How to Date the Guy You Hate by Julie Kriss Page 0,7

she thought I was an asshole.

And then I remembered that the first time I saw her after I came home from the Marines, she’d waited on me in a restaurant. And I hadn’t even recognized her at all.

Right. She didn’t think I was an asshole. She thought I was a complete fucking asshole.

I made myself open my eyes and look at her. Man up, Carsleigh. “Megan,” I said.

She swallowed again. The murderous rage had gone from her eyes, but her defenses were still all the way up. She looked tough and brittle and ready to snap. “Look, it’s no big deal,” she managed. “I just wanted you to know. It was bothering me that you didn’t remember, that’s all.”

There were a million jumbled things I wanted to say to her at once. Don’t call it no big deal. That isn’t really the way I am. Please don’t think I do that all the time. Go back to being furious. But I said the words that came first, the ones that couldn’t be stopped. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Megan, I am really fucking sorry.”

She blinked, and the fact that she hadn’t expected that—that she hadn’t thought I’d do the very least and fucking apologize—just made me feel worse. Her arms hugged herself more tightly, but her shoulders relaxed a little. “Well,” she said, unsure.

I looked at her, and because I’m a guy and apparently a complete fucking pig, I noticed her. I’d done my best not to notice Megan before, because I’d had a girlfriend and Megan hated my guts, but I noticed her now. Her bare legs were slim and nicely toned beneath her jean skirt. She had a rounded curve to her hips, dipping in to her waist at the hem of the hoodie. I couldn’t see her chest because her arms were crossed over it, but I knew she had breasts that were not too big and not too small. She usually covered them with loose, flowing tops, but underneath they were quiet perfection, sloping down with a flawless, sexy curve on the undersides. And with a roar of memory, I realized I knew that because I’d seen them.

We’d made out, sure. But there had been… tits. Definitely tits. My hands on them. Her waist, her bare belly button. Her hips. There had been… Oh, shit. There definitely had been. My hands on her, on all of her, everywhere. And her hands on my—

“Wait a minute,” I said in shock, my voice booming louder than I intended. “We were naked.”

Megan bit her lip and her cheeks flushed deep red.

“You pulled my clothes off,” I said, pointing at her, remembering it now. “You stripped me.”

She winced. “We were drunk.”

“I was.” Vodka. Fucking vodka. The devil’s drink. “But you were sober enough to remember.”

“Yes, thanks,” she spat back at me, some of her anger returning. “Thanks very fucking much. Now every time I look at you, you look naked to me.”

I stared at her, speechless, while those words sunk in.

I didn’t have time to think about it. Because someone said, “Hey, asshole.”

I turned and saw Half-Assed Beard, the guy I’d thrown out of the bar last night. He was coming toward me from the parking lot, coming through the rain.

I only had time to blink in surprise before he stepped up and punched me with the full force of his fist, turning my world black for a second. I grabbed the nearest pillar to keep my balance as my head snapped back. I heard Megan shout in surprise.

And then—my reflexes kicking in, the reflexes honed by my nights at Zoot Bar—I lifted a foot and kicked Half-Assed Beard straight in the stomach, my heel pistoning into his soft flesh with all the force from my leg. He made a sickened oof sound and his arms pinwheeled as he staggered backward. His foot slid off the curb of the strip mall’s sidewalk and he fell backward, landing on his back on the concrete of the parking lot in the pouring rain.

“What the fuck, Jason!” I heard Megan shout.

But I barely heard it. I stepped out from beneath the overhang and stood over Half-Assed Beard, who was gasping on the dirty pavement, his body twisted to one side so he could retch up spit. I crouched down over him and grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands. My cheekbone throbbed, hot. I looked straight into his eyes, which were watering with pain.

“Fuckhead,” I growled at him. “Get lost.”

He did. He