Shameless (7 page)

Nina caught movement on the small stage situated beyond the slightly larger dance floor in front of it. The tables were packed, and she craned her neck to see through the crowd. There was Gauge now, putting his guitar strap over his shoulder. He was wearing his usual jeans and dark T-shirt, this one bearing Aerosmith’s winged logo. His dark hair was tousled and he smiled at someone in the audience as he gave his instrument a final tuning.

Okay, there was one….

Nina sipped at the sweet concoction in her glass and looked in the other direction, seeking out Kevin. She knew he was coming. Gauge had invited them both earlier in the day. Kevin hadn’t committed until after Nina had said she couldn’t make it, but had immediately said he’d be there when he’d learned she wouldn’t be going.

All part of her strategy.

There. There he was. Near the end of the bar wearing his telltale denim shirt over a white T-shirt, one hiking boot on top of the footrest as he accepted a draught beer from the bartender.

Nina smiled. The men were good about banding together at work and providing a united front whenever she approached them. So good, in fact, that she’d given up. Or at least pretended to. She thought that maybe she stood a better chance after they’d both had a beer or two in them…and were away from each other.

Yes, she’d considered going to each of their places alone late at night. Had even driven to Kevin’s once…only to be disappointed to find him not home. She’d sat outside his late parents’ old Victorian house and waited for a while, but had finally given up without driving by Gauge’s apartment building on the outskirts of town.

But tonight…

She caught herself sipping her drink again and pushed it slightly away, already beginning to feel the effects of the disguised alcohol. She grimaced. It wouldn’t do her any good at all to get drunk herself. She needed her wits about her if she was going to figure this one out.

“Good evening, everyone,” the lead singer of the band said into the mike, indicating that the first set was about to begin.

Nina turned back to face the stage.

“Sitting in for Preston tonight is Patrick Gauge on lead. And he’s going to kick things off….”

There was a smattering of applause, but mostly the patrons seemed more interested in getting their buzz on first.

Nina propped her elbow onto the table and rested her chin on the shelf of her hand as the band led into an old rock tune.

Oh, sure, she’d heard Gauge sing before. While he’d never been a lead singer, he could croon a tune along with the best of them. The sexier and bluesier the better. She sighed as he launched into the first line, earning a few hoots and hollers from the single women in the room.

Nina sighed, watching as he came to life under the dim spotlight, his eyes seeming to rest on every person in the place even as he strummed his guitar.

She turned to see what Kevin was doing. She wasn’t surprised when she found him looking at her.

She smiled and waved to him, indicating he should join her.

He turned back toward the bar as if pretending he hadn’t seen her.

Huh.

Okay, then. If that’s the way he wanted to play it.

Since Gauge was occupied on stage, she gathered that there was no time like the present to begin implementing her latest plan.

She rose and picked up her purse and drink, aware of the looks she received from nearby patrons as she edged through the cramped interior. Her clinging, deep-necked black top, and hip-hugging jeans had been designed for a night out such as this.

She reached the bar and elbowed her way in between Kevin and another guy.

“Pardon me,” she said with a smile.

The guy gave her a long look. “Anytime, sunshine.”

She put her drink on the bar next to Kevin’s beer. “I changed my mind,” she said to him. “And decided to come.”

Kevin grimaced. “So I noticed.”

Not that you could tell. He appeared to be going out of his way to keep from looking at her.

“He’s doing great, huh?” she said over the sound of the band.

“Who?”

She squinted at him and pointed her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the band. “Gauge.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

She pretended to look around. “Did you bring a date?”

He glowered at her, looking even more handsome. “What do you think?”

“I think you came alone.”

He took a long pull from his beer and then grimaced as if he hadn’t meant to take such a big sip. She could relate. Her froufrou drink glass was almost empty.

“Can I get you another?” the server asked her.

She felt Kevin’s gaze on her as she pushed the glass away. She’d been about to tell him no, but figured she’d probably tip her hand if she did. “Sure. Hit me again.”

She looked to see Kevin smiling.

“What?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing. But you might want to take it easy with those.”

“It’s my third, so what do you know?”

“It’s your second and you’re not a drinker. And I know a lot about you.”

She turned so she was facing him more directly. “Oh, yeah? Like how much?”

His smile vanished.

“Come on, Kevin. You might as well just give up and tell me. I mean, it’s not like I’m not going to find out, anyway. Sooner or later, someone’s going to give.”

“What makes you think it’s going to be me? And that it’s going to be now?”

She accepted the fresh drink from the server and slowly sipped, using the red straw. She noticed the way Kevin watched her before he forced his gaze away. “You do,” she finally said.

“Well, then, I’d have to say you’d be wrong.”

She turned more toward the bar. “How’d the game go yesterday, by the way?”

He blinked at her.

“The hockey game? Did your kids win?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “No, unfortunately we lost. Two-one.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks.”

“Sounds like maybe your mind’s not on the game.”

A male voice sounded behind her. “Nina?”

Damn. She hadn’t taken into consideration that a public place meant that people might approach her. While it had been six months since she’d dumped…er, told Paul Jenkins that it might be better if they saw other people, he acted as though it was just yesterday.

“Hi, Paul,” she said, unable to bring herself to be rude to the guy. After all, they had been involved for half a year.

“What a pleasure,” he said. “Seeing you out.”

She wished she could say the same.

“Hey, Kevin,” he said.

Kevin returned the greeting and then muttered something under his breath and turned away.

Nina turned away, as well.

But Paul refused to be spurned so easily.

“Hey, you know, seeing you again makes me think of all the good times we used to have.” He pushed his eyeglasses up, looking like a younger Mr. Magoo. Nina couldn’t imagine what she’d ever seen in him.

Oh, yeah. Sex.

She looked him over.

She must have been really desperate.

Especially considering that she now knew the difference between mediocre, blink-and-it-was-over sex, and all-night-long, hot, crazy sex.

She glanced back toward Kevin, sizing him up.

Paul edged his way around her and in between them, righting his glasses again.

“Anyway, I was thinking that maybe you’d like to dance, you know, during the next slow song. For old times’ sake.”

Kevin hiked a brow at her over Paul’s head. She hadn’t realized how tall he was until that moment.

She smiled into her drink. “Sorry, Paul, but I don’t think so.”

“Oh,” he said.

She refused to look at him because she was too afraid she’d feel sorry for the guy and give him a pity dance. That might lead to pity something else. And that was the last thing she wanted just then.

She had bigger fish to fry.

She remembered the other night and swallowed hard.

Much
bigger, um, fish.

Kevin cleared his throat and Paul blinked at him as if just realizing he was still there.

“Oh. Okay, then. Maybe some other time.”

Nina didn’t respond as Paul finally took the hint and left.

“Not again in this lifetime,” Kevin said under his breath. “Moron.”

Nina laughed, for a moment feeling as if things had gone back to normal.

She tilted her head slightly as she considered her longtime friend. Only they hadn’t, though, had they? They could never really return to old times. Not after the other night.

Kevin’s grin slowly disappeared again as he took in her thoughtful expression.

He held up a hand to ward off her next attack. “I’m not going to say a word, Nin, so you might as well give up now.”

“What if I told you that I intend never to give up?”

“Then I’d have to say that what I was afraid would happen has.”

“What do you mean?”

“That the very framework of the friendship between the three of us has been destroyed.”

That hit her where she lived. Nina felt as if someone had just hit her in the chest with a two-by-four.

How far was she really willing to go in her desire to repeat the one hot night? Was she willing to risk their friendship, as Kevin was implying might happen?

She stared down into her frothy drink, her throat too tight to attempt to drink any of it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Kevin peel off a few bills from his wallet and put them on the bar under his empty glass. “This is for the lady’s, too,” he called out.

The bartender indicated he’d heard.

“I’d better go,” he said quietly, moving to step away from the bar then seeming to hesitate.

Nina looked up at him. She wasn’t sure what must have registered on her face—sadness, maybe? Perhaps longing?—but whatever it was had stopped Kevin from leaving as quickly as he apparently wanted to.

“Look, Nina, I’m not doing this to be cruel.”

He ran his fingers through his dark hair, tousling it much the same way that Gauge’s was on stage. They both had the same type of hair, the same cut. The color was different, but she wouldn’t have been able to tell that through feeling it.

“What say we just leave well enough alone, okay? I mean, you enjoyed yourself, didn’t you?”

She looked down at her drink again and nodded, fighting the urge to turn the question back around on him.

“So that’s it, then?” she asked.

“That was the deal.”

“But what if I wanted to alter the deal?”

She peeked to see him narrowing his eyes.

She straightened her shoulders. “What if I decided I wanted another night?”

She’d rendered him speechless….

Gauge lay his guitar case on his unmade bed and opened the top, easily pulling the instrument out and placing it on a stand. He could count on one hand how many times Kevin had been at his place. Hell, he hadn’t been to Kevin’s place all that often, either. He figured it was because they all saw each other enough at work.

That and he was sure that his laid-back environs made the other man itch. While Kevin’s uptight house, still boasting framed photos of him growing up along the staircase, and his mother’s bovine knickknacks in a glass case in the living room, made Gauge want to jump out of his skin.

“Who wants another night?” he pretended to play dumb.

At least Kevin stopped pacing.

Truth was, all night Gauge had watched his friend stand with Nina at the bar, laughing and talking and ignoring the band and the rest of the patrons.

“Come on, Kev, we’ve talked about this. We knew she’d try to alter the deal. It’s just the way she’s made. And it’s the entire reason we came up with this to begin with. I mean, if she were capable of rational decisions once she slept with a guy, then we would never have proposed what we did.”

Kevin looked like hell warmed over. He’d run his hands through his hair so many times he’d probably pulled a good half of it out. And it appeared as if he hadn’t gotten more than two hours’ sleep at any one stretch over the past few days.

Gauge sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled his guitar to his knee. Even though he’d played pretty much the entire night, there was something about the weight of the instrument in his hands that made the night not feel so cold or his bed so empty.

Of course, it would have been better if a willing female were there, but in her absence, his guitar was the next best thing.

“How can you be so nonchalant about this?” Kevin asked, finally sitting down in the single ladder-back chair in the corner.

Gauge strummed a few chords of Clapton’s “Layla.” “How can you be so serious?”

What he was leaving out was that
nonchalant
was his middle name, while
serious
could precede Kevin’s name. Serious Kevin. But truth was Gauge was tired of this. And was now questioning the intelligence of having gone through with their plan.

“Look, Kevin, I understand that this is taking a little longer for her to get over. I expected her to give up two days in. But she hasn’t.” He spun his guitar and put it back on the rack, clenching his hands between his knees. Tonight he could have had his pick of who to bring back to his apartment. And at least three of the women would have been a welcome, if temporary, addition. But he hadn’t been interested.

“Can I get you a beer?” he asked as he pushed from the bed.

“No. Thanks.”

Gauge stepped to the small kitchen off the main room and opened the refrigerator. As custom dictated, he considered the old appliance’s meager offerings. Leftover pizza still in the box that had been there Lord knew how long. A carton of moo-shoo pork. A milk bottle that boasted maybe a swallow that might choke him. And beer.

He grabbed a bottle and popped the top on the lip of the counter.

“So you think she’s mistaking sex for a relationship again.”

Kevin had followed him into the small room and leaned against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. Gauge took a deep pull from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m saying that I’m almost afraid it’s going to take her six months to get over a one-night stand.”

Kevin flinched.

“Come on, Kev, both you and I know that’s all it was. A one-night stand designed to keep her from mistaking sex for a relationship. You should be the last one who’s surprised that she’s asking for another night. We’ve both watched her over the past three years. Studied her cycles.”

Kevin opened the refrigerator door, considered the contents much as Gauge had, grimaced and then grabbed a beer, as well. He looked around in the drawers for an opener before Gauge took the bottle from him and opened it in the same way and handed it back.

“So what do you suggest we do then?”

“Exactly what we have been doing: stone-walling her.”

“She’s making that awfully hard.”

Gauge nodded. That she was.

Since she was having a hard time figuring out which one of them she’d slept with, not a moment went by when she didn’t take full advantage of an opportunity to openly flirt with each of them, trying to get them to tell her. It was enough to make a guy crazy with lust—all that lip-licking and ass-swaying.

He swallowed hard and then took another sip of beer.

Seemed he’d grossly underestimated her talent for seduction. While he’d found himself idly attracted to her before, all he’d had to do before was remind himself of their friendship to cool the flames. Now…

Now he spent every waking moment in a state of near arousal watching her plan her next move.

“And keeping busy,” Gauge added.

Kevin frowned. “Hard to do when you work together.”

“Tell me about it.”

They stood in silence for a few minutes, nothing but the sound of the heat switching on to remind them that life went on around them as usual even if their lives had been turned to utter chaos.

“Maybe what’s needed here is a reminder that even if she doesn’t take our arrangement seriously, we do.”

“How do you mean?”

Gauge shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe a double date would do the trick.”

“What?”

He finished his beer and pushed from the wall, dropping the bottle into the garbage bin. “You and me find a couple of women to go out with on a double date. Make sure she sees us. Maybe even introduce her to them. And we leave. Maybe that would make her cool her heels.”

Kevin sighed. “She’d see through that in a minute.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You’re forgetting, she’s allowed her emotions to become involved. She won’t be thinking clearly. She may accept the dates for what they are: dates.”

“In your case, yes. But in mine?”

“Well, if she thinks you’re the one, then she’ll know you’re capable of great, anonymous sex.”

“And if she thinks you’re the one?”

Gauge grinned. “She already knows that I’ll nail anything that winks at me.”

Kevin chuckled. “Cute.”

“Ain’t it?”

Again, silence.

Gauge had hoped his suggestion would help allay his friend’s concerns. But Kevin’s wrinkled brow told him he was still working through a few things.

“And if she’s hurt?”

“She’ll get over it. She always does.”

“Does she? Because from what I understand, she’s the one used to doing the dumping.”

“Kevin, there is no dumping to be done because there was no loading to begin with. It was a one-night stand. Period. Exclamation point. Got it?”

Kevin nodded as if he understood that, yet glared at Gauge as if he was a blink away from blindsiding him with a hard right.

Gauge took the barely touched beer from him, put it on the counter, then grasped him by the shoulder and led him toward the door. “Now go home and get some sleep.”

“I wish it were as simple as that.”

Gauge felt the same way. Because if he had one more dream about Nina…

He felt Kevin’s gaze on him and grinned. “It will be if you let it be.”

“Is everything always so simple to you?” Gauge detected more than a hint of acid in his friend’s voice.

“No. But I try to make it simple. Complicated…well, complicated is complicated. And messy.”

He pushed him through the door.

“Goodnight, Kevin.”

“Goodnight, Gauge.”

Gauge stood for a long moment watching as his friend shrugged back into his coat and walked toward his car before he finally closed the door.

“Time has come to move on,” he heard his old man’s voice in his head.

Gauge ran his hand over his face, cringing at the scratching of his stubble against his palm.

“Done worn out our welcome in another town.”

His young life had been full of similar such declarations. Sometimes it took a month. Sometimes three. Then there were other times when only a day was needed before Gauge was packing the truck again and he and his dad were rolling on down the road to the next stop.

Maybe the time had, indeed, come again….