Filed to story: Kissing the Wrong Brother
God save me.
“Beefcake!” Again with one of those dopey, guileless smiles.
She plops down at one of the few vacant spots at the bar, and unlike with the usual solo girls that daintily perch themselves on the stools, there’s no glancing around to see who’s noticed her arrival. No careful positioning to ensure her posture’s just right to show off her best side. She’s just there … and happy.
So annoying.
“Beefcake?” Blake repeats from beside me.
Aria smiles at my coworker and explains. “Miles’s my personal trainer. He thinks my life will be complete if I can run an eleven-minute mile.”
“No,” I say through clenched teeth, “I just think you’ll live a little longer if you don’t have cheese-puff crumbs trickling through your veins.”
Her smile grows wider as she beams at Blake. “He cares. We’re best friends.”
“We’re not-damn it-” I inhale through my nose, praying for patience. Generally speaking, I’m not much of a talker, but Aria Walsh has this way of making me talk just as a means to counteract her ridiculousness.
“You have to order a drink if you’re going to sit up here,” I finally manage. Irritably.
She shrugs and smiles. “Okay! Make me something alcoholic.”
This time I don’t bother responding, but I hope my withering look clearly conveys that appropriate bar behavior demands she be more specific.
“Um, do you have anything that tastes like bubble gum?” she asks, tilting her head.
In the gym, Aria’s been better about pulling her hair back, but tonight it’s all crazy and everywhere. Add the busy purple pattern on her blouse, and looking at her is dizzying, even if she demands a second look. And a third.
“Actually, we do have this new bubble gum vodka,” Blake says, his eavesdropping skills in full force.
Aria’s eyes light up, but I put a hand on Blake’s shoulder and push him toward the other end of the bar that he’s supposed to be manning. “No. You’re not drinking that,” I mutter. “You’re drinking something respectable.”
“But I want …”
Ignoring her, I pour gin into a glass, watching her pout as I fill it to the top with tonic and then drop in a lime.
“Here.” I set the drink in front of her. “A reputable gin and tonic.”
She takes a sip of the drink.
“Well?” I ask when she says nothing.
Aria rolls her eyes. “I’ve had a gin and tonic before,” she retorts before reaching across to the condiments container and helping herself to a few maraschino cherries.
One goes in her mouth before the other three drop into her drink.
I watch and frown. “You know there aren’t supposed to be cherries-actually, you know what? Never mind,” I mutter, nodding acknowledgment at the two women down the bar pointing to their empty pinot grigio glasses.
Aria Walsh could coax even a mute into conversation, and it annoys me.
“Shoulda given me the bubble gum vodka,” Aria calls after me as her arm reaches forward to grab yet another cherry.
Things at P&S pick up then, as they generally will on a Friday night, and several minutes pass before I can get back to Aria. Not that I need have worried about her. She’s busy chatting it up with an aging businessman on her right who’s showing her something on his phone.
When things finally calm down enough for me to check on her a second time, her drink has turned pink from the cherries and she’s about to launch into another conversation with the couple on her left. I snap a finger in front of her face. “Hey, I wanna talk to you about something.”
She sighs. “Is it about the calories in this drink? Because I’ll give you another minute on the treadmill to make up for it, but not a second more.”
I almost smile. “No, it’s about the fact that you came here with your sister and her boyfriend.” A quick glance across the bar shows that they’ve settled in with their friends in the corner, and neither seems to be the least bit worried-or aware-that one of their companions is all by herself.
Aria tilts her head, sending the curls tilting to one side. “What about it?”
I glance down at my hands, not sure how much I want to give away. “It’s just … it seems harmless now, but in the long run, you’ll hate yourself for it.”
She taps her nails against the glass thoughtfully. “More cryptic ramblings from the Beefcake. Methinks there’s a story there.”
“No story,” I lie. “Just … don’t settle for being the third wheel.”
She pushes her empty glass toward me to refill and leans forward, studying me as I began making her another drink.
“You wanna talk about it?” she asks.
“Talk about what?”
“About the time you spent as a third wheel before getting burned?”
I grab a cocktail pick and stab three cherries with more force than necessary, dropping it into her drink before sliding it back to her. I ignore her question, because the last thing I want to think about, much less talk about, is how much time I spent trailing after my best friend and his girlfriend for most of my life.
“Look, you need friends, Aria.”
I say it a little gruffly, not quite wanting to hurt her feelings but also wanting to get through to her, but the girl’s like freaking rubber. Everything bounces right off her. She blinks at me. “I have friends.”
“Well, you need friends that you can go to a bar with on Friday night,” I snap, annoyed that I have to explain everything for her.
Again with that damn head tilt. “Why? And why do you care? Maybe I’m an introvert.”
Why do I care?
And no, she’s not an introvert. I give her a look, and she gives a sheepish smile. “Okay, so I’m definitely not. But it’s weird enough that you inserted yourself in my life as a personal trainer. Now you’re trying to be my social director?”
Her eyes go wide and she holds up a finger as though she’s just had a brilliant idea. “You have a crush on me!”
Oh, Jesus.
I lean across the board, gently folding my fist over her finger. “I don’t have a crush. Guys don’t get crushes past the age of eight, and I can tell you right now that someone who never shuts up is not my type.”
She purses her lips. “Right, right. You like ’em cool and bony.”
I say nothing.
“You should know, Ben and Kylie have been together, like, seven years,” she says, jerking her head over her shoulder in their direction. “They’re probably going to get engaged soon.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
It’s sick that I’m even thinking that way. I’ve talked to Kylie Walsh for all of a few weeks and haven’t even seen her off the tennis court until tonight. I don’t even know the girl, other than the fact that she is pretty and refined and reminds me in every way of the girl I can’t have.
I think that’s why I want her. Kylie represents the first time I’ve been interested-even a little bit-in someone other than Olivia.
I need to prove to myself that I’m not hung up on a girl who rejected me outright.
But it’s not just about Kylie. Or Olivia.
It’s about Ben, too, and the fact that the guy he knows as his father actually is his father. There’s no chance that he’s going to walk in on his mother discussing his parentage mere hours after his entire personal life falls apart.
Ben didn’t have to deal with being crushed and finding out he’s a bastard all in an afternoon.
When life deals you a blow, it goes for the fucking jugular.
At least it went for mine.
I turn back to Aria, trying to remember that she might be my best shot on getting information on the Carsons. “And how do you feel about that? The almost engagement?”
From anyone else it’d be an innocent question, but I know how she feels about Ben, and it’s a dick move to rub it in her face.
But as quickly as her face crumples, the sun comes out again, and she winds a finger into a curl with a shrug. “It is what it is.”
“I hate that phrase,” I mutter, grabbing a stack of napkins and shoving them at the patrons to Aria’s left who’ve just managed to slosh their beer everywhere.
“I get the weekend off, right?” Aria asks, when I turn back to her. I don’t know why I keep doing that. Coming back to Aria. She’s annoying as fuck, and yet there’s something strangely calming about her manic personality. “From your slave-driving training sessions?” she clarifies.
“Yeah. You get two whole days without me forcing you to walk on the treadmill.”
“Hey, I jogged today!” she says, chomping on a cherry. “How long do you think until I have a six-pack?”
I open my mouth to tell her that it doesn’t work that way, but she’s sliding off the barstool, fishing some money out of her wallet.
I frown. “Where are you going?”
Please don’t say off to insert yourself at your sister’s table. Don’t be so damn desperate.
She slides a twenty across the bar and gives me a wink that’s surprisingly cute in its awkwardness. “My friends are here.”
