For a moment I didn’t know what she was talking about, and then I saw him. Nick. My heart did a little flop, and that shocked me as much as Katie did. My heart rarely flopped, and I hadn’t really thought about Nick during these two weeks. All right, that wasn’t a hundred percent true. I had thought about him a time or two or ten, but those thoughts were fleeting. So my reaction, the way I felt my cheeks flush and how my spine stiffened, surprised me.
Nick strolled out from a hallway on the other side of the bar. Wearing another dark shirt that seemed to be seconds away from bursting at the seams when he lifted his hand, thrusting his fingers through his hair, he looked as yummy as I remembered.
He went to where Jax stood talking to Reece, giving us an eyeful as he lifted a case of bottles onto the bar, his muscles rolling and flexing under the shirt. Reece said something, and Nick stepped back, laughing. The sound was loud and infectious, and my lips tugged up at the corners in response. He replied as he turned in our direction, his smile easy. His gaze lifted, drifting over the bar.
Our gazes collided in an instant.
Nick stopped in his tracks, as if he’d walked straight into an invisible wall. A strange tension seeped into his features as the smile slipped off his face. Shock splashed over it, and then he was heading in our direction on his side of the bar, ignoring Roxy as she stepped aside with a look on her face that said the only thing she was missing was a bucket of popcorn.
“Hi Nick,” cooed Katie.
She was also ignored as he stared across the counter at me, his eyes as cool as winter mint. Tiny knots formed in my belly as he placed both hands on the bar and dipped his chin. All I could think about was where his fingers had been the last time I’d seen him and whether they’d end up there again, because why not?
“Stephanie,” he said in that deep voice of his, and wisps of pleasure coiled tight. “What are you doing here?”
Chapter 5
His question squelched the budding tendrils of pleasure as if he had reached inside me and caught them in a fist. I drew back, inhaling sharply as my stomach clenched. “Excuse me?”
“Oh no,” whispered Roxy, turning to the side. Someone waved a twenty dollar bill like a white flag of surrender and it caught her attention.
“You’re a dumbass,” Katie said to Nick, and then twirled toward me. “Give him hell. The payoff is so much better in the end. See you on Sunday. Tootles!”
As Katie pranced off, a faint pink crept across the center of Nick’s cheeks. He lowered his voice. “I thought we had an understanding.”
Perhaps, when I’d walked into Mona’s tonight, I’d fallen into some kind of alternate universe? Every conversation I was in felt like I was only hearing half of it. “An understanding of what?”
He tilted his head to the side. “You haven’t come back to the bar in two weeks.”
“Uh. Yeah. I’ve been busy.” My hair slid over my shoulder as I leaned forward, the edges brushing the top of the counter. “I don’t think I’m following where this conversation is heading.”
“You haven’t been back since the night we hooked up,” he explained, his moss green eyes cool. “So I figured we were on the same page.”
“Obviously we’re not.”
Nick glanced over his shoulder briefly, scanning the bar. His shoulders tensed when his eyes met mine again. When he spoke, his voice was low enough that I could barely hear him. “That night was just that night. One time. There’s no reason for you to come back here, especially you.”
Whoa. There was so much wrong in that statement I didn’t even know where to start. Anger rushed to the surface, crowding my senses, and for that I was grateful, because beneath the fiery emotion was a keen sense of . . . of disappointment. I didn’t know Nick that well, but from the brief time we’d spent together, I thought we had been on the same page. Not his page, obviously. His page had asshole written all over it, over and over again.
“Let me get this straight,” I said, my voice surprisingly level. “You thought that I would not come back to the bar, because we’d hooked up?”
He didn’t reply for a long moment. “That’s how it’s always been. One night. You said so yourself.”
That’s how it’s always been? Wow. I almost laughed, except nothing about this was funny. “And just to make sure we’re completely on the same page, you think I came back here solely to see you?”
One side of his lips curled up. “Well, why else would you come here? Someone like you is much better suited for the bars and clubs in the city.”
My lips slowly parted. “Someone like me?”
“You know you’re gorgeous. You know—”
“Stop right there,” I ordered, placing both my hands on the bar countertop. “We are not and obviously never have been on the same page, Nick. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. And frankly, how I look has absolutely nothing to do with what bars I go to.”
Nick blinked as surprise crowded his features again. “Hey, I’m—”