“I don’t mean to follow up with more than a kiss. I just meant because we have an early start tomorrow.” Liam practically had to shout in my ear to be heard.
“Okay.” We stood to leave, the others giving us knowing looks, but Callie knew me better than anyone else and knew Liam wouldn’t be spending time in my bed.
I leaned over to shout in Callie’s ear, “Are you coming or staying?”
“Staying. I’ll get Jeff to walk me back.”
We hugged, and then I let Liam pull me through the crowd to the outside. It was good to breathe fresh air after being squished in the sweaty bar.
Liam grasped my hand, his grip sending tendrils of warmth up my arm while we walked back to my apartment in silence. He appeared to be as lost in thought as I was. He was probably replaying the kiss. The kiss, which had come out of the blue. Could I blame it on the alcohol? Probably not. He knew I’d only had two beers. The kiss had been hot; he certainly knew how to kiss.
“Are you okay? You’ve been quiet since we left the bar.” His tone seemed unsure, but I couldn’t tell what he was unsure about.
I reached up and touched along my tender lips with my fingers. His eyes narrowed as he watched me. “I was thinking,” I met his eyes, “can we try that again?”
He shook his head, about to say something, but I didn’t give him time. I stepped into his space, took hold of his head, pulled him down to me, and sealed our lips together. I wanted to know if the kiss and reaction at the bar was a one off.
Our lips met. Our bodies touched, chest to chest and… nothing. It was nice, but… nothing. I slowly pulled back and looked into Liam’s eyes. He looked flushed.
“Thalia.” He reached up and brushed the hair away from my face. “I’m not ready to become intimate with you. I like you a lot and I can talk to you. I guess I’m afraid of losing that if we hit the sack. You know what I mean?”
“I’d like that – a lot.” I nearly laughed out loud when I saw the look on his face. He looked as relieved as me.
“When I take you home tomorrow, would it be okay for me to tell everyone that you’re my girlfriend? I mean we may end up together anyway. It would just stop my mom from constantly parading girls through the house,” he asked, looking hesitant.
“Okay, I guess.” I glanced up to the dark window of my apartment, “I better head upstairs.” I turned away and started to open the front door.
“Thanks Thalia, you’re great.” He came up behind me, kissing me on the cheek before stepping back. I watched him turn back towards Luke’s for his car.
“Goodnight Liam, I’ll see you bright and early.”
“That you will. Goodnight Thalia.”
Chapter 4
Jack
Saturday night and I was knocking back a beer before it was Deception’s turn on stage. I lived for these nights. Deception being the group I’d started back in high school with a couple of friends. Reece was on the drums, while Donovan worked his electric guitar, which left me to sing solo, occasionally bringing my guitar out.
Deception was also one of my big secrets. As far as my parents were concerned the ‘band phase’ had come to an end when we all left high school. Little did they know!
I had another year of hard studying to do before I could get out from under them. It was going to be a hard year, not just because of the studying. I was going to piss good old dad off when he found out my program at college would be all geared to me practicing criminal law. All I had to do was get through summer before I headed back to school. A married man – Fuck!
Kix had been open a couple of months and for the past couple of weeks, since we’d arrived home from college, Reece, Donovan and me had played on stage about three times. After our first appearance, people had been asking when we were coming back. Deciding it was a great way to spend the summer, we’d struck a deal with Ryder, and now we wanted to extend the deal to maybe a
Wednesday night as well as the Saturday spot we already had. Ryder wanted to think about it.
“You seen the chick over there?” Reece asked, pointing his bottle of beer in the direction of the blonde girl who looked to have melons for breasts.
“Not interested.” The thing was I hadn’t been interested in close to twelve months, ever since I had Mia thrust on me. Mia my fiancée, the woman I was being faithful to. The woman I didn’t want, but was trapped with.
“You need a distraction my friend, and that over there, is a distraction.”
“Fuck. Reece, I am so not going there. If you’re that interested, you go for it.”
After a minute of silence from me, he grabbed another beer and walked towards the ‘chick’. What my friends couldn’t understand was why I stayed faithful to someone I didn’t love and didn’t like spending time with. I may have allowed my family to push me into marriage, which would happen in about six weeks, but I wouldn’t cheat on the girl. I’d tried to tell my folks I wanted to wait until after college before I committed myself to her. I hoped she’d have changed her mind by then so I’d be off the hook. For some reason everyone, including my so-called fiancée, wanted the wedding this summer.
I’d returned home from college to find the wedding arranged and to be told, all I had to do was show up. To say I’d gotten totally and utterly drunk that night would be an understatement.