“Do you think it’s true?” a voice in one of the two stalls asked curiously.
Kelly shrugged and then realized the girl she was talking to couldn’t see her. “My dad heard it too,” she explained. “Said he got into some crazy bar fight and almost got arrested. His mom said he had to come home after that or she would cut him off.”
Clearly, they were talking about Levi, but I didn’t know how true the story was since I was pretty sure Levi made his own money. If the rumors were true, he’d had a good job on a gigantic ranch. They weren’t exactly going to pay him in hayseed.
I ducked into the second stall just as the other girl stepped out of hers. “Kristen will be happy to hear he’s on the market.”
Kelly snickered. “She’s not the only one.”
The second girl gasped, and I was afraid to pee, lest I remind them of my presence and they stop talking.
“You would really go after Levi Cole?” she asked.
“I’m not an idiot.” Kelly laughed. “I would never cross Kristen. But hey, it didn’t work out for them in high school. Why would it work out now?”
“She’ll never admit it, but he dumped her ass so hard back then.”
Kelly laughed again. “And she’s never gotten over it.”
“She would kill you, you know,” the second girl warned Kelly.
Kelly sighed wistfully. “I know.” Then she added coyly, “But it might be worth it.” They left the bathroom giggling about what it would be like to bang Levi Cole and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.
I wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up in bed. Suddenly, I missed Max fiercely. I hated that I’d chosen this place over hanging with him.
It was all smoke and mirrors, promising fulfilment and delivering nothing real or enjoyable.
Those girls were supposed to be Kristen’s best friends and they didn’t even respect her enough to stop talking bad about her in front of strangers.
They made me thankful for Coco and Emilia. My number of friends might be small, but they wouldn’t gossip about me in a public bathroom.
They wouldn’t throw me under the bus the first chance they got to snag some dude. Even if he was Levi Cole.
I finished in the bathroom and washed my hands before preparing myself to leave it. Deciding I would quickly find Coco and Em and say goodbye to them before Ajax could find me again, I opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
“Having fun?”
I jumped at the dark voice coming from the corner of the even darker hallway. “God, Levi, you scared the hell out of me.” I whirled on him, planting a hand on my hip and wondering what the hell he was doing hanging out by the girl’s bathroom.
He pushed off the wall and stalked toward me. “Is that why you didn’t want to go to dinner with me? That tool out there grinding on anything with boobs?”
“Okay, Mr. High and Mighty, let’s tone down the judgment.” I took a step backwards, so over this night.
He grabbed my wrist before I could get far and dragged me deeper down the hallway. The men’s and women’s bathrooms were in separate corridors, with the girl’s leading to the back entrance of the bar. The further we walked toward the exit door, the quieter it got. There was nobody back here. There was barely enough light for me to make out Levi’s angry expression.
But God, he was still so gorgeous it hurt to look directly at him. Especially like this. Especially with his eyes blazing green and his muscular jaw ticking.
“Woman, you drive me crazy.” he’d growled seven years ago, the day before we graduated. I’d stopped by his locker while he’d been cleaning it out and kicked over his stack of books. It had been petty and juvenile, I’d known that, but I still couldn’t help myself. He’d grabbed my waist and pushed me against the locker. His eyes had dipped to my lips for a long, lingering moment in which I thought my heart would pound through my breastbone.
“It was an accident.” I blinked innocently.
“Yeah, right.”
His gaze had flickered to my mouth again, and then lower, to the tiny bit of cleavage my scooped neck tee revealed. He had been doing that more and more, looking at me like I was attractive—like he was attracted to me. It didn’t make any sense. He had Kristen March and she was the prettiest girl in school.
But because I was a brat and I really had just made a mess of his locker, I pushed out my chest and whispered. “Promise.”
His expression twisted into a tortured version of his normal smugness and when he met my eyes again, there was a crazy look in his bright greens. Wild. Feral.
