My gaze flicked past Zach, to where Kyler was, still with Sexy Sasha. He wasn’t paying any attention to her now, though. Instead he was staring at me like he was seconds away from getting up and storming across the bar and telling me I was up past my bedtime.
He wouldn’t dare.
Kyler’s eyes narrowed.
He would.
A couple of months ago, while out celebrating my birthday and during one of the very rare times I did drink, he’d made me go home before I even got to the second Sex on the Beach, citing something along the lines that the crowd at the club was getting too rowdy.
Anger and frustration swirled, mixing with the shot of tequila. Kyler said I didn’t know how to have fun. I was apparently as interesting as a statistics formula on a Monday. Maybe that was kind of true. At that moment, part of me wanted to go back to the house and pick up the book I was reading. Maybe eat some buttery popcorn, too. Oh, and I’d brought that pair of fuzzy socks that were so toasty and—
“Sydney?”
Out of all the crazy moments to think about Nathan Balers, he popped into my head right then. I hadn’t really thought about him in over a year. He’d been my only real boyfriend, the guy I’d dated for two years in high school and most of my freshman year in college.
Looking back, I couldn’t say if I’d been in love with him or not. At the time, it’d seemed like it. The only guy I’d been interested in other than Nate had been off-limits—still was—and Nate had been it for me. Patient. Funny. Smart. Cute. While we’d done other things—namely me doing other things so I didn’t feel like the crappiest girlfriend in the world—we’d waited until our freshman year in college to have actual sex.
It hadn’t been something to write home about. And apparently it hadn’t been for him either. The sex hurt, and when it stopped hurting and had started to almost feel good, it was over. Nate had broken up with me a week later.
Over text message.
A few days after the text, Kyler had overheard Nate running his mouth at a frat party. He’d supposedly been telling the guys that I was so frigid he could barely keep it hard.
And that was the fight that ended with Kyler having a broken nose and Nate with a broken jaw and a severe limp that lasted several weeks.
Nathan Balers could go screw himself.
I knew how to have fun. I knew how to lose control. And I wasn’t frigid.
Smiling, I turned back to Zach and said, “Another shot would be great.”