CHAPTER 18
Zoe
To make a long story short, I got my car back in working order. It required help from Mina and a very friendly gas station attendant, plus a little luck, but ultimately come mid-afternoon the following day, it was in tip-top shape — or at least as close to tip-top as that old beater was ever going to get.
But the whole endeavor took us, at final count, around four hours. Four hours! Just to get a car back up and running! Insane. It felt like the entire Midwestern weather cycle, or maybe the entire Midwest period, was against me. Couldn’t I do anything as simple as start a car without encountering a ludicrous issue? I had begun to feel further and further from civilization, as it felt that simply slogging through daily life had become a challenge.
I mention this only so that you can understand how thoroughly excited I was when Dylan texted, asking to meet at the pub. I replied in the affirmative so quickly that it crossed all lines of etiquette. Generally, I hear, the girl is supposed to wait a few hours, maybe even a day if she’s feeling particularly punishing, before at last responding to the man in question. Not me — I was on those texts like white on rice.
Given how things had ended with Dylan the other night, I was also pretty surprised to be receiving word so soon. He had seemed, at least as far as I could reckon, pissed at himself, and possibly pissed at me too. I understood all the reasons why we shouldn’t, but when I thought of those blue eyes and well-defined abs, I found reason quickly evaporating.
At the stroke of seven, I pulled into the parking lot of a dingy joint called O’Reilly’s. Actually, I’m not sure ‘parking lot’ accurately encompasses the area. It was more like a strip of gravel with two cars smattered around it, parked in different directions. It looked a bit like the beginning of the apocalypse, when everyone just abandons their vehicles and tries to outrun the zombies. Or it would’ve, if there’d been more than two cars. Quiet night, I assumed.
O’Reilly’s was equally apocalyptic. The neon sign was all dark, save for the letter E, and several windows were boarded up. I wondered absently whether they too had recently had a break-in, or if the bar was older than window panes. No, that couldn’t be right. And yet, it was the variety of drinking establishment that looked to have been born straight out of the Earth, in the exact condition it now stood. O’Reilly’s fit in perfectly with its forest environment.
I brought my car to a halt and didn’t bother trying to maneuver into any kind of space, for there were none outlined. Slamming the door behind me, I headed into the bar.
It was exactly as a dive bar ought to be — still reeking of the smoke that had once filled the air and had permeated everything. The room seemed to be covered in a kind of perma-haze and lit by flickering bulbs. A pool table stood in the far corner, near a set of dart boards. My boots had trouble peeling themselves off the floor, sticky as they were. There was a long, oak bar stationed in front of a wall of various cheap, off-brand liquors.
And at the bar sat Dylan.
He hadn’t spotted me just yet, and I took advantage of my stealth to momentarily devour him with my eyes. He was turning a toothpick over in his fingers, spinning it from one palm to the next like a mini baton. I stared jealously at the toothpick, wishing I could be manhandled like that.
He’d ditched his jacket for the night — that was new — and instead wore a collared chambray shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing his bulging forearms, and the collar was unbuttoned just one button more than seemed appropriate, displaying his chest. I walked closer and inhaled deeply, the noise caused him to turn.
Dylan looked at me with thinly veiled hunger, and said loudly, “Hey, Zoe!”
There was no need to shout, we were clearly the only two in the place. I gave him a small wave and strode up to the counter.
“Where’s the bartender?” I asked curiously.
“Gone on his smoke break.”
Gone on his smoke break, despite the fact that his occupancy had just doubled? Seemed odd. Then again, given the state of everything else, the owner clearly didn’t have a head for business.
I settled into the stool next to Dylan, a rickety number that threatened to heave a sigh and give out any second now. Our knees brushed under the counter, and my mouth went dry. Keep it professional, I instructed myself. That’s what he wants, he said as much yesterday.
“Hey,” I coughed, stumbling over the drought in my throat.
“You need something to drink?”
“Yeah,” I returned skeptically. “But the bartender’s out.”
Dylan rolled his eyes and grinned. “No need to stand on ceremony in O’Reilly’s.” He scooted out of his seat, and in one smooth motion, hopped over the counter.
“Show off.”
“Only for you,” he shot back, with a wink.
The messages were becoming garbled in my mind. Was he, or was he not, interested in taking things a step further? One minute he couldn’t date me on principle, and the next, he was hitting on me in an abandoned pub on the edge of town. I groaned internally, trying to decode the signals.
His fingers tripped across the shelves of liquor, randomly alighting upon a bottle of good scotch.
“Will this do?” he questioned, holding the clear liquid to the light. “Seems decent.”
I nodded but didn’t reply. I was past the point of pretending to care about anything but getting my hands on Dylan’s cock. He stood with his back to me as he poured out the liquid and I had an opportunity to take in his body from a new angle. He was tall with wide shoulders and his ass filled out his jeans perfectly. I noticed that the jeans were worn enough so that the outline of his wallet had started to fade the back pocket. When he turned around with my drink my eyes were still at the same level and I quickly closed my eyes to make it seem like I wasn’t looking where I wasn’t supposed to be.
“Here you go,” he said with a touch of a smirk, sliding a glass over the counter. He restocked the liquor bottle and leapt over the bar.
“Thanks,” I replied.
Once again, we were sitting knee to knee, and I took a sip of the scotch, hoping that he’d assume my flush was from the alcohol, and not from thoughts of his sumptuous body doing things to me I could barely fathom.
“So,” I began, hoping to deescalate the situation. “What questions did you have for me?”
His eyes focused in like lasers. Would he play my game? Was I even playing a game? His finger trailed the rim of the glass.
“Well,” he returned, “let’s start easy. What’s the last thing you did in the bakery before the break-in?”
I scoffed. “You arrested me.”
“No, before that.”
“I left to get ingredients for a big order. I told you that when I got pulled over, remember?”
“Right, right,” he said pensively. “And is there anyone you think might’ve done it?”
I inched closer to him, only an inch, scraping my ass along the rough vinyl of the stool.
“No,” I replied. “I think, I thought, everyone in town liked me.”
“I’m sure that’s true. They couldn’t help themselves. I mean, look at you.”
I blushed, and hastily forced more liquor down my throat. Not like I needed liquid courage, though. I had Dylan right where I wanted him.
“Is that so?” I asked. “I thought they all saw me as some big city girl who didn’t know jack shit about the way real people lived.”
“Oh, I think you know plenty. About the important stuff, anyways.” As he said this, he too scooted forward on his vinyl seat. Our knees were now interlocking.
“And what, pray tell,” I continued, “will you do when you catch the criminal?”
He grinned, and leaned in. “Well, I imagine I might do a little something like this.”
Without warning, he kicked his stool over, came behind me, and gripped my wrists together between his hands. He hefted my ass in the air as he knocked my stool over as well, leaving us both standing. He pressed himself against my back, leaning me over the bar.
His hard cock was pressed between my ass cheeks. I wanted it badly, so very, very badly, but I wasn’t ready to give up my little game. Especially given how he’d reacted the night before. I was going to make sure that this time, I got exactly what I desired.
He released my wrists and I pushed back against him so I could swivel around. The wooden bar was in the small of my back, and his face was a breath away from my own.
“What happens if the suspect escapes?” I asked, and in the blink of an eye, disappeared in the gap between his arm and his side, thus freeing myself from his captivity.
“Then,” he returned with a twinkle in his eye, “I’ll hunt her down.”
He began to walk to me, forcing me to walk backwards. Our gazes stayed locked, daring the other to make the first move. I felt myself bump into the pool table, and I realized I’d been so focused on Dylan that, unbeknownst to me, we’d traversed the entire bar.
Improvising, and totally dashing all known etiquette, I jumped onto the pool table, and slid onto my hands and knees, arching my ass to the dim fluorescent light that hung overhead.
“And what if,” I questioned, “she’s bad for you?” We’d stopped even pretending to talk about the criminal. “What if she’s not a good idea? What then?”
He’d reached the pool table and put his hands on the paneling as he bent over the green fabric. “I don’t care if she’s good or bad.”
“But she’s a criminal, she’s definitely bad,” I teased. “And besides,” I added, growing a little more serious, “you cared last night.”
“You’re right,” he fired back. “She is a bad, bad girl. And I don’t care anymore. I want her.” He swallowed. “I want you.”
“Then,” I said, “come and take me.”