Читать книгу One Night With His Ex - Katherine Garbera - Страница 14

Three

Closing a deal in Houston, picking Alec up at the airport a few days earlier than expected and then driving back to Cole’s Hill hadn’t been what he’d planned for Friday, but Mauricio was hopeful that after the long day he’d fall into an exhausted sleep and for once not be tormented by dreams of Hadley.

But his youngest brother, Inigo, was back in town due to some downtime on the Formula One circuit and their father was in a rare mood, treating them all to dinner at the Peace Creek Steak House. His father loved it when he had all of his sons and his only grandson to himself. To be honest Mo liked these times too. Then they’d dropped the old man and Benito off at home in the Five Families neighborhood and headed out to the Bull Pit for shots of tequila and a grudge-match pool game.

“Twins versus the baby and the favorite,” Alec said, coming back to the high table with a round of Lone Star longnecks.

“Works for me,” Mo said. He and Alec had been a team since the womb, and they were pretty unstoppable once they got playing.

“Or as I like to think of it, the wusses versus the awesomes.”

“Awesomes? That’s not even a word. No wonder you’re a driver. You’re not smart enough for anything else,” Alec said, winking at Inigo.

“I’m plenty smart for you,” Inigo said. “Who gets paid to drive fast and who has to sit in an office in front of a computer? I think we both know who’s the smart one.”

“Touché,” Alec said, lifting his beer toward his little brother as Diego set up the balls and they tossed a coin to see who would go first.

As Mo listened to his brothers josh with each other and tossed the coin in the air, he felt a shiver go down his spine. He looked toward the jukebox and saw a pair of skintight jeans encasing an ass he’d never forget.

Hadley.

She had her hair loose, hanging over her shoulders, and was wearing a flimsy blouse and her hand-tooled leather boots. She threw her head back to laugh at something her sister said. Mo felt every part of his body tense and come alive at the same time. He could tell himself that he’d just imagined his reaction to that one touch at the engagement party, but he knew he would have been lying.

The coin fell to the floor and he cursed but didn’t bend down to pick it up.

“Dude...damn. Is it too late to change teams?” Alec teased.

Mauricio gave him the finger and bent to pick up the coin. “It was heads. We go first.”

“You’re going to need every advantage as long as Hadley is here,” Inigo said.

“Doubtful,” Mauricio said. “I was distracted by something else.”

“Really?” Diego asked. “What was it that caught your eye?”

His brothers were going to be asses and not leave this alone, and unless he wanted to turn a friendly Friday night into fight night and get himself kicked out of the Bull Pit again, he needed to shrug it off.

But that was his problem. He’d never been able to just shrug off anything where Hadley was concerned. He knew it and his brothers seemed to, as well. He was screwed. He’d moved on. Or had until that damned photo session. He should never have agreed to be a groomsman. Then he could have stayed away from Hadley until he found another woman. Someone who could push the last of the lingering sexual attraction he felt for her out.

“Dude, stop staring at her,” Alec said.

“Shut it, Alec. I’m not looking at her.”

“Whatever,” Alec said. “It’s your turn. Don’t screw up.”

He made a face at his brother and leaned over the table to line up his shot. The sound of the jukebox playing loud country music on a Friday night made it easier for him to focus on the game. He took a deep breath and broke the balls. Though he knew this was a friendly rivalry amongst his brothers, he didn’t want to lose.

He took his next shot, sinking a ball in the corner pocket, and then moved on to line up his next shot. He had a pretty good run of three balls before it was Diego’s turn. Mauricio went to lean against the high table next to Inigo, who was posting to one of his social media accounts. His youngest brother was a hot up-and-coming driver who had been on the Formula Two circuit for a few years before making it to the big leagues of Formula One.

“Not bad, Mo. I’d hate to see what would happen if you were really concentrating.”

“I am concentrating,” he said.

“Sure you are. Like you didn’t notice Hadley on the dance floor,” Inigo said, drawing his attention to the small wooden floor set to one side of the jukebox.

He cursed under his breath as he saw her dancing with a group of her girlfriends, and was unable to tear his eyes away from her. He tried to remind himself that he was over her, but when she moved to the music, her arms in the air, hips swaying, his body reacted like she was still his.

Maybe one more night together was what he needed to clear her out of his system for good. Of course, Hadley deserved better than that. She deserved an apology, not because he wanted something from her but because he never should have slept with Marnie when he was still...hell, while he still liked Hadley.

If losing her had taught him anything it was that he hadn’t wanted things to end so horribly between them.

He took another long swallow of his beer. That kind of thinking was dangerous, because he knew if he let himself dwell on it too long, he’d start believing that it was a viable option. That sleeping with his ex would be the solution to finally getting over her.

The music changed to a slow song—“Night Changes” by One Direction—one of her favorite songs. Mauricio watched as most of her friends left the dance floor, Hadley following behind them. Without thinking, he put his beer down and walked to the dance floor.

“Do you want to dance?” he asked. “I realize I’m not your first choice but I know you love this song. And I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” she asked.

“How I behaved. We never really talked about it.”

“I don’t want to talk tonight,” she said.

“Then how about a dance?” he said.

She hesitated then put her hand in his. “One dance.”

“That’s all.”

He pulled her into his arms and she put her hands on his waist. He told himself this was just another part of moving on but his body didn’t agree.

Hadley hadn’t had the best week. Her mom was an exacting perfectionist when it came to any event she was planning but the added element of it being her sister’s wedding had pushed her to extremes. Hadley felt safe saying there wasn’t enough tequila in Texas—maybe even the entire South—to take the edge off her nerves. But dancing with her girlfriends was helping until she saw...him.

Mauricio.

Of course, she’d noticed him when she came in. It was impossible not to when he was with his brothers. They drew the eye of every woman in the bar. Seen together, they made you wonder what kind of deal with the devil Elena Velasquez had made to get four such good-looking boys. They were the kind of eye candy that made this part of Texas famous.

Mauricio smelled good too.

She shook her head. “How’ve you been?”

She wanted this to feel normal. Surely, the thing with Jackson under the willow tree had been a fluke. There was no way that she still wanted Mo. Not after everything he’d done. She wanted something nice and steady like Helena and Malcolm had. But she’d always felt this heat around Mo. He made her restless like heat lightning on a summer’s night. Just ready to go off without any provocation.

“Good. Busy,” he said. “You?”

His voice was a low rumble but easy for her to hear despite the music. She’d always liked the way he sounded. She put her head on his shoulder for a second and closed her eyes, pretended that this wasn’t the bad idea she knew it was, and then made herself stand up straight and step away from him.

“Good, Mo. Really, good,” she lied, but then “fake it till you make it” had been her mom’s mantra for her and her sister growing up so she figured that was okay. The song ended and she started to leave the dance floor. “Thanks for the dance.”

She walked away without looking back and forced herself to put on a smile as she climbed onto the high bar stool at the table where her friends were.

“Girl, what are you thinking?” Josie asked.

“That I did it. I danced with him, played it cool and nothing happened,” she said.

Zuri shook her head. “You’re full of it, but we’re good friends so we’ll let you get away with it. Another round of shots to celebrate you keeping your cool.”

Hadley drank another round with her friends and ordered nachos as they talked about the men in the bar. Manu Barrett, the former NFL defensive end who now coached football at the local high school, came over with a tray of shots for Josie. Her friend was the art teacher at the high school and Manu had been asking Josie out for the last month or so, but he was a player. Josie and Manu hit the dance floor, and Zuri and Hadley just watched their friend for a minute.

“She’s smitten,” Hadley said.

“Who’s smitten? Remind me again why we came to the Bull Pit tonight?” Helena asked as she slid onto a bar stool next to Zuri and reached over to take one of the shots that Manu had brought.

“Josie is smitten and we are here because you set Mom on me. It’s been a long-ass week,” Hadley said.

“And, girl, you’ve been working too hard,” Zuri said to Helena. “You need a night out. Where is your other half?”

“He’s in Houston to close a deal. He won’t be back until tomorrow, which is why I suggested book club,” Helena said.

“This is better than book club because we don’t all have to discuss something that we’ve only read the back cover of,” Hadley said with a laugh.

“True. But the book I recommended is getting really good buzz over at the Paperback Reader. Teddi expressly recommended it because she thought we’d all love it,” Helena said. “It’s about an undercover prince.”

As a CPA, Hadley’s sister did the accounting for a lot of the bespoke small businesses in Cole’s Hill. Teddi had been the bookworm in Helena’s class in high school, so no one had been surprised when she’d opened a bookstore after college.

“I’m going to read it next week,” Hadley said. She needed something to take her mind off Mauricio and a prince in disguise sounded right up her alley.

“So you and Mo?”

“There is no me and Mo, Hel,” Hadley said.

“It didn’t look that way when you were dancing,” Zuri said.

Hadley shook her head. “You know the worst part about breaking up?”

“No, tell us,” Zuri said wriggling her eyebrows at Hadley. “You’re the expert.”

Her friend had clearly had too much tequila, she thought as she shook her head. “I was just going to say that all the feelings don’t just disappear. I mean anger should burn away all the other stuff...”

“What brought this on?” Helena asked. “Is it because things didn’t work out with Jackson?”

“You let Jackson go?” Zuri asked. “I’m out of town for a few days and I missed everything. When did this happen? You two looked pretty cozy at the engagement party.”

“Ugh. We were but then we decided we’d be better off as friends,” Hadley said. Maybe she’d had too much tequila. She should never have brought this up.

“Friends... He friend-zoned you? Dude better check himself. It’s not like we don’t all remember he used to be a total nerd.”

“No, it was the other way around,” Hadley protested.

“He’s hot now,” Helena said, signaling the waiter and ordering another plate of nachos and margaritas for the four of them.

“He is,” Zuri said. “I wouldn’t kick him out of my bed.”

“No one would,” Helena added. “Except for Had.”

“I didn’t do that. Here comes Josie,” she said. Thank God. She was tired of discussing how she let Jackson slip away and she definitely didn’t want to talk about Mauricio, who was over by the pool table laughing with his brothers. She couldn’t help watching him as he lined up a shot. Of course, he had to wear those skintight Levi’s tonight, making matters worse.

“I think we know why it didn’t work with Jackson,” Zuri said.

“What?” she asked, turning back to her friends, her sister and Manu, who were all watching her stare at Mo and his brothers.

“Y’all are crazy. So, Manu, are you joining us?”

Everyone turned their attention to Manu and Josie, and Hadley forced herself to focus on the nachos and margarita, but a part of her was listening for Mauricio’s laugh. Which was the last thing she needed to be doing right now. She was moving on...except now that she’d danced with him, she wasn’t sure she had.

Helena smiled and laughed with her friends, and for the first time since she discovered the money missing from the wedding account felt like herself again. Her mom had told her that marriage was a million little compromises. But Helena had never really been someone who could just let things go. She was a control freak when it came to money, though she didn’t know why. Their family had always had more than enough when she and Hadley were growing up.

But she’d never been someone who could waste money just because she had it and that’s what this thing with Mal felt like.

“You are looking way too serious,” Hadley said, handing her a shot of tequila. The nachos were long gone. Josie was on the dance floor pressed against Manu, and Zuri had decided to see if she could tempt one of the astronaut trainees from NASA into having a bit of fun.

That left the Everton sisters, who were sitting at the table like two spinsters.

“Can’t help it,” she said, doing the shot and then turning the glass upside down on the tabletop.

“Don’t worry, I’m handling Mom,” Had said.

Helena smiled and nodded at her sister. She was the eldest and she had always taken her job as the big sister seriously. She wasn’t about to cry on Hadley’s shoulder because she didn’t know where Malcolm was tonight or where that money had gone. She was going to keep it together, keep her smile in place and fix whatever was going on with Mal privately.

“Thanks for that,” Helena said.

“Be right back. Want another shot?” Hadley asked.

“Water would be better,” she said.

Hadley nodded and danced her way to the bar as Mauricio came over to the table. “Hey, Helena, I wanted to let you know that I haven’t been able to get anything out of Malcolm. He’s shut me down every time I tried to bring up finances.”

She sighed. It figured. “Thanks for trying. Do you know where he is tonight?”

Mauricio tipped his head to the side and shook it. “No. I thought he was here with you.”

“No. He texted me earlier to say he was busy,” Helena said. “Do you think he’s having an affair?”

Mo put his arm around her shoulders. “I can’t believe he would do that. He loves you and whatever this is, it’s not that.”

It was somehow easier to talk to Mauricio than her sister because she knew that he wouldn’t talk to anyone in her family about what was going on.

“She’s taken,” Hadley said, coming up and putting a large glass of water in front of Helena.

“I’m trying to reassure your sister that I’m not going to screw up things for her wedding,” Mauricio said.

She didn’t know what had happened, but it was obvious to Helena that there was still a spark between these two, no matter how hard they tried to move on from each other. Thinking that she was casting a pall over the evening with her Malcolm worries, she nudged Mo toward her sister. “You are going to have to dance together at the reception. Better practice.”

Mauricio gave her a hard look, which surprised her. He seemed so easygoing when it came to her sister but it was clear that he wasn’t as cool as he pretended to be.

“Sure. Why not?” Hadley said.

Mauricio took Hadley’s hand and led her to the dance floor. She could handle herself despite what their mother thought. Helena sipped her water and turned her attention to her phone. She clicked on the friend finder app but didn’t see Malcolm’s icon. She was starting to worry that he was having second thoughts about getting married.

She sighed and kept refreshing the app to try to make him appear, but he was still unavailable. Waiting had never really been one of her strong suits so she finally texted him.

Where the hell are you?

She saw that the message was delivered and kept staring at the screen as if that was going to make him respond to her. But nothing.

What was going on with Malcolm? They’d always been on the same page with their relationship. She’d counted herself lucky that she’d fallen in love with a man who wanted the same things out of life that she did, but now she didn’t know if she’d been fooling herself.

That’s what Hadley had said about Mauricio when they’d broken up last year, that she’d fooled herself into believing he was a different man than he really was. As Helena shoved her phone into her handbag and looked up at her sister, dancing way too close to the man she’d said she was over, she realized that they all did that. Hadley was just like her, fooling herself into believing she was in control of her emotions when in reality they were all prisoners to them.

Her phone pinged and she scrambled to get it out of her purse. It was Malcolm. Finally! His phone had died and he was at home waiting for her.