As we inched toward the bar, Emerson shoved me in front of her. There were only three people working the counter, and we made certain to approach the side he was working.
I watched as he poured beer into a pitcher, admiring the flex of his bicep. His gaze lifted and scanned the bar, the way I’d noticed him do last night. Surveying, assessing the crowd. Maybe for trouble? Those pale blue eyes passed over me for a split second before jerking back.
He smiled crookedly. “Hey, it’s Nice Girl. How’s it going?”
“Nice girl?” Emerson hissed in my ear. “Okay, clearly you did not tell me everything about last night if he’s already given you a nickname!”
I elbowed her, unsure how to respond to his greeting. I smiled. “Hi.”
He handed off the pitcher, collected the money, and turned to me. “What can I get you?”
I ordered two longnecks. He glanced at Emerson. “ID?”
I watched her as she dug in her purse and pulled out her fake ID. When I looked back up it was to catch him looking at me. He looked away, giving her ID a cursory scan before moving to fetch our drinks.
“So hot,” Emerson muttered near my ear as he bent to grab them from the back chest. “And he was eyeing you. Did you see that?”
I shook my head, unconvinced, but my heart beat a hard rhythm in my chest.
“Slip him your number.”
My gaze swung to her. “What? Just like that?”
“Well, you’ll know if he’s interested by his reaction. Maybe he’ll call. Or he won’t. Either way, you can get this thing off the ground or move on to someone more receptive.”
I bit my lip, contemplating. The only problem was that I had decided it would be him. He would be my test subject. If he wasn’t receptive I didn’t feel like moving on—I didn’t want to. And where did that leave me?
Sighing, Emerson dug around in her purse.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, looking in his direction and confirming he was heading back our way.
Shaking her head, she pulled out an eyeliner pencil and snatched a thin square napkin off the stack sitting on the bar. Lightning fast, she scrawled my name and number.
I felt my eyes bulge. “Stop! No!” My hand dove for her arm, but she angled herself away from me, standing on her tiptoes and stretching out her arm.
“Here you go,” she called just as my fingers clamped down on her wrist.
“Em, no!”
Too late. I watched as long, masculine fingers took the napkin from her. My gaze followed that hand up to the bartender as he set our drinks down single-handedly. Bile rose up my throat.
I heard Emerson’s voice beside me as though from far away. “This is her number.”
Her. Me. The girl with the face as red as a tomato.
His gaze moved from the napkin to me. Those silvery blue eyes fixed on me. He flicked the napkin in my direction. “You want me to have this?”
He waited, his expression blank. The ball was in my court. Without giving me the slightest indication of whether he even wanted my number, he was asking me what I wanted.
I stammered out the words. “Uh, n-yes. Well, sure. Whatever.”
Lame. I felt like a thirteen-year-old girl. My face burned.
“She wants you to have it,” Emerson insisted from beside me.
If possible my face grew hotter. He leaned forward, setting his elbows on the bar, his gaze fastened on me with searing intensity. “Are you giving me this?”
Apparently whatever wasn’t going to work for him.
The air ceased to flow in and out of my lungs. I felt myself nod dumbly. Emerson elbowed me discreetly. “Yes,” finally spilled from my lips.
He straightened. Without another word, he slipped the napkin into his pocket, took the money that Emerson handed him for our drinks, and turned away to another customer.
With one hand on my arm, Emerson dragged me away. I risked another look back at the bar, searching for him among the multitude of heads bobbing up to the front of the counter for their drink order. I spotted him. He was pouring more beer, holding the lever down. But he wasn’t looking at what he was doing. He was looking at me.
He so wants you.”
I glared at Emerson as I took a pull from my longneck, forgetting that I wasn’t a fan of the taste. I was too annoyed. “I can’t believe you embarrassed me like that.” As the words spilled out of me, I deliberately trained my eyes on her to keep myself from glancing at him across the room again.
“We had to get things moving. Nothing was going to happen if you just ordered, paid, and moved on.”
I frowned, leaning one hip against the pool table. I refused to admit she had a point. Or that maybe he would call me now. He had put my number in his pocket, after all. Or was that just simple politeness? To spare my feelings. Maybe he’d thrown it away already.
“God.” I lifted my fingers and rubbed at the center of my forehead where a dull ache was forming.
She patted my back. “I know. It’s hard being a girl who actually emerges from her dorm room and talks to sexy boys.”
The guy beside Emerson nudged her, bumping her hip. “Hey, hot stuff, your shot.”
Turning, she lined up her pool stick and prepared her shot, earning a lot of stares when she bent over, thrusting her bottom up in the air to the appreciative gazes of nearby guys, specifically the two that had invited us to play pool with them.
The ball plunged into the pocket with a whoosh.
“Nice!” Ryan—or Bryan?—high-fived her, clinging to her fingers longer than necessary.
Emerson didn’t seem to mind. He was cute. I could tell she thought so, too, by the way she arched her throat when she laughed.
Unfortunately, his friend seemed into me, and I didn’t think he was cute. Or maybe he was. I just wasn’t into him. There was only one guy here that caught my interest and I’d just humiliated myself in front of him. I had actually muttered “whatever” when he asked me whether I wanted him to have my number. Not exactly the self-assured femme fatale I aspired to be. Really, I should just call it a night and go home now.
“You sure you don’t want to play?” He offered me a stick. I tried to view him with an open mind. After all, my phone number could be wadded up in a trash can right now. Whether I liked it or not, I might have to contemplate other alternatives in order to gain the experience I needed. A foul taste coated my mouth. Easier said than done. For whatever reason, the bartender was the only guy that I could consider kissing and touching without feeling mildly revolted.
The guy in front of me wasn’t bad-looking. A little pudgy-soft in the middle. Probably too many beers and late-night burritos. But youth was still on his side. He had nice symmetrical features. I predicted he’d be sixty pounds overweight in ten years, but right now he was okay.
“No, thanks. You guys already started anyway.”
He smiled, but looked disappointed.
For the next hour, I sat on a stool, watching as Emerson and Ryan/Bryan grew friendlier, laughing, talking, touching at every opportunity as they moved around the pool table. I made small talk with the friend. He stayed close even as he played pool, chatting me up and drinking steadily. Hopefully he wasn’t driving.
The crowd started to thin out around eleven.
“Bunch of big parties on frat row,” Scott—I had since learned his name—explained when I wondered aloud where everyone had disappeared to so early.
I nodded, but couldn’t help sneaking a glance down the length of the room toward the bar. I couldn’t resist. With the crowd dissipating, there was little to obstruct my view.
Only one bartender worked the counter, but it wasn’t him. I didn’t see my bartender anywhere. Was he on a break? Or did he cut out early? If he left early he could have talked to me. If he wanted to. Now I was convinced the napkin with my number was balled up on the floor. Stupid tears burned my eyes. I blinked them away furiously.
Taking a breath, I commanded myself to stop obsessing. He wasn’t the end goal, after all. Hunter was. I could find someone else to help give me the experience I was looking for.
“Can I get you another drink?” Scott asked, following my gaze to the bar.
I snapped my attention back to the pool table. Ryan/Bryan had Emerson in an intimate body lock, teaching her some move. I rolled my eyes.
“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”
“How about we get out of here?” Ryan/Bryan suggested, stepping back from the table and looking first at Emerson, then at me and Scott. Then again at Emerson.
The four of us leaving together? I could already see where this was headed. Emerson making out in some room with Ryan/Bryan and me stuck alone with Scott. No thanks.
Emerson and I stared at each other, silently communicating. She gave me the barest nod, understanding. I was ready to leave but not with these guys. That was the good thing about Emerson. She might be in sexual overdrive most of the time, but she never put our friendship on the back burner.