To Be With You (17 page)

“Would it have done any good?” He sat and put the water on the table without drinking it. “I thought I’d give you space. Maybe that was dumb.”

“It was dumb,” she said. “But I guess I could have called too. I probably needed the space anyway. That was a lot to happen at once.”

“Look, Nick, if what I heard is true, then you shouldn’t be alone with Ben. It’s just safer. What do you know about the guy? If we meet him a few times and he’s fine, I promise not to bother you anymore.”

“Promise?” Nicole said, walking slowly over to him. She felt disappointed. She hadn’t even had a chance to tell him about her progress. She hadn’t had a chance to tell him that she was angry, but she forgave him, and wanted to figure out what was between them. “Can you really back off?”

“I can,” he said.

She put her arms around his waist, and he stiffened. “Really?” she said. “Don’t you want me for yourself?”

“Stop messing with me,” Sean said, pushing her away.

She laughed bitterly. “You’re so serious sometimes.”

“This is serious to me.”

“Let me think for a moment. This is a lot to take in.” Sean in letters had been overbearing. Sean in person when he thought a threat was present was more than. And he didn’t realize how adorable he looked, flustered, in a martial arts uniform, begging her to let him watch her on a date when she knew he still had feelings. Well fine, he wanted to insist he was fine with that? She’d let him prove it.

She hadn’t thought much about Ben in the last couple days. He’d called and left a couple of messages, texted to let her know he was thinking of her, but she’d been thinking more about Sean than him.

She’d been writing and relaxing and trying to get to a healthy place mentally so she could consider what was happening between them from a sane viewpoint. Then he’d come to her with this frankly insane story. It was scary to think of Ben being an abuser.

It was scarier though, to imagine being with a good guy. It was scary to hope for something happy when you could get let down even worse than before. At least with someone like Ben she was going willingly into the darkness. With someone like Sean, she would be choosing the light, and if he threw her back to the darkness after she’d experienced the warmth, that would be worse than anything.

She was too smart now to go willingly into something unhealthy again. But she’d go to the club with Ben. It was what Sean wanted, and maybe it would push him to be a little bolder with his feelings. If nothing else she’d be able to watch Sean act like a jealous, overprotective man for a little longer. She had no plans to let her time with Ben go anywhere, but Sean didn’t have to know that.

S
ean scanned Club Blue for Justin, looking first to the bar, where Justin liked to hover because of his penchant for seeking out free refreshment. Justin was an incorrigible mooch. Not that Hope would take fault with him for it. He made the women there too happy.

Justin was indeed at the drink bar, and when he saw Sean his pretty boy face lit up with recognition. He smiled and shook his head.

“Where have you been stranger?” Justin reached over the bar to slap Sean on the shoulder. “It’s been boring around here without you.”

“I kind of doubt that, since apparently I was the most boring person here.” Sean frowned.

“That’s the whole point. There’s no variety without our lead boring guy here.” Justin grabbed what was probably his fourth cranberry juice of the night and moved to down it when Sean leaned across the counter towards him.

“Whoa boy,” Justin said, pulling back. “Don’t tell me you came back just to—”

“Shut up. I need to talk to you.”

“Well, maybe you should check out my schedule with Hope, I don’t know that she allows man on ma—”

“Argh. Idiot.” Sean turned for the dressing room and motioned for Justin to follow.

“I don’t know, I fear for my virtue.” Justin followed.

Sean was suddenly not missing the club as much anymore.

He explained the situation when they reached the back of the dressing room.

“She what?” Justin leaned back against the bureau. “She’s bringing a date here?”

“Yup,” Sean said. “I know that’s awkward, but it was the only way.”

“Isn’t her date going to be weirded out?”

“I was hoping he didn’t have to know. If she doesn’t tell him, he’d probably think it was a normal club right? Given the male to female ratio.”

“I suppose,” Justin said. “I’d never thought about what a normal guy would think coming in here. He’d probably never guess this was an escort club, just because he probably doesn’t even know they exist.”

“Yeah.”

“I have to admit though, I’m a bit hurt. I mean, you only ever come back when it’s something about Nicole.” Justin pouted.

“Shut up.”

“Rude.” Justin looked back towards the club. “I wonder if we should tell the other guys.” He turned back to Sean and Sean noticed for the first time that his hair was just a little too long, and was hitting his collar, and that there were slight dark circles under his eyes.

“You doing okay man?” he said. “You look tired.”

“Finals,” Justin said.

“I didn’t know you were in school.”

“I know. No one ever guesses. Probably I look more like a model than an engineer.”

“You’re studying engineering?”

“Yup.”

“Nice.”

“Don’t change the subject. You weren’t concerned about me. You are concerned about Nicole though. I need to know what’s going on if I’m going to help.”

“The guy,” Sean said. “His friend works out at my dojang. Well I guess maybe not that good a friend, because he came to warn me about him.”

“He what?” Justin sat up and pushed his hair behind his ears. “About what?”

“Says the guy is bad news,” Sean said. Adrenaline rushed back at the memory of the conversation.

“What kind of bad news?” Justin asked, rubbing the tops of his arms.

“Okay first of all, this is all hearsay.”

“How much do you trust this student?”

“Enough that he wouldn’t mess with me. But beyond that he’s not very mature. I don’t know that I trust him enough to know truth from rumor.”

“And what did he say?” Justin’s face was hard, and no longer looked girly. Sean could see the same tightness he was feeling reflected in him, sort of a rigidity stemming from resisting adrenaline. He felt bad that Justin would be sharing in the unpleasant experience of feeling able to neither fight nor take flight, despite very badly wanting to do one or the other.

“Apparently he put his last girlfriend in the hospital.”

Justin remained silent. Sean looked to the side, then out towards the door. Justin followed his gaze and seemed to follow his thought process.

“And he’s coming here tonight?”

Sean nodded.

Justin sighed. “I’ll think of something. We need to get out there in case they come in.”

“Yeah,” Sean said. “My thoughts exactly.”

Sean frowned and sagged against the bar. Justin nudged him.

“Dude you need to relax. Mingle, or something.” Justin shoved him forward, out of the shadows and into the main room, where the eyes of a dozen women lit on him with amusement. “Earn your keep.”

Sean glared back at his betrayer, but straightened his tie and walked forward, smiling at the most innocuous looking group of girls. Now to try and remember names. He looked around the group and the faces swam and blurred before him. It wasn’t because they were customers, it was because he was generally bad with faces and names, mainly due to his long running obsession with Nicole.

“John, where have you been?” one of the women, a short redhead with pretty, artificial cherry red hair that was cropped at her chin, said. She looked up from her game of Scrabble. “We’ve missed you, right girls?”

A chorus of nodding ensued. Sean looked over his shoulder and mouthed ‘help me’ to Justin. He would know all the names. He was the pro here.

“Sorry, been busy with my other job,” Sean said.

“Yeah,” Justin said, sidling up beside him. “He’s a karate master in his other life.”

Sean glared. “I’m not.”

“Aw, you aren’t?” Another woman, a curvy brunette with boy-short hair said. She pursed her lips. “Cause that would be hot.”

“No.” Sean sighed. “I’m not in fact, a karate master.” He could explain the different between Karate and Tae Kwon Do, but it would probably bore them to death.

“Sorry, but John has been gone so long he’s probably terrified to ask your names,” Justin said.

So Justin made casual introductions and the two of them settled in to watch the Scrabble game without much offense on the parts of the women.

Sean was more aware than ever before of the door only ten feet away, directly in front of them. The hairs on his neck did a tiny salute each time he thought he heard footsteps outside the door, even though he figured he was probably insane for thinking he could hear that with all of the chatter in the club.

The brunette, who was called Sam, laid out the word ‘slut’ on the Scrabble board, and the other women laughed and commented on its appropriateness.

Justin countered with the word ‘man’ in front of it, and an argument over the veracity of his word ensued. Sean could not have cared less. He’d rather have played pool, not that anyone asked him. On another night he would have enjoyed getting a rise out of Justin by telling him that if manslut was a word, it probably had the name Justin next to it in the dictionary. Tonight all he could think about, see, and hear was the door.

Finally, while he was glazed over and scolding himself for not being able to pay attention to anything but the door, he saw it move almost imperceptibly, then open all the way. First he saw Nicole, her face bright, her curls gelled into perfect ringlets in a halo around her face. Cheekbones that caught the light, full lips that were glossy, coffee perfection. She wore a little black dress that hit her knees. She looked so good. It made him ten times angrier when her date appeared behind her through the door.

The man hadn’t yet been proven to be a woman beater. He had been proven to get Nicole to dress up nicer than Sean had ever seen. Unforgivable. Sean wanted to give him a taste of his increasingly faster tornado kick. He felt a light tap on his sleeve and finally realized Justin and the girls had been trying to get his attention.

“Come on John, you have to be the tie breaker. Manslut, good or no?” Dawn, the one with black hair, asked.

“Yeah. You call it.” Justin winked at Sean and sat back with arms folded.

Sean pulled his eyes away from the door.

“I guess Justin would be more of an expert on mansluts than me.”

Justin shoved him off the couch.

“What the—”

Justin stretched out his legs on the couch where Sean had been sitting. “This is my couch, therefore only my friends can sit here. Friends do not include people who call me a manslut.”

“Who other than a manslut, would use the word in Scrabble?”

“Ouch,” Justin said. “What an insult to Samantha, whose word I merely supplemented.”

“I’m not offended,” Samantha said. “You can sit on our couch if you want.”

Sean looked at the couch, which already seated three women. Justin had one more on the couch by him on the other side of his legs.

“I don’t think there’s room.”

“I can sit on your lap,” Cheri, the redhead said. “You can sit here.” She stood, and he realized that if he wanted to blend, this would be a good way. At least he trusted that he could control himself if the woman on his lap wasn’t Nicole. He sat, and Cheri sat on his leg.

“There isn’t much room in here, eh Nick?” The man from the beach walked over to them, his arm around Nicole. “Mind if we take that armchair?”

Sean looked at Justin, who sent him a warning glare.

Justin nodded to Ben. “Make yourself at home.”

“Thanks.” Ben sat, and tried to pull Nicole onto his lap, but she merely sat on the arm of the chair. “Aw, come on.”

“No thanks,” Nicole said. “I don’t want you to have a dead leg by the end of the night.”

“Thoughtful of you,” Ben said. He put an arm around Nicole’s waist and looked like a crab holding something in its claw.

“Nicole, introduce us to your friend,” Justin said

Ben stared at Justin. Sean didn’t blame the guy. Seeing Justin for the first time was a bit confusing. The man wasn’t threatening so much as man-pretty. It kind of messed with your head.

Ben surveyed the women with disinterest, and then turned to meet Sean’s eyes. Ben’s face seemed to turn a shade paler as their eyes locked. Sean tried to convey with only his eyes that he would readily kill the man if he hurt Nicole in any way. That he wouldn’t hesitate to rain down on him with crushing force if he broke her heart. That he would end him if he broke anything else, on anyone here.

Ben turned back to Nicole and whispered something in her ear. He laughed and she looked confused.

Sean’s thighs tensed under his hands.

“Something wrong?” Cheri asked.

“No,” he said.

“Relax handsome,” she said. “He’s got nothing on you guys.” She leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Who brings a guy to a club like this anyway? One that’s not gay, I mean.”

Sean flushed, embarrassed for Nicole and the way people saw her because of his suggestion. A quick look around the room showed that Ben was easily out of his element here. The men here were all varying shades of gorgeous, and tall, and built. Ben was pale, average height, average looks. Pointy nose. Smallish eyes. And his clothes, which were probably pretty preppy outside of the club, were completely eclipsed by the fashions of every other man in the room.

Sean supposed by the pallor he’d inspired in the other man that he was probably the most intimidating. Good.

“And that’s Sean, I mean John,” Nicole said.

“Which is it?” Ben said. “Sean or John?” Ben’s eyes locked with his again, their only distinguishing feature a slight coldness that Sean met with heat.

“John,” Nicole said, fidgeting. “Right?”

“Can’t you even remember your friend’s name?” Ben said. He laughed and tightened his arm around her.