriously. What do you even know about her?”
“Name’s Katie. She’s from Albuquerque. Can’t hold her tequila. Likes motorcycles.”
“What is she doing in Rio Seco?”
“She’s on vacation.”
“To Rio Seco, though, Ace? Really? That doesn’t raise a flag for you?”
“I found my way to Rio Seco. I figure other people can, too. I’m not some special snowflake.”
“Okay. But why did she come on to you last night?”
“She was drunk.”
“And this morning?” He eyed me critically. “How did this morning go?”
“She was back to her old, charming self,” I said. “She was shocked we didn’t sleep together. She thought I was lying to her, at first, but I cleaned her up and took care of her and, I swear to God, nothing happened.”
“I wished something had happened between the two of you,” Jack muttered. “Nothing this morning?”
I shook my head. “Just traded a few barbs before I left. Why?”
“If you’d slept with her, you would’ve been over her.”
“Jack…I don’t know if that’s going to work this time. There’s something different about her.”
“Different how?”
“I guess these feelings. I don’t know.”
“Just get over her,” he urged me.
“Why?” Suspicion had been building in me since the beginning of this conversation. Honestly, it felt like Jack was grilling me. He liked a good story about a hook-up, but nothing like the level of detail he was demanding or the criticism he was giving me.
“Because you don’t know anything about her. Because she’s been a bitch to you. I don’t know. Maybe she’s not who she says she is.”
I laughed at him. “Bud, she hasn’t said who she is at all. What is this? Please don’t tell me you’re jealous because I’m in love with a woman, for once in my life. You’ll still be number one, just don’t let Katie know.”
“Just don’t want to see you get hurt, Ace,” Jack said.
“I’m a grown man. I can handle a little heartbreak.” But imagining Katie deciding that she didn’t want to have anything else to do with me and riding off into the sunset on her motorcycle didn’t give me any pleasure. In fact, it made me panic a little. I didn’t want to lose her. I wanted her to like me. I wanted…dammit, well, I wanted a lot of things, and I was puzzled about everything especially Jack’s reaction.
“I’m looking for her purse, by the way,” I said. “You haven’t seen it lying around here anywhere, have you? Should I wait until Brody gets here?”
“No, I think I found it. She left it on the back of the barstool, right?”
“I mean, I figure so.”
“Here.” Jack swung it over to me.
“I’m glad you found it and set it aside,” I said, hefting the bag in my hand. It was surprisingly heavy for a purse, but I really wasn’t an expert on the subject. Women could carry bricks around in their purses for all I knew. And maybe it would be a good idea to. They could lift weights and have a readily available weapon within reach at all times.
“Yeah, about that…” Jack trailed off awkwardly, bringing a hand to his mouth to gnaw at his fingernails. “Maybe you should sit down for this, Ace.”
“You know, I should really get this to her,” I said. “She was pretty worried about it going missing. She thought someone probably stole it.”
“That’s kind of insulting to the bar, don’t you think?” he asked, cocking his head.
“That’s what I told her. I told her it would turn up.”
“Yeah, and that’s just the thing I should mention to you…”
“Can it wait?” I asked. “Because I’d really, really like to save the day on this one. She is really not happy with me, and I think it’s because I’m such a gentleman I know, the nerve of me.” Jack was staring at me, looking like he didn’t even know where to start. “But I think that if I bring her the purse, I can maybe wriggle my way back into her good graces. Okay, there’s no ‘back’ about it, I would potentially be in her good graces for the first time ever.”
Jack peered at me. “You really have it bad for this girl, don’t you?”
“Would you hate me if I said I did? Kick me out of the club?”
“It takes a unanimous vote to kick a member out of the club,” he said. “Just…be careful, Ace.”
“I think I can handle Katie Kelley and whatever feelings I might have for her,” I said, even if I didn’t feel sure of that at all. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
“All right.”
I stepped outside and nearly ran right in to Katie, who’d been walking up the sidewalk on her way in the bar.
“Oh, hi,” I said. “Sorry. You okay?”
“Just hungover,” she said, pointing at the over-large sunglasses obscuring most of her face. “Isn’t pretty right now.”
“I can’t imagine you feel very good. I saw how much alcohol went into you and how much came back out.”
She held up a finger, apparently gathering her composure. “Not helpful.”
“Sorry.”
“Is the bar open yet?”
I whistled appreciatively. “Hair of the dog? I could make you a Bloody Mary, if you think it would help. Bar won’t be officially open until a little later.”
“Please don’t talk about alcohol right now.” Katie looked a little green around the gills. “I was here to ask if you’d found my purse, by chance.”
“I have it right here,” I said, hefting it. “See? No one walked off with it. I was going to take it to you, though, at your oh, God. Did you walk all the way here from the motel?”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t that far.”
“Katie, you’re hungover. It must’ve been torture.”
“I’m just glad to have my purse back,” she said.
“I’m glad you have it back, too.” I smiled. “Just wish you felt a little better.”
She pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head and rubbed her eyes as if the very sight of me hurt her. “Stop. Just…this is… You are being really nice to me.”
She’d been pissed that I hadn’t slept with her when she had been blackout drunk, and now she was even angrier that I’d been ready to return her purse to her? I really, really didn’t know how to play this. I had been so convinced that my game with the opposite sex was foolproof, and Katie Kelley had made me feel like nothing but a fool since the very beginning. I just couldn’t get a read on her, couldn’t anticipate anything, couldn’t fathom why the things I was doing were causing the reactions I was getting from her.
“You’re making me feel like being nice to you is a mistake,” I said carefully, crossing my arms over my chest. “But that doesn’t make sense. It makes sense to be nice to people. Being nice is easier than being mean.”
“Are you speaking for yourself?”
“No, I’m speaking for humans in general. It’s easier to smile than to frown. Easier to be nice than mean. Feels better. Ensures better outcomes.”
“Just…don’t pay any attention to me, if it bothers you,” she said.
“But that bothers me, too,” I said. “What am I doing wrong, here, Katie?”
“You’re trying to interact with me like I’m a normal human being, and I’m not,” she said. “I’m a tangled mess of bullshit. Just…just don’t even bother with me. I’m not worth the effort.”
I frowned at her. “Don’t say that.”
“I said it, and I’ll say it again. I’ve been nothing but rude to you, and you’ve been nothing but nice to me. Stop trying. I’m…I’m broken. I’m not worth whatever you’re trying to do.”
I heaved a laugh. “I’m not trying to do anything.”
“Do you…ugh, God, I can’t believe I’m doing this…do you want like a hand job? A gratitude hand job? Something?”
I burst out laughing, holding my stomach, in sudden and very dire danger of pissing my pants. Laughter that hard.
“You really don’t owe me anything.”
“Are you sure? Because I really feel like I do. To make up for… I don’t know. Something. Everything.”
I thought for a minute. “Okay. If you really think you need to do something, I have something. Only if you want to.”
Katie bit her bottom lip. “You deserve some kind of reward. Lay it on me.”
“Let me take you out on a date.”
She wrinkled her nose, the surprise showing me that she hadn’t expected that one.
I held my hands up. “Only if you want to, and not until you’re feeling back to normal.”
“I gave you a free pass, and you just want a date?”
“Are you going to give me a chance?” I asked. “No pressure, of course.”
Katie heaved a sigh. “Okay. All right. You’ve earned it, Ace. I guess… Should I give you my number? Meet you somewhere in a couple of days? Show up at the bar when I’m ready?”
“Whatever you want,” I said. “Just come by the bar tomorrow or whenever you’re feeling better. Have you ever had a two-day hangover?”
“I have.”
“Well, just listen to your body and let me know.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t expect you to be so…nice.”
I smiled. “Just wait.”