Chapter One
Piper
On a Thursdaynight, one would have thought it easy to enjoy a drink in a bar in peace.
One would have thought wrong.
“The seat is taken,” I said for about the hundredth time. The barstool in question was home to my purse for the evening. Couldn’t these guys see that?
Across the bar the bartender winked and tipped his chin up. Whether his expressions were meant in solidarity with me or he was hitting on me too didn’t matter. I couldn’t care less. As long as he let me nurse my lemon drop without hassling me to order another before I was ready, his opinions were none of my concern.
The big guy standing near the pool tables who kept catching my eye in the mirror behind the bar was a different story entirely. Tall, built, and sexy, with a knowing upturn of the corner of his mouth, he struggled to keep his opinions to himself. A furrowed brow, a ghost of a wink, and that hint of a grin told me all about what he thought of some of the guys coming on to me—and my responses to them. Something in the way he watched me hold that empty barstool in the unexpectedly crowded bar both irritated and intrigued me. Especially since he seemed to be the only man in the place who hadn’t made a run at it.
Until two months ago, it had never occurred to me I’d have to endure the bar scene as a single person. On any other evening since the afternoon of The Fuckery, I’d have called Saylor or Chessly to come out with me. But after the day I’d had, all I wanted was have a quiet drink without the social pressure of checking out men and “putting myself back out there,” as my friends had been harping at me to do since that awful day.
I wanted to unwind, process my failed stats quiz—a first for me that I had no idea how I’d let it happen—and figure out the next steps for salvaging my GPA. While Stromboli’s was the obvious choice, I’d deliberately chosen an off-campus bar I never frequented to be sure I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. About two sips into my drink, that plan was shot straight to hell when out of nowhere Charlie showed up and assumed he could park his ass on the seat beside me. I thought I’d sent him packing on his first attempt, but for some stupid reason, he persisted.
“I’ve been watching since I tried to talk to you twenty minutes ago. At least six guys have asked to sit here, and you’ve waved them all off. Admit it, Pipes. You don’t have a date tonight,” he said when he approached me again.
“My name is Piper, and I never said I had a date. I said the seat is taken.” I stared straight ahead. “I would have thought the fact that I blocked your number and unfriended and unfollowed you on everything would be your first clue that I have nothing to say to you.”
“Piper,” he whined. “Don’t be like this. If you’d talk to me, let me explain, I know we could make things right again.”
When I wouldn’t look directly at him, he transferred his attention to our reflections in the mirror behind the bar. The glare I slanted him would have singed a normal person to a crisp. Apparently, Charlie had some superpower shamelessness as he stared back at me with his best wounded-puppy eyes. Experience had taught me never to believe that expression again.
“Hey, babe. Sorry I’m late. Thanks for waiting for me,” came the deep voice of the sexy giant who materialized beside me as if by magic. Casually picking up my purse, he handed it to me as he slid onto the empty barstool. Glancing at my drink, now mostly ice cubes, he added, “Looks like you need a refill. Barkeep.” He signaled the bartender and pointed to my glass. “While you’re at it, grab me a stout. Thanks.”
“Piper?” Surprise and something like worry sounded in Charlie’s voice. It was that plaintive note in his tone that did it.
“Like I’ve been telling people since I arrived, this seat is taken.”
Swinging his attention to my ex, the giant stuck out his massive and beautifully formed yet weirdly scraped-up hand. “I’m Bax.”
I hid a grin at the trepidation in Charlie’s movements as he gingerly raised his hand to shake Bax’s.
“Charlie.” They shook. “How do you know Piper?”
With satisfaction I noted the way Charlie flexed his hand when he dropped it to his side.
“That stopped being your business when you did what you did,” I said. Resting my elbow on the back of my barstool, I looked my former boyfriend full in the face for the first time since he’d started bothering me. “Goodbye, Charlie.”
“But Piper,” he whined again.
“This the one you were telling me about?” the big guy chimed in.
Playing along, I nodded.
“Dude, you blew it.” Bax—if that truly was his name—casually rested his salad plate-size palm on my thigh below the hem of my skirt. Tingles rippled over my skin, gathering at my center, pulsing and building pressure low in my belly.
With superhuman force of will, I managed to keep from clamping my thighs together at the unexpected onslaught of sensation.
“Lucky for me.” Bax’s nostrils flared as he swung a glance in my direction.
“You can’t be serious,” Charlie said as his eyes ping-ponged between Bax and me. “This guy isn’t your type at all.”
The striking contrast between Charlie’s long, sinewy runner’s body and the mounded muscles Bax’s T-shirt could barely contain might have given him that impression. But it had never been about his body. Charlie’s charm had drawn me to him, kept me around, convinced me my instincts were off when things had started to go south between us before The Fuckery.
Flicking my eyes between his pouty scowl and Bax’s square-jawed hotness, I said, “You never truly knew me. If you had, you’d have known you were the anomaly. The guys I dated in high school were more like Bax.”
