A Guy Walks Into My Bar - Lauren Blakely Page 0,56
boyfriend. I want it to be, Oh, that’s one of the league’s best players, out playing paintball with his friends, or at a concert with his buddies. That’s why I don’t do serious.”
“Self-protection,” I say, understanding him more.
“Exactly. I just want to be the NHL’s top D-man.”
“Well,” I say, with a wry grin, “I don’t know if it helps that I still barely know what that is.”
“You’ll understand all the nuances soon enough.”
“And you’ll know how to mix a perfect martini.”
“One that goes to my head? Like you told me the night I walked into your bar?” he asks, reminding me of the conversation we had just three nights ago.
“Exactly. I’ll teach you my secrets.”
He smiles, but then it fades away, and he stares at me, that hungry look in his eyes. But it’s a needy look too. Almost desperate, but in a wildly sexy way—not a clingy way. Not a way that scares me.
Fitz slides his thumb along my jaw. “You go to my head.”
I lower my eyes as my chest fucking flips. As this wild warmth spreads through me dangerously, like a wave. And this feels nearly as good as fucking him.
Or maybe as good.
And I think—no, I’m sure—he’s going to my head too.
So I look up, take a breath, and say, “The feeling is mutual.”
His grin is huge, and he sighs, relieved. “Thanks for understanding why I’m a dick.”
“You’re not,” I say, laughing.
He tips his chin at me. “What’s your story? Why do you avoid relationships? You just like playing the field?”
“Ah, the million-dollar question.”
“I take it there’s not an easy answer?”
“Is there ever?” I toss back, dancing around the truth.
“Hardly ever.”
I draw a fueling breath. Answering this question isn’t my favorite thing to do, but he opened up to me. I can do the same.
“I suppose I could tell you it’s because of the last guy I was involved with. He wanted too much too soon, and I didn’t have it in me. I wanted to focus on my future, on the bar, on what I wanted to build with Maeve,” I explain. “I found my attention wavering, and I didn’t feel that deeply for him. Once I ended it, I was able to focus on this—what I want. My life, my dreams, provincial as they are. I mean, I’m sure they seem small next to yours. Global Series and worldwide recognition.”
“Stop it. That’s not the point. The point is they’re your dreams. They matter to you.”
“They do, and that got in the way. I don’t want things to get in the way. That’s what my mum did. She let love get in the way. Took off for Australia with a guy, and she’s not even with him anymore.”
“It didn’t work out?”
I shake my head. “She’s married to someone else now. Her fourth marriage. Her choices, right? I just don’t want to make the same ones.”
“I hear ya,” Fitz says, leaning back on the pillow. “But that’s why it’s good we feel the same way. We dig each other, but we also know it’s ending soon. We can have fun. We can have a great time together.”
I poke his side. “‘Great’? Just ‘great’? I thought you said it was ‘the best time’?”
He smiles, then yanks me toward him. “You know what would really make it the best time?”
I grin wickedly, knowing what comes next will be dirty. “Wait. Let me guess. Does it have two numbers in it?”
His eyes twinkle with naughty mischief. “It’s like you know me.”
And maybe I do. And I like knowing him.
And touching him.
And I really like sucking him off while he does the same to me, since the numbers are sixty and nine. That’s how we finish a night that’s pretty much perfect—more so because it caps off a perfect day with him.
With this guy who is not at all like Dylan. Not at all like anyone I’ve ever been with.
But if he lived here, I don’t think I’d stop at Thursday. I don’t think I’d stop in a week or a month. I’d want more of him.
I could see us being a thing.
A real thing.
And that’s why it has to be good that he’s leaving. It just has to. There’s no other way to see him and me.
TUESDAY
Also known as the day I know.
22
Dean
For the second day in a row, I wake up next to Fitz.
For the second day in a row, it feels entirely natural.
And for the first time, I’m aware of the need to seize every moment.