Before Jamaica Lane (On Dublin Street 3)

I stood frozen as he pressed his mouth to mine.

Then Nate and his blonde popped into my head and I angrily let my lips part.

Will kissed me, his tongue lightly touching mine.

It wasn’t a bad kiss. In fact, technically he was a good kisser.

But I felt nothing.

Pulling back, I smiled a little shyly, which he seemed to like, and I said, ‘I’ll call you.’

Once he let me go, I ignored the grins his friends threw me and turned on my heel to head back to my table.

Nate, no longer with the blonde, was watching me with an unfathomable expression on his face. My eyes quickly darted over him to the others. Cam and Adam were grinning boyishly at me, Ellie was biting her lip to stem her own immature little smile, and Jo looked confused.

‘What was that?’ she asked, looking at my phone.

I waved it, and filled my voice with amusement and nonchalance as I replied, ‘I got myself a number.’ My eyes flicked to Nate and he gave a chin lift, silently beckoning me to him.

I sat down next to him and waited, but he didn’t say anything until the others started talking among themselves. ‘Enjoy yourself?’ he asked quietly, his eyes searching mine.

I shrugged. ‘I passed your little test.’

His dark eyes flicked back to the bar, where Will was still standing with his friends. I waited for some kind of reaction, but his expression was blank when he turned back to me. ‘I didn’t say you had to kiss a stranger.’

‘No. But I did.’

‘Seems I’ve got an overachiever on my hands.’

I shrugged.

We were quiet for the rest of the night, I think mostly because I was lost in my own thoughts. When it was time to head home, as usual Nate insisted on walking me. I hugged the girls good-bye and said good night to the guys, then followed Nate down George Street in the gorgeous heels that were starting to pinch.

‘So …’ I tried for breezy. ‘It looked like you got a number tonight.’

‘The blonde.’

I snorted. ‘Is that her name?’

He slanted me ‘a look.’ ‘It’s the only name I need to know.’

In that moment I really had to try to remember why he was the way he was so I didn’t call him on his asshattery. Tonight he would drop me off at my flat and then he’d call up the blonde girl, go meet her wherever, screw her, leave her, and then delete her number from his phone.

It was not a good way to live, but it was the way he chose to live, and I had to respect his decisions. If he was just your regular old player I’d give him a lecture until his ears bled, but every time I thought of it now, I thought of the tattoo he had inscribed across his chest.

The closer we got to my flat, however, the more uneasy I grew, and as I remembered the hurt and fury that had ripped through me at the sight of him flirting with the blonde, it occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t that I was uneasy at his choices, but at the thought of him leaving me to go screw some stranger.

I didn’t even want to analyze that.

Yet, as we came to a stop outside my building, I found myself saying his name quietly.

‘Aye?’ he asked, shoving his hands in his pants pockets.

Staring into his handsome face, I reached somewhere deep within me for the courage I needed to ask him the question that had been burning inside me since we’d kissed. I led with, ‘When we kissed it helped.’

He gazed back at me, waiting silently for me to make my point.

I cleared my throat, taking a mental bat to the swarm of butterflies that had erupted in my belly. ‘I felt better,’ I said, attempting to explain. ‘I felt … more confident.’

‘What are you trying to say, Liv?’

Where was another whisky when I needed it?

‘Um.’ I wet my suddenly dry lips. ‘I want you … I want you to teach me how to be … good at sex.’

Nate’s focus sharpened and he asked with a surprising calmness, ‘In theory or in practice?’

‘Practice.’

The silence between us stretched so long that my butterflies were now multiplying at an unbelievable rate. Mortification and regret mingled as I began to feel awful for even asking, for putting him in that position. ‘Nate –’

‘How much have you had to drink?’

A little affronted at the insinuation, I shook my head quickly. ‘I’ve only had a few whiskies. I’m not drunk.’ I took an apologetic step toward him. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to. We can –’

Nate pressed a silencing finger against my lips and I abruptly shut up. ‘You are one of my closest friends. I don’t want to do anything that might ruin that.’

Ignoring certain feelings – and by ‘ignoring’ I mean shoving them into the deep, dark depths of me – I concentrated purely on the thought of my own chrysalis as I hurried to assure him. ‘If I promised it wouldn’t, would you think about it? I just … I want to feel like I know what I’m doing. If I do, I feel like I’d be able to approach Benjamin with confidence, knowing that if he said yes to a date and afterward, if the date went there, it wouldn’t be this traumatic, nerve-racking thing for me. I trust you, Nate. And it wouldn’t exactly be a hardship,’ I added with a small smile, which he returned with one of his own.

‘So, let’s get this straight. You want me to f**k you in order to teach you how to f**k another guy?’

‘You make it sound so sordid.’

With a sigh, he leaned forward and pressed a sweet kiss to my forehead. ‘Go to bed, babe. If you still feel the same way in the morning, ask me again.’