Bar Crawl Read online

  CJ smiled and leaned forward, resting a log-like forearm across the back of the couch. His fingers were inches away from my eyes, but I didn’t move. “There’s no reason.”

  I squinted suspiciously.

  “Seriously!” His eyes widened. “I’m not searching for anything. I don’t have a love-lost childhood, my parents are great, I’ve got lots of friends and am quite fucking fulfilled, thank you very much.” His tone was barely playful, but not accusing or defensive. “I just really like sex and I’m not ready for a relationship. Tell me you’ve never had sex for fun.” He arched an eyebrow.

  My neck heated as I thought back to college. “That’s different.”

  “Ha!” CJ’s forceful laugh made me jump. “How? How is it different?”

  I clicked my tongue, pulling my head away from the couch and holding out my hands. “Because. I was a silly, hormone-filled college girl. No responsibilities other than to get through my classes in one piece—or the Dean’s List for good measure. That’s what you do in college, isn’t it?”

  “I think you mean who you do,” CJ teased. “Why is it different now, though? Are you not still exploring? Or are you done figuring out who you are and what you want?”

  “I’m an adult now. A real one. I have a career that I care about, and I probably shouldn’t be sleeping around. That would complicate my job prospects. Besides, I don’t even want to be sleeping around.”

  CJ brought one hand up and lowered it slowly, mocking the volume I’d inadvertently taken on. “Calm down. I wasn’t attacking you. Why in God’s name don’t you want to sleep around? Do you have a boyfriend?”

  His question startled me. My eyebrows drew in to closely, that I knew if I looked up, I’d see them glaring down at me. “Do I have a—what? Are you serious?”

  CJ looked around, his lips parting slightly, as if I’d been the one to ask the ridiculous question. “Yeah…”

  “We kissed. Twice. Today.” My words came out in short spurts. I finally put it all together in one fluid sentence. “We kissed twice today.”

  “We did.” He grinned. “And both times were amazing.”

  I narrowed my eyes, cocking my head to the side. “Do you make a habit out of kissing other guys’ girlfriends?”

  CJ shrugged. “It’s none of my business who has a boyfriend.”

  My jaw nearly hit my knees as I flew to standing, making sure to smack his shoulder on my way up. “You’re a pig!”

  “What?” he yelped back, towering over me as he stood.

  I placed one hand on my hip and used the index finger of my other hand to poke his chest. “You don’t care if someone you’re hooking up with has a boyfriend?”

  “If they don’t care, why should I? Are you honestly suggesting that I ask any girl who I hit on—or who hits on me, for that matter—if they have a boyfriend? As far as I’m concerned, when they come back to my place, that’s them saying they’re available.”

  I froze in place, dumbfounded that this loophole had sucked me in. And swallowed me. “You… Because…” I had nothing. Frustrated, I walked to the kitchen and pulled down a wine glass.

  CJ followed quietly, leaning against the island as I poured a glass of Riesling and took a long sip.

  “I don’t intentionally go after girls who I know have boyfriends…if that helps,” he offered while he watched me.

  My back was turned, but I could feel his eyes on me. I could hear it in his voice when his eyes reached my hips. A low purr seemed to blanket his words for a split second.

  “And,” he continued, “if you’ll recall, I told you that the first night I saw you I didn’t hit on you specifically because I thought you were with your boyfriend. I’m not a total dickhead, Frankie.”

  “Sorry,” I said as I set my glass down and turned around. “I’m just trying to reconcile the CJ in the bar with the CJ in the coffee shop who told me he’s writing a book.”

  He twisted his lips with a light look in his eyes and patted from his chest down to his waist. “One and the same. I gotta say, though, I’m starting to get a little offended about your opinion of me.” His face fell slightly, sending my stomach with it. I hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings.

  “Look,” I replied as I walked toward him, aiming to turn the situation around with sarcasm, “you’re offensive sometimes.”

  CJ let out a raucous laugh that vibrated the counter beneath my hand. “I’m serious, though. Do I really come off like that much of a dick?”

  I waved my hand through the air. “Only to onlookers,” I chided.

  CJ grabbed the dishtowel near him and lightly whipped my hip with it. “Smartass,” he teased. “Let’s start on those scallops. I’m starving.”

  I looked at the clock on my stove and realized more than an hour had passed since we’d been back at my place. In that whole hour he had managed not to hit on me. And I was a little unsure how I felt about that.

  CJ

  There we were, joking in her kitchen together. I think the last girl I joked that much with was my cousin’s best friend, Ember. They’d played in a band together for a couple of years and she thought I was horrid. So naturally, I’d taken every chance I could to remind her of why she thought that. She’d tease me for being vile, and I’d get on her for being such an uptight princess. I’d even called her Rapunzel for a while, which earned me plenty of dirty looks.

  Still, apart from Ember and, of course, Georgia, joking around with girls wasn’t something I ever did. I took women very seriously—despite how it might look from the outside. I couldn’t help it with Frankie, though. Maybe I was relieved that she was finally giving me more than a few minutes at a time to speak, but I finally felt like I had some leverage.

  Now that I had it, though, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Watching her move around the kitchen, listening to her speak, and smelling a sweet and airy fragrance from her skin as she walked by left me with this weird feeling in my chest. I don’t know why I was surprised that I seemed to be falling for her. Even from the first time I hit on her, it felt different.

  “What?” Frankie said, seemingly out of nowhere.

  “Hmm?” I replied, trying to cover up that I’d been lost in thought.

  “You’re staring.”

  “Oh,” I sighed, “I was just thinking.”

  “Is that tiring for you?” She stuck out her tongue for a quick second, then went back to the frying pan.

  I chuckled. “Funny. I was actually thinking about how the night I hit on you…the first time…I was hoping you’d turn me down.”

  I couldn’t read her face, since she was intently cooking the scallops, but I watched her shoulders tremble against a chuckle. “Why were you hoping I’d turn you down?”

  “I wanted you to be different,” I admitted.

  Frankie turned off the stove and moved the pan onto an inactive burner as she slowly slid the scallops onto a plate. She wasn’t laughing anymore. “Oh?” She swallowed hard. “How so?”

  I shrugged in disbelief. I couldn’t keep my damn thoughts to myself around her. “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe Playboy CJ is ready for a little more than a one night stand, and that scares him?’ Her voice was the pitch of a teacher asking a student if they’d like to share their secret with the whole class. She smiled almost mischievously as she turned to the island and handed me a plate full of seared scallops and asparagus.

  I shook my head. “No, that’s not it.”

  “Oh.” Frankie’s lips pressed into a straight line and she seemed to avoid looking at me for a few seconds. Inside her downcast eyes, I swear I saw disappointment. She looked up with a tight smile and gestured to my plate. “Try it. Tell me how you like it.”

  I wanted to correct myself, but I wasn’t sure how. I wanted to tell her that I was, in fact, looking for something more, but I couldn’t, because I didn’t know what more was. Instead, I tasted the buttery heaven of her scallops and moaned in appreciation.

  “You like?” she asked hopefully, s
liding a scallop into her mouth.

  “Jesus,” I moaned again, “this is like food porn.”

  Frankie coughed as she laughed between bites. “Always back to the sex with you, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged, refusing to open my mouth any further than necessary to allow food in. It would only cause the grave to grow deeper, and I had to buy some time to figure out how to get out of the spot I’d already put myself in.

  After several minutes of silence, broken only by my sounds of gratitude and satisfaction over the food, Frankie spoke up as she stared into her wine glass.

  “Do you think you’re a sex addict?” she asked in what appeared to be complete seriousness.

  I nearly choked on my last piece of asparagus. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I can tell.” I wiped my mouth and set the napkin on my plate. “But why?”

  She shrugged, looking almost timid about the question. “You seem like such a nice, normal guy. I mean, college and the computer degree. You’ve got money and a successful band career, and you don’t appear to do drugs or be an alcoholic. But…the women. There is always a woman on your arm. Typically a different one. I’m willing to bet there’s a well-worn walk-of-shame path from your door to nearly every bar parking lot on the Cape.”

  My eyes must have bugged out several inches, because she instantly covered her moth.

  “Shit!” she yelled into her hand. “I’m not usually this rude. I promise. I don’t even swear this much. Ever. I’m a teacher for … Jesus…” She stood, taking our plates with her to the sink. After dropping them in the basin, she stood with her hands on the edge of the counter. She titled her chin down and took a deep breath.

  Leaving my seat, I walked over to meet her and placed my hand in the middle of her lower back. I’d been meaning to do that. “Don’t be sorry. You’re right, you know. Until today, you’ve only seen that one side of me. I can’t be mad at you for drawing painfully obvious conclusions, can I?”

  “Why are you showing me the other side? The writer side. The articulate side. Especially…” Frankie looked up at me as she trailed off, seeming to consider if she wanted to continue her thought.

  “Especially what?” I refrained from kissing her again, like I so badly wanted to. I wanted to listen to what she had to say.

  “If you don’t want a girlfriend.” Frankie chewed her lip as she brought up my insinuation from earlier that a girlfriend was the last thing I wanted. “People only share things they usually try to hide with their friends or significant others. Do you want to be friends with me? Is that what…all this…is about?”

  I exhaled sharply—almost comically—through my nose. “I don’t want to be friends with you.”

  Frankie turned from the counter then. I didn’t move the position of my hand, which meant once she was facing me, my hand was now resting on the soft curve of her waist. She kept her eyes on mine and I watched color bleed into her cheeks as if someone had a dropper of red coloring somewhere and dripped some on her skin.

  “Then,” she said softly, “what do you want to be?” She swallowed hard, and I did the same, unable to look away from her.

  The sliver of air between our bodies was so thick with anticipation; I knew I had to either kiss her or back away to avoid the suffocation that threatened. There was a high inside that moment, though—one I’d never experienced before. I barely ever paid attention to kissing girls, never mind the moments leading up to the kiss. I almost wanted to stay there forever with Frankie—suspended in the moment of our expectations—before any of them could be put to the test. She blinked, though, and reminded me that I had a move to make, and I’d better make the right one.

  “I want to kiss you again,” I admitted in a whisper, barely recognizing my own voice. It sounded the same, I guess, but the words themselves were unfamiliar to my tongue—their meaning causing it to swell slightly as I leaned in.

  Frankie’s lips parted as mine brushed up against hers. Before the kiss was complete, her mouth moved against mine. “You scare me,” she whispered, a slight tremble behind it.

  “You scare me,” I whispered back as I moved my hand to the back of her neck and pulled her mouth against mine.

  There was a moan. Not completely from her, and not totally from me. It was just the release of the moment between us, fleeing into the atmosphere around us in relief as we took our time with each other. No crowds. No sidewalks. And, for the first time in my life, my second thought wasn’t to take off her clothes.

  Frankie

  He kept one hand on the back of my neck and the other gripped the edge of the counter, as mine did. My loose hand made its way to the top of one of his shoulders, and I wasn’t surprised at all to feel the muscles flex beneath my fingers, rock hard and pulsing beneath his shirt. I quickly scanned my memory—surely I’d seen him with his shirt off and would remember how these muscles looked sans cotton. But nothing came up. In all the times I’d seen him, and with all the alcohol consumed and the bar environments, I’d never seen him without his shirt.

  My hand resting on the counter wanted in on the action, moving almost by its own will to his waist—well, what there was to speak of. The lines of his face and shoulders were dangerously sharp and straight, and that didn’t stop at his pecs. His waist was hard and straight like a doorframe, hinging expertly into his narrow hips.

  As soon as my hand connected with his waist, his hand moved to mine. I’m not a petite person, but his hands still covered large sections of my skin. Their scale against my curvy body made me shift my hips, pressing them closer to his body. I felt his deep inhale as his chest expanded, pressing me back what felt like several inches. Despite what I’d seen of him in the bars—and sometimes on the sidewalks or in cars—he didn’t seem anxious to do anything other than stand in my kitchen and kiss me. And I was perfectly fine with that.

  Until I wasn’t.

  Before I could steer the gears of my brain in a different direction, they worked in their tried and true pattern. What if, while kissing me, he realized that he didn’t want to go further because I wasn’t a good kisser, or he realized he didn’t find me attractive? Sure, we had kissed before—just today—but it wasn’t anything like the kiss here in my kitchen. What if I wasn’t all that he’d cracked me up to be in his head, and he was just trying to be polite and finish out the kiss?

  I tried to shake those thoughts from my head. CJ, while obviously promiscuous, hadn’t really ever associated himself with anyone I would consider to be ugly. Though most people aren’t ugly. I refused to let my ancient insecurity take over what was the hottest kiss of my life. Regaining control over my thoughts, I bunched the bottom of his shirt in my right hand and pulled him closer. We were flush against each other, and I could feel that he absolutely didn’t think I was anything but attractive.

  He wanted me.

  I wanted him.

  But not tonight. Not like this. I couldn’t be another notch in his bedpost. His very, very hole-riddled bedpost. Still, I couldn’t stop kissing him. Months of our subliminal cat and mouse game was at a head, and though we were kissing—our tongues barely leaving each other’s mouths—we were still circling each other. Predator and prey. And, for the first time since I’d laid eyes—and judgment—on him, I wasn’t sure which one of us was which.

  The rush I’d felt when he’d first hit on me was swirling deep inside the “told you so” part of my brain as I let out a small moan into his mouth. I’d craved him immediately—which, I assume, plays heavily into his continued success with most women. There was just enough about his exterior to keep me away until this afternoon, but once I got a good look at his brain, I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t stop the suggestive movements and flirty words.

  I couldn’t stop.

  I wanted to crawl inside his brain and open all the cabinets and drawers and find all the dark places he kept hidden from everyone else. Except for me. I felt like I now owned a certain part of him, in a way. Not a psycho pos
sessive way. But there was a piece of him that, at least for the time being, was just mine. And it sent fire through me.

  Before I got sucked all the way into that fire—that need and desire—I slowly backed away from the kiss. I didn’t pull away roughly, like someone breathless and confused about what they’d just done. I knew what I was doing, and I wanted more, so I had to be careful. Slowly moving my lips to the corner of his mouth, and then down his jaw, I finished with a soft kiss on the point where his jaw and neck met and created a divine shadow. Finally stepping back, catching my breath while watching his chest rise and fall in nearly equal rhythm, I met his smoky eyes.

  “Read me some of your book,” I said during an exaggerated exhale.

  He laughed once, almost nervously, trying, it seemed, to gage the gravity of my request. “Are you serious?”

  What I wanted to do was have sex with him, but listening to him read his words would, frankly, be better. And safer. On a number of levels.

  I nodded and gripped his hand, leading us back to the couch we’d been on before. Returning him to his original seat, I walked to my entryway and picked up his messenger bag—thick with his words—placing it on his lap when I reentered the living room.

  “Omphf,” he grunted as the bag landed squarely in the center of his lap.

  “Sorry.” I chuckled and sat cross-legged, facing him.

  CJ cleared his throat and opened up his laptop. It looked like it might break in his hands. I was still trying to put all of the jagged pieces of his personality into a complete puzzle. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “How is the book organized? Is it like a novel, or short stories, or what?” My chest filled with the giddy excitement of a pure nerd. I was going to hear unpublished material straight from the author. I had no idea if he could even write to save his life, but that barely mattered in that moment.

  “Uh,” CJ ran a hand through his hair, seeming nervous, “they’re short stories. Each chapter is a snapshot of people. Either one, or a boyfriend/girlfriend, or a group of people. Some I’ve seen over and over again and write about that. And some I’ve seen once and never again, so I have to reach deeper for that story.”