Bittersweet (6 page)

As we push our way through the crowd, Greg tries to help ease my passage through the sweating, jostling bodies by moving toward me in a sort of protective cocoon that makes me even warmer than the air pressing in around me. Still, we make it almost right to the stage, and there is a lot more buzz and excitement as everyone stares up at the empty expanse, waiting for the band to come on. I glance back, trying to see Max or Todd or Hal, but as the lights dim down and the crowd roars, I lose track of them altogether. I can feel Greg standing right behind me though. His heat seems more particular than that of all the bodies around me. I close my eyes for a second, but the roar of guitars makes me fling them open, and I let out a whoop and turn to grin back up at him, without really thinking. He laughs, and his smile is more carefree—and more ridiculously beautiful, if that’s possible—than I’ve seen on his face before.

We begin to move with the crowd, jumping up and down, hands in the air and singing along to the band’s latest hit, and I feel the buzz of music and alcohol pulse through my veins, along with the undeniable excitement of Greg pressing closer into me as the crowd jostles him forward. At least, I assume that’s why.

But as Meta launch into their next song, a big guy with a shaved head manages to spill most of his JD and Coke down my arm. I shoot him a ferocious look, but he just laughs. I grit my teeth, telling myself that’s just what happens at a concert, even though I’m going to have to try and find the ladies’ room to wash the sticky mess off after. But then Shaved Head’s buddy pogoes into him, causing the big guy to fall hard against my shoulder. I grimace, but he doesn’t bother apologizing.

“Watch it!” I shout.

“What’s your problem?” he yells back, a drunken grin on his face.

“First with the spilled drink, now you’re slamming into me? How about you gain a little control?”

“Oh what, you don’t like the wet T-shirt competition, Miss Twinkle Toes? Why don’t you move the hell back if you can’t handle it?”

I’m taking a breath, about to give the guy a piece of my mind, when I hear Greg interject.

“Why don’t you go back to your cave, asshole, and tell the lady you’re sorry before you do?” He moves to step in between me and the lunk-head, his eyes dark. Flattered as I am, I’m just about to tell Greg I can fight my own battles when the guy edges closer.

“Fuck you say?”

Greg reaches up and shoves the guy’s chest hard. “You heard me.”

I roll my eyes at the display, and rest a hand on Greg’s taut arm. He turns toward me, but just as he does, out of nowhere Shaved Head takes a swing at him. It obviously takes Greg by surprise too—before he can get out of the way, the guy’s fist connects with his jaw, and he stumbles back.

“Come here, sugar,” Shaved Head leers, reaching for my wrist. “You can do better than this dick—”

Speaking of which—without even thinking about it, my knee flies up and straight into the guy’s crotch. He doubles over in pain, and I stare, wide-eyed.

Then I feel a meaty hand on my shoulder, and turn around to see a security guard.

“Oh, man, this is one of my favorites,” I groan, still able to hear the strains of the band as Greg and I are escorted out into the warm Virginia night.

“Too bad, hon,” the security guard says, though he smiles sympathetically. “You see the rules.” He points to an old sign on the door that reads:
No fights, no funny business.

“Define funny business?” I ask wryly, and the guy chuckles.

“Have a good night, y’all,” he says, and the door slams. At least he let me get my jacket, and those other assholes who got kicked out too are long gone. I stare out at the parking lot, then sheepishly over at Greg as he clutches his jaw.

“Damn, he got me good,” he mutters, working it back and forth and wincing. “Hope the bruise goes before… Well, I just hope it’s not too crazy-looking.”

Huh. I guess I’d be vain too if I looked like he does. “I’m sooo sorry, Greg,” I say for the eighteenth time. He smiles, then winces again.

“It’s fine, please don’t apologize. That was actually pretty awesome,” he says.

“I don’t know what came over me.” I shake my head. “I guess some residual knowledge from a self-defense class I took in high school…?”

He smiles with the half of his face he’s not clutching. “Well, remind me never to put you in a bad mood,” he retorts, his eyes doing that twinkling thing again even in the dim glow of the streetlights in the parking lot.

“We ought to get you some ice.” I feel my brows drawing together apologetically again. “There’s a bar across the street.”

Greg nods, and I grab my cell and text Maxine to let her know briefly what happened and where we are, though I doubt she’ll hear it over the noise. We make our way across the street, and Greg holds the bar door open for me to step inside. It’s quiet and dark, just a few regulars at small tables and a couple at the bar. Low music plays from a battered jukebox. I guess everyone’s over at the Canal enjoying the concert. I sigh.

“Sorry. I’m guessing this wasn’t what you imagined was on the cards for tonight,” I say, and Greg shakes his head.

“No it wasn’t,” he murmurs, but then smiles again, even though I can tell it hurts. “But stop apologizing, remember?”

“Right. Take a seat, I’ll get some ice, and a couple of drinks.” I stop. “Uh, I mean unless you want to head home? I’ll wait here for my friends to—”

“No, no, I’ll have a drink, sure. I’m not in a hurry.”

I smile. “OK. Good.”

This is edging dangerously close to being on a date. Well, if a date started with a fistfight with some douchebag. Still, even with a bruised jaw Greg has got to be one of the best-looking guys I’ve been in a
room
with, let alone sat across from in a dark bar trying to make small talk. Oh, man. What are we going to say to each other? I decide there’s no point worrying about it now anyway, and head over to the bar.

“My friend over there could use some ice for his jaw?” I say, and the bartender eyes me, then flicks his gaze over to Greg. Once he’s decided we’re not troublemakers, he shovels some ice cubes into a dishcloth and hands it over. “And two bourbons, on the rocks,” I add. I’d forgotten to ask Greg what he wanted, but when I’m in doubt, that’s my drink.

I clutch the dishcloth of ice in one hand, and the two drinks in the other—hey, they don’t pay me the big waitressing bucks for nothing—and head over to the other side of the bar, where Greg’s sitting. I set the glasses down.

“All right…” I reach over and gently press the ice to the side of his face with a sympathetic grimace. His eyes hold mine, and without saying anything he presses his hand against mine to hold the cloth in place for a moment. I feel the warmth of his palm against my skin, the cool of the ice under the dishcloth. “Um … better?” I slide my hand away, and he takes over for a moment before removing the ice from his face and testing out his jaw.

“A little, yeah,” he says.

“Keep icing it,” I say, and sit down on the stool next to him. Here we are again on stools. I resist the urge to let those inane words out of my mouth, but smile at the thought. He looks at me, then back at the drinks.

“Bourbon, huh?”

“Oh, yeah, is that OK?”

He smiles and nods, with an odd little sigh. “My favorite.” He raises his glass, and I clink mine against it. “To … fate.” He says the last word softly, and takes a sip of his drink without looking at me, but I know he feels my eyes on him.

I swallow some from my own glass, then swirl the amber liquid around in it. “My mother liked to have a bottle of Virginia Gentleman on the go. She thought it was funny,” I say. “Or ironic or whatever. I was only little, but I loved the smell of it. Guess later I developed a bit of a taste for it too.”

He turns to look at me, pressing the ice to his face again. “On the go?”

“Oh, not like… She wasn’t an alcoholic,” I say with a short laugh. “No, that wasn’t her problem.”

“What was, then?” Greg asks.

I bite the inside of my cheek. “Selfishness.” I take another sip and shake my head. “She ran away. Man, if only she knew Hollywood was right in her back yard now,” I mutter. I feel him looking at me again, but somehow I don’t feel too uncomfortable. Maybe the alcohol and the adrenaline have loosened my inhibitions, because usually I hate talking about this. But then something in Greg’s eyes is also weirdly reassuring. Emboldening. Sexy… “She … she wanted to be an actress. That was always her dream. And I guess one day she decided that dream was bigger than her love for her family, and she up and left.” I drain my glass and signal the bartender for two more. “Guess she never made it or I’d have seen her on screen with all the other phonies by now.” Jeez, Cathy, sound a little more bitter, why don’t you? Those phonies give Greg a job to do. I straighten up and watch him finish his drink as the others are set in front of us. “Uh, have you always worked in TV?” I ask, trying to pull things clumsily around to him.

He eyes me for a moment, then shakes his head. “No, not always,” he says. “This is sort of my first job.”

“You didn’t want to stick to your dad’s business? Too many figure-ruining carbs in baked goods?” I say, and he laughs.

“Uh, no. It’s just tough, you know, working with your family. We clashed a little sometimes and I guess I had different ideas from my dad about what I wanted to do with my life. How do you find it?”

“What, working with Joe?”

He nods.

“Well, I think he’s the opposite, really. He feels guilty, like after what happened with my mother, and uh, he was sick for a while, and my kid brother needed looking after…” I feel a little self-conscious, like maybe Greg wasn’t looking for my life story. But he’s watching me, and he seems interested, so I carry on. “He thinks he’s holding me back. But actually, I really love the restaurant, and the town. Don’t get me wrong, there’s times when I think, what if I could do something a little different with it? Change things up, make the restaurant a real destination… But you know, in a place like Dogwood, you don’t usually find much in the way of the unexpected.”

I look over at Greg, thinking that he’s maybe an exception, and he pulls the ice away from his face and gestures to himself with a slow grin. I laugh. Why does it always seem like he can read my mind?

“Yeah, we don’t get many New Yorkers passing through, that’s for sure,” I say, trying to cover. “Why did you arrive so early anyway? You said they don’t need you yet.”

He glances away and shrugs, but then turns back to me. “Honestly?”

I nod. “Yeah. Always.”

He sighs a little. “Maybe I have a little of what your mother had,” he says, looking into my eyes like he’s trying to warn me about something. I can’t look away though. “I left New York because I was running away.” He sets the cloth full of melting ice down on the bar, and we both watch as water begins to pool out of it, then look back at one another. “But I sort of burned my bridges back there. So I really need this gig to work out.” He swallows, saying the last part quietly.

“Oh.” I fight the urge to reach out for his hand—and just thinking about his skin against mine makes my heart quicken. “H-how’s your jaw now?” I murmur, weirded out by the way my voice sounds all husky. I glance at the bruise that’s starting to form, then toward his lips and back up into his huge blue eyes.

“Cold,” he replies. His eyes are roaming
my
face now. Hmm…

But I suddenly realize that I really need the bathroom. “I, um… Would you excuse me for a second?”

He takes a breath. “Yeah. Sure.”

I swivel on the stool and set one foot on the floor, but as I move off, I stumble a little—damn bourbon—and find myself leaning forward and reaching out a hand to steady myself. On his thigh.

“Careful,” he murmurs, next to my ear. His breath brushes the hair around my face and sends a shiver down my spine. He holds my waist to steady me, and I pull back a little to look him in the face. Greg’s gaze drifts down toward the exaggerated V in my customized T-shirt, and I smirk a little as I catch him doing it. The corner of his lips quirk up too, and then he licks them, edging a fraction closer to me, his eyes searching mine—

“Cathy!”

Shit
. Shit shit shit.

“Hey, guys…” I step back and Greg lets his hands fall away from my waist. “Guess the show’s over,” I murmur, and he blows out some air.

“Guess so…”

I say hi to Maxine, Hal, and the others, then head to the bathroom, wondering if it was for the best. The tingling sensation that’s running all over my skin would definitely beg to differ.

I throw away the cool, wet paper towel I’ve been pressing to the back of my neck for what feels like an hour, trying to calm myself down after what almost happened—I think—with Greg. Now that everyone’s here, I don’t know if we’re going to pretend that
almost happened
was a
never happened
… I take a deep breath and head out of the ladies’ room back toward the bar, and Maxine leans back to stop me before she orders.

“C, want anything?”

I think about the beers and shots and bourbons I’ve already drained. “Uh … just some water.” I see the others gathered around one of the tables; Cindy, having rejoined the group, is laughing at something Hal said, and Todd’s chatting to Greg in his usual easy-going, friendly way. Buddies all around, I guess. Blowing out a sigh, I start to pick up the drinks to help Max carry them over, but she hangs back, shaking her head.

“Um, not so fast, sweetie,” she says. “What’s the deal? You two seemed to be getting a little
closer
there…?”

“Yeah, great timing,” I say, raising my eyebrows.

Max pulls a wincing face, like her science project just got stepped on. “Sorry, Cath. But this is good—this is
great
even. He’s on board, right? So, time for Phase Two.”

God, I don’t even want to know what that means, but I do know I should probably be afraid. We take the drinks over to the table, and I notice Greg’s switched back to beer, but he doesn’t seem to be drinking much of it and he’s gone a little quiet. I guess it must be slightly overwhelming, being the stranger in a bunch of people who know one another, and he seems adorably vulnerable for a moment. I edge over and smile up at him in what I hope is a reassuring manner, and his eyes lock with mine again. The way he’s looking at me definitely makes me wish we were still alone…