Caught Up in You (Smart Girls Finish First) Read online

  God, when had I turned into such a pussy?

  I never used to care about this shit. I never worried about being rejected by a girl. Because…well, for one, it hardly ever happened (before Lia) and secondly, there were always ten more lined up right behind her, ready to step in.

  Glancing around this bar, I saw at least five potential candidates. That girl leaning against the pool table, sipping some fruity concoction, was already eyeing me. Her tight jeans slug so low, I could see enough skin to know she wasn’t wearing underwear.

  But for some unknown reason, tonight I only wanted Lia.

  And I didn’t even want to think about a back-up plan.

  We found a vacant table and Lia ordered two shots for us. She downed hers the second the waitress set them on the table. I watched her throat move to accommodate the influx of liquid. She looked back at me and then at the full shot glass before me. “Aren’t you going to drink?”

  I blinked out of my trance and poured the clear liquid down my throat. I had prepared myself for some girly, froo froo shot like a lemon drop but was surprised when the tequila burned my throat.

  Lia Smart drank tequila?

  Fuck, that made her even hotter.

  I had sudden flashes of sucking it out of her navel and placing the lime between her legs…

  “What?” she asked, breaking me out of my reverie. “You look like you’ve never had tequila before.”

  I shake my head, clearing my throat. “No. I have. It’s just not what I was expecting.”

  “What were you expecting?”

  I looked up and met her gaze. Her chin was cupped in her hand. I couldn’t tell whether or not her tone was flirtatious. I decided, for my own sake, that it was.

  “I never know what to expect from you, Lia,” I replied, keeping my eyes locked on her.

  She looked away, the light on her face suddenly dimming. “I’m not that complicated.”

  “Oh, but you are. You’re an enigma.”

  “Hardly.”

  “What’s with the no-Italian speaking bartender thing?” I challenged. Her eyes flashed back to me and I shrugged. “Just an example.”

  She sighed. “It’s not because of me. It’s because of my mother.”

  “Your mother doesn’t like men who speak Italian?”

  “No. She likes them a little too much.”

  I suddenly understood. Why Lia is running the restaurant. Why she always referred to it as her “mom’s restaurant” even though I’d never actually seen her mom.

  And I could tell whatever had happened there had happened relatively recently.

  I watched Lia’s face start to turn ashen and I worried this conversation was steering in the wrong direction. I needed to keep this upbeat and playful. And it was starting to feel like a bad therapy session.

  I opened my mouth to say something—to change the subject—but Lia beat me to it, obviously having had the same thought.

  “So,” she said, wagging her finger vaguely in my direction. “What is your deal?”

  I laughed. “My deal?”

  She nodded. “Your deal.”

  I couldn’t be sure but I swore I heard her voice start to slur on the last word. My hopes instantly rose. Tipsy Lia would be a lot more willing to take clothes off than sober Lia. That I could be sure of.

  “I don’t have a deal,” I insisted.

  She squinted. “Oh, you so have a deal. All guys like you have a deal.”

  “How many times are we going to say the word deal? Should we turn it into a drinking game? Make things interesting?” I flagged down the waitress and ordered a Jack and Coke. Lia asked for the same.

  “Do you always drink Jack and Coke?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  I laughed. “Are you trying to be mysterious?”

  Her eyes twinkled. “Maybe.”

  She stayed silent and we stared each other down like two kids having a contest.

  “I’m waiting,” she finally prompted.

  “For me to kiss you?” I asked presumptuously, making her giggle. “Because that’s a little difficult with you all the way on the other side of the table. But I’ll give it a shot if you want.”

  I cleared away the empty shot glasses between us, like I was going to sprawl myself right across this table.

  “For you to tell me your deal,” she corrected.

  I pounded the table with my fist. “Damn. We don’t have our drinks yet. That’s one extra sip for you.”

  When she didn’t respond, I added, “Why don’t you tell me what you think my deal is.”

  “Oh, I already know.”

  I feigned surprise. “You do?”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  The waitress delivered our drinks and I took a sip of mine, prompting Lia to take an obligatory swallow of her own. She did.

  I sat back. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

  “You’re a bartender,” she began.

  I pursed my lips in mock appreciation. “Oooh, perceptive. I like that in a woman.”

  She ignored my jab and continued. “You do it because you like the attention.”

  “What attention?” I asked. “You ignore me all night.”

  “From other women. I see the way they look at you. You could have any girl in this room.”

  I leaned forward, holding her gaze. “But I’m here with you.”

  She didn’t blink. Her eyes stayed locked into mine and, like a small zap of electricity, I felt the shift.

  The fall.

  After seducing enough women, you just start to know when you’ve succeeded.

  When the race is won. There’s a tipping point. A precipice. And you can feel when they collapse over the edge of it.

  Some women—like Lia—fight so hard and for so long to stay on that edge. They dig in their heels and scrape their fingernails against the dirt, like they’re hanging on for dear life.

  Other women are willing to jump over the edge the second you say their name with any amount of urgency.

  But I could feel the moment Lia slipped. And I was so desperate to keep her on my side of the divide, so determined to make sure she didn’t manage to crawl back to her safe zone, I barely even noticed the third person who’d appeared at the side of the booth.

  “You didn’t tell me you were coming here, biatch.”

  The voice jolted me out of the moment and I glanced up to see a tall brunette with a devious smile on her face, staring down at Lia, before flicking her eyes to me.

  Upon seeing the newcomer, Lia jumped up and hugged the girl. “Danika! You’re here. I would have texted but I thought you were on nanny duty tonight.”

  “Whose your date?” she asked, glancing suspiciously at me over Lia’s shoulder. I recognized the look immediately. It was the protective look you only see on the best friend, after they’ve pegged you for a player.

  Lia laughed and turned to face me. “He’s not my date. He’s my new bartender. At the restaurant. Which you’d know if you ever came in to eat there.”

  “Trust me,” Danika said with a snort, “you do not want me to bring that little monster child into your restaurant. You’ll be scraping dried pasta sauce out of your carpet for months.”

  “Whatever,” Lia said, suddenly jumping up and down like a little girl. “We’re both here. Let’s dance!”

  I watched her pull Danika by the hand and make her way through the crowd of people to the small scuffed up dance floor. I watched her start to bump and grind against her best friend, her skirt riding up against those sweet legs of hers. I waited and waited and waited for her to look back this way. For her to acknowledge for even a second, that the flicker of something that passed between us.

  But she never did.

  And just like that, I knew she was gone. Crossed back over to the other side.

  The side where I’m just a bartender, not a date.

  Where I’m just a player, not a contender.

  The side where I go home alone.

&nbs
p; Four

  Lia and I didn’t have another moment until the weekend her sister arrived in town. I’ve never seen a girl so neurotic about the arrival of a family member. She buzzed around the restaurant, freaking out about wine selection, too much confetti, not enough confetti. She even made cannoli. She never made cannoli for the regular menu.

  She wanted so desperately for everything to be so damn perfect.

  When I asked her why, she replied vaguely with a comment about how if I knew her sister, I’d understand.

  I didn’t need to know her sister to realize that she clearly brought out the crazy in Lia Smart.

  And not the good kind of crazy. The cute, scatterbrained kind you can write off as being part of her adorable “personality.”

  I’m talking the bat shit kind.

  I’d never seen Lia so tense before. I massaged her shoulders, hoping to help her relax but all she wanted to do was drink. She downed glass of wine after glass of wine. And still, nothing seemed to take the edge off.

  Of course, as soon as I actually met Alex—the infamous sister—I understood why.

  Alex was a real piece of work.

  And trust me, I’ve dealt with pieces of work in the past. Alex was in her own class.

  Apparently, she hadn’t been home in over a year, which was one of the reasons Lia was so desperate to make sure everything went smoothly.

  And maybe things would have gone smoothly if Alex had come home alone.

  But she didn’t

  She came with him.

  Grayson fucking Walker.

  The man who made Lia light up from the inside.

  I saw it the moment she laid eyes on him. It brightened her face. It flushed her cheeks. It even seemed to gloss her hair.

  I recognize a crush when I see one. But this was more than a crush. This was a longing. A spark. Something that made her come alive. And it wasn’t new. It was old. Ancient. Something buried long ago

  And it wasn’t just her who had it.

  I could see it in the way he looked at her, too.

  For a moment, they were in their own world. The restaurant didn’t exist. I didn’t exist. The couple at table 5 who had recently sent back their food didn’t exist.

  It was just them.

  When you work in my field, you see a lot of things. You see lust. You see flirtation. You see deceitful facades.

  But it’s rare to see what I saw that day.

  And that’s when I realized that I had lost. I had lost before I even began.

  Even if I ever did have a chance with her, I knew right then that there was no way I could ever compete with him. With the way she looked at him.

  That’s why it surprised the hell out of me when Alex came out of the bathroom and announced that she and Grayson were back together.

  Until then I could have sworn he was an ex-boyfriend of Lia’s. But it turned out she had just loved him from afar. And now he was back in Alex’s life.

  Maybe I was the only one who saw the pain flash over Lia’s face when the news struck her. Although I don’t know how I could be. She may have thought she was hiding it well. But to me, it was like a flashing neon sign.

  She wanted him.

  And she knew she could never have him.

  That kind of misery is almost impossible to hide.

  ______

  I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me when she asked me out for drinks the next night. But I was.

  I guess I was too blinded by the shock of the question to really notice the motivations underneath. I was too distracted by the hope of having another chance with Lia to see the truth.

  Although it was pretty obvious the moment we walked into the door of Hank’s and I saw Alex and Grayson sitting at the booth waiting for us.

  “I thought it was going to be just the two of us,” I whispered into Lia’s ear, the reality of the situation sinking into my stomach like a rough stone.

  She smiled and tilted her head as though she didn’t know where I would have gotten that impression. “I told my sister and Grayson that we’d meet them here.”

  But it was clear as soon as Grayson laid eyes on me that it was a lie.

  She never told them I was coming.

  And that’s when all the pieces fell into place. That’s when it became crystal clear what my true purpose was tonight.

  I was here to make Grayson jealous.

  Once again, I was a device for revenge.

  And I almost cared. I almost walked out. But then Lia squeezed into the booth beside me after buying us drinks, and I could see just how much this game of hers benefited me as well.

  She was all over me. Her hands, her body, her tongue. They were all mine.

  Just as I’d always wanted them to be.

  The way she thrusted herself against me on that dance floor—her bare arms and legs slick with sweat, her gorgeous hair sticking to her damp skin—it was easy to forget that I was a mere pawn in another woman’s dangerous game of bartered emotions and tested loyalties.

  I finally had her. I finally tasted her. And she tasted as amazing as I’d imagined.

  You could definitely say I took advantage of the situation. If she was going to use me, I was going to get something out of it. I kissed her like there was no tomorrow (and for me and Lia, I knew there wouldn’t be). I ran my hands up and down her body, my fingertips blazing as they slipped under her floral skirt, teasing her skin, pressing into her lean muscles.

  I devoured her. Storing up her flavor like a camel stores up water.

  Then it all came crashing to a halt.

  “We’re leaving,” Alex said, “Grayson has a stick up his ass tonight.”

  Yeah, I wanted to agree, he’s clearly lusting after your sister.

  But I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.

  Lia was fighting back a giggle. Her plan was working. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “You two have fun for us. Since clearly my fiancé is incapable of enjoying himself.”

  Alex turned to leave and I felt as though my time was up. As soon as Grayson was gone—as soon as there was no one to put on a show for—I would be cast aside.

  But Grayson lingered behind, waiting for Lia to follow them. When she didn’t he said, “Come on, Lia. It’s time to go.”

  I almost rolled my eyes at the desperation in his voice. C’mon, man, at least try to hide your boner for her.

  I was proud when Lia stood up to him. When she didn’t cave at his directive. “That’s okay, Grayson. I think I’ll stay.”

  “Yeah, don’t worry,” I added. “I’ll get her home.”

  And then, because I’m a total asshole who loves to fuel fires that I didn’t start, I winked at Grayson. I knew it would send him hurdling over the edge. I knew he didn’t trust me. I saw the way he watched us on the dance floor. Like an overprotective secret service agent.

  And that annoyed the shit out of me.

  So I fucked with him.

  Sure, you could argue that I did it out of jealousy. Because I knew Lia would rather be dry humping him on this floor right now instead of me. And maybe that’s true. But all that psychological crap is irrelevant.

  I did it and it worked.

  “No,” he asserted, surprising everyone. I had a feeling Grayson wasn’t a super assertive guy to begin with.

  Pussy.

  “Don’t worry. She’s a big girl now,” Alex assured him, looking amused by the whole exchange. If she couldn’t see what was really going on, then she was blind as a bat.

  But I suppose the old adage is true. The heart sees what it wants to see.

  “Thanks,” Lia hissed at him. “But I’m pretty sure I can make my own decisions. Besides, you’re not my brother yet.”

  I wanted to high five the girl. It was bold. It was genius. It was totally something I would have said.

  She knew how to rile up Grayson Walker almost as well as I did.

  I turned to hide my laugh behind my hand and when I looked back, she was gone. My ey
es shot toward the door to see Grayson actually pulling Lia by the arm.

  I hurried after them, shoving my way through people. Before I was even out the door, I could hear Lia screaming at him.

  “WILL YOU STOP TRYING TO SAVE ME?! YOU CAN’T DO IT! I’M NOT YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM!”

  And that was my cue to extricate myself from the situation. This was some complicated shit that I really didn’t want to get mixed up in. Lia was in love with Grayson. Grayson was in love with Lia but engaged to Alex, who was in the dark about the whole thing.

  I’d done a lot of things to get a girl into bed, but I had just reached my limit on the crazy scale.

  I’d had my fun. I’d kissed her. I’d touched her. I wished I could have taken her to my bed for at least a night before throwing in the towel, but some things are just not worth the headache.

  “Look, it’s fine, Lia,” I said, putting my hands up to indicate that I wanted no part of this mess. “We can hang out tomorrow or something.”

  Everyone in that parking lot knew it was a big fat lie.

  There would be no hanging out tomorrow.

  I had served my purpose tonight. And that was the end. I walked over and kissed her cheek, before shuffling to the street and heading back to La Bella Vita where my car was parked.

  For the briefest spark of a moment, I had the inkling to whisper something into her ear. But I knew it would be unwise.

  Get out as fast as you can, Blake, I told myself. Just walk away and don’t look back.

  That was the MO. That is what has always kept me safe. Or more importantly, sane.

  It had worked for me so far. Why change it up now?

  But as I walked to my car, I thought about what I would have said to her. Had I been a different person. Had I wanted something else out of this life.

  I opened the car door and collapsed into the driver’s seat.

  “Open your eyes, Lia,” I said quietly to the empty car, “I’m right here.”

  Five

  The call came the next morning. I didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID. A New York City phone number. I remember the time when 212 area codes used to excite me. It meant the possibility of an audition or a call back. But I hadn’t gotten a call from the city in years.