Carried Away - P. Dangelico Page 0,38
am mildly inebriated and shouldn’t attempt to think right now.
“Why do you sound winded, Dad? Never mind. Can you pick me up? I’m at Gina’s––’scuse me––Regina’s bar. It’s beautiful and it’s called Queen. Cause she’s a beautiful queen…”
Chuckling, Gina helps the bar back clear the counter of empty bottles and glasses.
“I’m…” Dad exhales. “Yeah, okay. Give me a few minutes.”
“Everything alright?” she says, reading the puzzled look on her face.
I shake off the strange feeling. Now is not the time to play investigative reporter. “Yeah…he should be here soon.”
Ten minutes later my investigative alarm starts ringing when I see Jake walk in the door, scan the room, and make a beeline for me.
“Hello, stud muffin,” I hear coming from my long lost friend. “Damn, he’s fine.”
“Not my type,” I hear myself retort. Which of course is a bald-faced lie. Whether he’s my type of not doesn’t mean jack. The inconvenient truth is that I am one hundred percent attracted to a man I can barely tolerant, and who can tolerate me even less.
“Smoking hot and built like a brick shit house isn’t your type?”
“Not this time. Also, he’s an insufferable stick in the mud.”
“So you know him well?”
“Not at all.”
Which is mostly the truth. Turner is close to impossible to pin down. One minutes he’s gazing at me like he wants to discover every single one of my secrets, and the next he wants to shove in a box under the bed.
Speaking of moods, Turner walks up with his usual permanent stamp of disapproval on his face. “You need a ride home?”
“Huh?”
“A ride.”
“Where’s Gene?” I look around him, attempting to get a gander at the door.
“He’s…he asked me to come get you. He’s indisposed.”
“Indiswhat?”
Sighing, Turner slides onto the empty stool next to mine. “Club soda please,” he asks the young male bartender who scurries over with a look of unadulterated hero worship on his face.
Most of the time, I forget that Turner is a world class famous athlete. That he has fans. i.e. people that don’t know his personality is rough with a capital R.
“Regina Polizzi meet Jake Turner. Turner meet the owner of this fine establishment and my only friend.”
Grinning, Regina takes Jake’s outstretched hand. “I know who you are.”
Turner––he doesn’t smile. God forbid the man appear pleasant. Too much work.
“You’ll have to excuse him, G. Turner has a permanent case of the sadz. But he did save my life. He did do that. Probably regrets it now. Don’t cha, Turner? Don’t you wish you left me out there to become a human popsicle?”
“No.”
“That’s it. That’s all you have to say?”
“No. I don’t regret saving you from becoming a human popsicle.”
My attention swings back to Gina. She’s watching us closely, a smile pulling up one corner of her mouth.
“Isn’t he a hoot?”
Jake’s elbow bushes against mine and a sense of awareness zings up my arm.
My gaze flickers over him as I drink my water. The thin black sweater he’s wearing skims the swell of his chest. He trimmed his hair. It’s in one of those side parts now, in the same style every other pro athlete on the planet wears. But damn it looks good on him.
My eyes can’t seem to stay away. They’re bad, with no regard for manners whatsoever. In fact, I’m studying him so intensely I could get a PhD in his anatomy. While that goes on, my insides do that thing that I’m pretty sure they should not be doing about this man in particular. They flip out.
I don’t like myself very much right now.
Regina places her hands on the bar and leans in. “Hey, you know what I was going to ask you…are you dating anyone? Because Luca is back in town and he’s single again.”
Of course he’s single again. Luca is single every three months like clockwork. Regina’s middle brother is a total player. I would rather eat bad sushi.
“No…no, I…” How do I say this without insulting her brother. “We never had…any chemistry.”
It’s a total lie and Regina knows it. Last time Luca saw me I was seventeen. Back then, he wouldn’t have looked at me twice even if I was on fire.
Someone down the other end of the bar waves to Gina, a guy wearing a suit. “I’ll be just a minute, Care.”
“Take your time,” I tell her even though I don’t want to be alone with Turner longer than necessary. I’ve got a nice buzz going and I’d like to keep it that way.
“Like we have,” comes from my immediate