get back to work.”
I drank my beer watching her again, wondering what sort of life she’d led before the bridge, and wondering again what had sent her there.
Would she ever trust me enough to tell me? Probably not.
It didn’t really matter though, as long as she could pick up her life again. As soon as she did, she’d move on, and leave me behind. I didn’t have the same fears Lindy and Mom did. I knew Rachel Shears wasn’t fleecing me.
I had to stop thinking like I knew her though. I didn’t know her.
~
Jason was watching me. I liked him watching. It felt comforting having him around, like a security blanket.
The restaurant owner, Joe, had already asked me if that was my boyfriend within five minutes of Jason arriving. I’d said no he was just a friend, but more than half of me wished he was my boyfriend.
Funny really, because I wasn’t even sure I should call him a friend, we weren’t even that, not really. I was merely his damsel in distress and he was my knight in shining armor. He’d saved me from the monsters in my head two nights ago. I smiled as I caught him watching me across the room, and he smiled back lifting his beer to his mouth again, blushing a little.
He did look good. He was the best looking guy I’d seen all day, in fact probably all year, and he was so not my usual type––dark, brooding, malicious and older. I chose men who had an ulterior motive and would treat me like crap, because I had this fucking self-destruct button I couldn’t switch off.
What would it be like to go with a nice, good-looking guy like him. A young good-looking guy.
God, I really did think we could have fun together. I could make him laugh and smile more often, and forget work, and Lindy, and… Lindy. Of course she was the sticking point. He wasn’t available.
Life was crap. Sometimes it held everything against you.
Why couldn’t I have been rescued by a kind, good-looking, single guy? My palms tingled and sensation stirred low in my belly. I wanted sex. Good hard, all-out, sweaty, marathon sex. I shoved the urge aside. Sex always got me into trouble.
As I carried on serving, feeling his eyes on my back, and my ass, I wondered what he’d said to Lindy tonight, and what she’d said to him. He would have rung. He’d probably called her on the way over here. He wasn’t the sort of guy to let a girl down––too bad.
I imagined Lindy was one of those girls who’d say, I trust you, it’s her I don’t trust. My mind ran ahead then, with all sorts of cutting phrases she might have said about me.
She didn’t know me, how could she judge me? By the fact Jason had found me half naked, about to jump off a bridge.
Of course, he’d had to tell her that.
Yet I doubted he’d mentioned that he’d treated my hand while I sat naked in his bath. I doubted he’d told her we were sharing a bed either. But I wasn’t giving up sharing his bed. I liked being in it, lying warm near him and listening to his breathing and smelling his smell.
There was another lull in customers. I was only fifteen minutes off the end of my first shift. I got him another beer and took it over.
“I thought you might like another.”
“Thanks, I’m just sat here quietly getting tipsy.”
“On three beers? You seriously do need to get a life.”
He laughed.
His brown eyes looked up at my eyes, and there was a real depth and warmth in them. I don’t remember ever seeing that in any other man’s eyes. There was a slight complimentary smile on his lips, too.
I couldn’t stop myself, I just wanted to know. I leaned forward and rested my hands on the table, so he’d have a view down my blouse, where my breasts would now be hanging into the lace and satin bra I’d waved at him last night.
“So what do you say to a long walk home, and taking a detour round Brooklyn Bridge Park, on the way back?”
His eyes held mine for a moment then glanced down, only for an instant, but even so, when his gaze returned to mine, it was more heated, and his lips had tightened as the muscle in his jaw clenched. It seemed my interest was definitely returned. No matter, there was the small town opinionated Lindy in his life.
“I’ll say I’m up for that, seeing as you just accused me of being boring.”
I laughed. “Sorry, a night-time walk round the park ain’t gonna break that boundary. You need to do something more exciting and reckless than that to start living on the wild side, Jason Macinlay.”
He stuck his tongue out at me, which only gave me an urge to play tonsil hockey with him, but instead I returned to the bar and asked the manager if he wanted me to start cleaning up.
When the other customers left, Jason went outside too. I told him where the backdoor was, and to wait for me there.
He was standing there when I came out, and he smiled at me, a broad happy-to-see-you smile. The chef came out after me, looked at Jason and then winked at me. I screwed my face up at him.
Jason’s hands were firmly in the pockets of his leather jacket and he wore the woolen hat that he’d loaned me last night. His breath came out into the dark night air as steam. It was way below freezing again. Certainly a bit chilly to be walking in a park, but I just fancied doing something with him. I’d enjoyed last night.
I slotted my arm through his and hugged in tight to him, pretending it was for warmth; it wasn’t.
We began walking, and to make conversation I started asking questions, what food do you like? What movies? What TV shows? It kept the conversation light and released some of the tension in my head, I needed to be talking and it meant I didn’t have to give him any details of my life, but I could get to know him better.
We laughed, argued and debated, and in the park we walked down to the river, as I’d done earlier, but this time instead of looking at the water I looked at the Brooklyn Bridge, lit up against the night sky.
“One of the things I miss most about home, is that you can easily drive out of town and into the dark, and when you’re in the dark, you can see millions of stars piercing the sky like pinpricks of light, it’s awesome. You can’t really see the stars here. All the city lights screen them out.”
I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. I’d always lived in cities. “I’ve never seen that. I suppose you and Lindy used to drive out of town and make out beneath the stars?”
His hands were gripping the rail. He looked at me but didn’t turn. “Yeah.”
“Romantic,” I said dryly looking away from him and down at the dark shifting water.
“Yeah, our first time was out there.”
My eyes shot back up to him. It was an honest thing for a man to say, and without any prompting. Where the hell had it come from?
His eyes said he
