“You’re the best, Pay!” His mouth brushed against my neck as he leaned back, but he pulled me between his legs where he sat on the bar stool—caging me in between him and the bar.
Like always, the ear he’d just been speaking into and the line where his mouth had dragged across my neck were on fire. Where his arm locked around my waist was burning me through my shirt, and I was having trouble breathing.
But that could have also been because I was on the verge of tears.
This wasn’t the first time this had happened, not by a long shot—and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. Yet every time I expected it to be different. I expected him to actually want me, for his touches to mean something. And just like every other time, I swore to myself that this would be the last time I let him use me to get his psychotic girlfriends or one-nighters to go away.
I almost laughed out loud. Who was I kidding? I would do anything for him.
Everyone in the bar erupted into cheers and yells of displeasure, snapping me out of my pity party, and I looked up at one of the many TVs hanging throughout the bar. Eli’s arm constricted around my waist, pulling me impossibly closer, and his lips were at my ear again.
“I’m exhausted. We had meetings all day today, but when I was about to leave here, Laura showed up and tried to come home with me. So I just need to stick it out until she goes first. Swear to God though, I’m about to fall asleep on the bar.”
A quick glance confirmed Laura was shooting daggers at me and was most likely the reason Eli was pulling me close again. To anyone else, he probably looked like he was whispering anything from sweet nothings to naughty promises in my ear.
If only they knew.
I nodded my head and grabbed the mostly-full Guinness in front of me. “This yours?” I don’t know why I asked, who else drank Guinness other than Eli?
“Of cour—”
“Great.” Without asking, I tipped the large glass back to my lips and gulped down the thick beer until there was nothing left but remnants of foam.
Eli grabbed the empty glass and set it on the counter before turning me to face him. “Christ, Pay, what was that? You hate Guinness.”
I do hate it. Like really, really hate it. Oh God, how do people enjoy that stuff? My stomach felt sick from the thick liquid, and I was still making a face as if I’d just downed a shot of tequila. Looking past his head, I contemplated how fast I could make it to the door when Eli cupped my cheeks.
“Hey, look at me. What’s wrong, did you have a bad day?”
Well, I just came to the depressing realization that I’ve been in love with you and have waited for you for twelve years—and yet I’ve done nothing about it and probably will never do anything about it because I’m a wimp. And I know you don’t feel the same since you’re using me as a shield for the umpteenth time in our friendship. So yeah, you can say it’s been a bad last few minutes.
I looked to where Laura had just been standing and scanned the immediate area when I didn’t find her there. “I have to go home I forgot I have morning . . . early—I have to get up early,” I stammered, and pushed against one knee caging me in. Eli just held me there tighter.
Brushing loose hair away from my face, his hands went back to cupping my cheeks and forced me to look at him again. His blue eyes were wide with worry and I almost forgot what I’d been attempting to do when I saw them. I loved his eyes, I could get lost in them. Against his tan skin and dirty-blond hair, they looked like dark oceans with bolts of lightning going through them.
I started to lean into his touch, but then remembered why he was touching me. When it was just us there were hugs, arms slung around shoulders, and the nights we curled up with each other in one of our beds, but nothing more. When I was acting as his way out—it was everything I’d always craved from him. My few moments of deluding myself into thinking his touches meant something . . . my few moments of pretending.
And this was the last time I would have those moments.
My vision went blurry and I blinked rapidly against the stupid traitor tears that were threatening to spill down my cheeks.
“Paisley, you’re crying?” he whispered harshly, and I felt his body go still against mine. “Tell me who they are, and what they did. Now.”
The who was making me quickly lose my will to walk away, and the what was not helping by going all hero on me and holding me closer. I pushed against his chest and he responded by sliding one of his hands from my cheek to the back of my neck, bringing my face close enough that our foreheads and noses were touching.
A quick rush of air left my body and I stopped breathing for tortured moments as I realized this was the closest our lips had ever been. He doesn’t want you, Paisley. He doesn’t want you. Closing my eyes, I tried pushing against his chest again.
“Stop trying to leave,” he gritted.
“You can stop touching me, your fuck buddy already left.”
Eli jerked back and stared at me with open shock. Using the shock to my advantage, I pushed against his strong leg and had made it two steps away from him when he caught my arm and swung me back to him.
“Pay—”
“Let me go!”
The bar was loud enough that only a couple of our friends who had been sitting near him had heard me. But in that moment, it wouldn’t have mattered if an entire city heard me yell that at him, or no one at all. I wanted to take it back. The hurt that tore through those blue eyes I loved so much caused an ache to rip through my chest, worse than the one I’d already been battling.