I Found You (9 page)

My hands were in the pockets of my leather jacket and my lips twisted to a half smile as I walked. Of course, I could break out into a run and see if she could keep up, her heels weren’t that high.

My hands slipped out of my pockets and I started slowly, jogging past her and glancing back at her over my shoulder. I’d worn my running shoes with my jeans to come fetch her.

She started running too, hitching up her tight pencil skirt with one hand.

I ran a little faster, it didn’t even make me breathless but it was so easy to leave her behind.

“Wait! Hey wait! Not that fast! Wait!”

I upped my pace again, although it was nowhere near the pace I usually ran at.

“Jason Macinlay! I said wait! I can’t keep up with you!”

I stopped dead and turned around laughing. There were others in the street looking at us oddly, I didn’t give a damn.

Rach had her shoes in one hand and her other gripped her skirt, holding it hitched up to the top of her long slender thighs, as she ran the last few paces in stocking covered feet over the cold ground.

She had a good stride. I was sure she’d be good to run with.

When she reached me though, she doubled over panting and pressing her palm to her side. “Dammit. I got a stitch. What did you have to do that for?”

I laughed at her. Well, she could run if she got used to a little exercise. “You need to work out, girl.”

She stood upright, her fingers still pressing against her side as she dropped her shoes onto the sidewalk, and then, when she slipped her feet into them one at a time, putting them back on, she met my gaze. “What I need is a night out, not a work-out.”

She was smiling at me like she was having the best time of her life. But I’d got the impression from Rachel that every day was the best day of her life. God knows what had made her contemplate ending it all? Probably some guy who’d let her down. She was so openhearted she wouldn’t have seen it coming.

But then any man who’d let her down was a fool. It was his loss, not hers.

Her blonde hair was in a ponytail but there was a loose strand brushing her neck. My fingers itched to tuck it behind her ear as we walked.

When we got back to my apartment she disappeared into the bathroom while I quickly changed into a shirt and a black pair of skinny cut pants. I also swapped my running shoes for the one pair of decent shoes I owned and used for work. All the time I was changing, I heard the shower running.

I’d never gone to a club. I’d only ever gone to bars with Lindy and my friends. I was sure I was in for a wild night with Rachel. I was looking forward to it. My heart beat rapidly as I walked from the bedroom back into the living room to get a beer. Rach hadn’t told me where we were going.

To calm the energy still buzzing in my veins from my run, and to control the cocktail of anxious excitement within me, I sat on the floor and started up a game on the Xbox.

I heard the shower turn off and then Rach singing in the bedroom.

“Man. Why don’t you have a hairdryer?” Her voice reverberated through the closed door.

“I keep my hair short so I don’t need one!” I shouted back laughing.

“That’s just selfish…” There was laughter in her voice, too.

“Want me to come and blow on it!”

“Ha, ha. No thanks, I’ll manage.”

She went silent then but I could hear her moving about, getting stuff out of bags.

She started singing to herself again and then shouted, “I won’t be much longer… I hope you’re ready?”

“I’m ready. I’m waiting on you!” As I shouted my thumbs carried on working the controls.

Rach was getting good at my games. Her scores were starting to beat some of mine. She’d play in the morning, before she started a lunch shift and I’d play after my run, before I met her from work. It had become a competition between us to play the same game the other one had played and beat their last score.

She was becoming like one of my best friends. In fact in some ways she was more fun than them.

“Hey.”

I glanced round. I hadn’t heard the door open, and… Fuck…

None of my friends were hot like her.

I’d dropped the controller without even thinking, letting the car just crash, and now I stood, unraveling from my crossed legged position on the floor.

“Fuck, Rach…” That wasn’t the thing to say obviously, but she looked amazing. She was wearing stiletto heeled black leather knee length boots which hugged her slim calves and a scarlet red jersey dress. I’m sure most women couldn’t have pulled the dress off, but she could.

Fuck.

I was lost for words, and then finally the right words came out. “You look amazing… Beautiful.”

Her hair was a bit messy. Obviously she’d turned upside down and shaken it to dry it a bit. But even so, its ruffled look only made me think of how she looked when she was asleep, when I got up in the morning, and I always thought that was a good look.

Shit.

She was wearing make-up too, and I’d never seen her in make-up. Her lipstick matched the color of her dress and the mascara on her eyes seemed to highlight the unusual light green even more.

“You look fabulous, Rach,” I said more calmly.

“You scrub up pretty good, too.”

Her gaze swept down over my clothes. I knew they were really nothing special, Lindy always moaned I didn’t have a gift with style.

To stop feeling awkward I finished off my beer, then turned and put the empty bottle down on the counter, saying, “Ready,” as I turned back.

She’d taken her little black leather purse off her shoulder, and was pulling some dollar notes out of it.

“Here.” She held them out to me. “You’d better take this before I get drunk and spend it.”

“You don’t have to, Rach.”

“No, I do. I’m not gonna keep owing you forever. Take it. And we’re Dutch tonight, right, no manly I’m buying all the drinks bullshit. We’re half and half.”

I smiled. “Okay, it’s a deal.” I took the money off her. I couldn’t refuse. It would be cruel to refuse. She was busy turning her life around. I wasn’t going to stop her.

After I’d put the money in my wallet, I reached her coat down from the peg and held it up for her.

“Why, thank you kind sir, it’s amazing what a figure-hugging red dress can do.”

“Very funny…” I was smiling at her, even though my words were dry. But she was right, the dress was figure-hugging, it clung to every curve and left nothing to my imagination. Not that I needed imagination, I could still see the image of her on that first night in my mind as she’d lain naked in the bath. Shit, tonight was not the night to be thinking about that.

I reached for my coat, then put it on.

“We’re going on the subway,” she said, hooking her little purse bag over her arm again. “So don’t take your hat and scarf, you’ll only lose them in the club––”

“And freeze on the way home either way…”

“You won’t notice the weather on the way back you’ll be too drunk.” She grinned at me, her devilish come-on-live-a-bit-wild grin.

I grinned back, a sucker for a beautiful woman in a hot dress. “I wish all my friends looked as good as you,” I whispered to her as we went out the door.

She glanced back, flashing me another bright smile. Then she said, “Likewise.”

When we got on the subway train we sat on opposite sides of the carriage, grinning at each other, like a couple of kids. But then my cell buzzed in my pocket as it pulled away.

I took it out.

It was Lindy.

“Yeah.”

“What, not
hi, darling
, or,
great to hear from you
.”

“I’m on the subway, Lindy. I told you I was going out.”

“Right. I just wanted to check you’re okay.”

“I’m, okay.”

“You always call me, I just wanted to surprise you and call you for a change.”

“On the one night I’ve gone out for a drink since I’ve been here, cheers, Lindy, thanks for thinking of me.”

I didn’t look at Rachel. It was embarrassing to have Lindy check up on me. She was jealous of Rachel. Lindy had always held other women at a distance from me, it was just part of what she did, and the way she was. I knew it was because she was insecure, but I was a little sick of her insecurity lately.

“Lindy, just give it a rest. Be the one to call me tomorrow if you like, it’s a Saturday, surprise me then…”

She hung up.

She’d be pissed off and angry now.

My good mood deflated like someone let helium out of my balloon. I made a sorry face at Rach and stood up, then moved further along the carriage, and with one arm looped about the bar to hold me steady, I called Lindy back. The subway was coming off the far end of the bridge. I’d lose my signal soon.

“Hi,” she answered, sounding annoyed.

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, right…”

“I’m trying my best to make this work, Lindy. You know I haven’t been out, or really made friends here. Rachel just offered to get me out of the apartment and help me get to know the city a bit, to cheer me up, alright… It’s nothing.”

“It isn’t nothing, Jason. She’s living with you in a one bedroom apartment. She’s after what she can get. She’s taking advantage, and…”

And of course in Lindy’s opinion that could only be about money, nothing to do with the fact Rach might actually like me.

“Think whatever you want to think, Lindy.” I kept my head down so my voice didn’t carry. “I know why she’s staying, and it isn’t to get money out of me. I like her, alright? She’s good company. I’m sorry you’re jealous, but I’m not making her homeless just ‘cause you’re jealous. This has to stop, understand. You can’t keep running her down every night.”

Lindy stayed silent for a minute. Then she said, “You know, Jason, if you were really trying at this, you wouldn’t even be in New York, you’d be here, where you belong, with me and your mom and dad. Bye.”

She hung up again.

I didn’t call back.

I slipped the cell into my inside pocket where my wallet was and went to sit back down opposite Rach again.

“How’s Lindy?” She gave me a sweet smile. I looked for sarcasm in her expression and found none. She understood. I could see it in her eyes. She knew I felt like trash because I could do nothing right for Lindy.

I smiled back as her smile turned sympathetic. “Fine.”

“It’s alright, tonight’s gonna cheer you up and put a smile back on your face, Jason Macinlay.”

I got up and shifted to the seat next to her and then started asking her about the club she was taking me to. I wanted to lighten the mood again. I’d felt good when we’d left the apartment, now I was feeling all small-town-guy-in-a-big-city.

She had me laughing by the time we got off the subway, although it wasn’t a belly laugh. I still felt a bit down over my argument with Lindy. I wasn’t sure Lindy and I would ever work out now, and yet we’d been together forever, and I’d thought it would just go on like that. I couldn’t see my future anymore. It was ridiculous, I’d been so sure of everything until I’d come to New York. Or perhaps Lindy had just been sure of everything and I’d fallen in line…

“Do you wanna go to a bar first?”

“You’re the party planner…” Lindy’s call was seriously flattening this for me.

“Then we’ll go to a bar, and I’m buying the first round, and you’re having a shot, not just beer.”

I smiled at her, my hands in my pockets again.

“Come on, cheer up,” she said. “A girlfriend who wants to take over the world won’t end your life.”

“Just limit it…” My gaze caught hers, and for the first time in days she gripped my arm.

“Come on, I’m on a mission now, I’m cheering you up whether you like it or not.”

Her touch felt reassuring and comforting. I really wasn’t a bastard, was I? Lindy made me feel like I was.

Chapter Six

I picked a quieter bar to start with, to break Jason’s ill-mood. I thought a noisy bar straightaway may be annoying as he wasn’t in the right mind. It wasn’t empty though. Nowhere was empty in the middle of New York on a Friday night. I’d deliberately picked a place Declan wouldn’t go to, but even so, I scanned the place looking for him when we walked in. It was safe. I knew everywhere I’d chosen would be safe. They were too down-market for Declan.

We found space at the bar and I gestured for Jason to occupy a bar stool as I waved my hand at the guy who was serving. “Hey!” He was up the other end. He’d just finished serving someone else but he came straight over.

“What can I do for you, pretty lady?”

“Two of your best beers and two shots of tequila, with lemon and salt; we’re slamming them.”

“Coming right up.” He gave me a broad sidelong smile, flirting a little, but I wasn’t interested tonight. Tonight was all about giving my new friend, and official knight in shining armor, Jason, a good time.

When the bar tender set the tequila shots down in front of us, I picked one up and gave it to Jason.

He looked at it and then at the quartered lemon and salt pot. “What are they for?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never in your life slammed tequila?”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head.

“Jason Macinlay, you seriously need to live a bit more.”

“That’s what I’m meant to be doing here isn’t it? That’s why you planned all this.”

“I planned all this so we could have some fun. I’ll pay for these and then I’m gonna teach you how to drink tequila slammers.” I handed the barman my money and he gave me a wink, obviously inwardly laughing over Jason’s naivety. I made a face at him. He laughed as I turned back to Jason.

“I guess I’m going to be the clown tonight.”

“You’re not. Okay, what you do is put some salt on the side of your hand first, like this…” I showed him and he copied, with a concentration frown marking his forehead.

I wanted to laugh. He did look funny, and puzzled, I seriously couldn’t believe he’d got to twenty-two and never drunk tequila shots. But then I’d been drinking long before the legal age.

“Then take a piece of lemon.”

He smiled, and copied me again.

“So now you lick the salt, drink the tequila and then suck the lemon; easy.”

I picked up my shot glass, licked the salt off with one sweep of my tongue, downed the tequila in one, and then sucked on the quarter lemon, grinning at him and meeting his questioning, smiling brown gaze, with the lemon still between my teeth.