Chasing You (Thirsty Hearts Book 4) (14 page)

“Nope. Just bringing my ‘A’ game. Your shot.”

Alexa lined up a wicked bank shot and sank two more stripes one after the other. The cue ball rolled to a stop in perfect alignment three inches from her next target.

Adam applauded and doubled over in rapturous laughter.
At least I’m not afraid to play the game.

Graham fantasized about spearing the Brit through the chest while Alexa easily dropped the only remaining striped ball in a corner pocket. Just like that, even with his best effort, the rout was on. He dropped his chin to his chest and shook his head.

“You’re evil. I think you’ve been touched by the devil. It’s black magic.”

“I do have an aunt in New Orleans who tells fortunes and sells voodoo dolls.” She waggled her fingers and cooed spooky noises at him before turning all business again. “Eight ball, side pocket.”

Graham didn’t even have to look. He closed his eyes and heard the smack of the cue and the soft thump of a single ball dropping and rolling in the depths of the table. He cracked his left eye open. “Was it the side pocket?”

Alexa met his eyes stone faced. “Of course it was. Want to play again?”

Graham laid his pool cue on the table and smacked the felt.

“Not before I have another drink. Do you want another vodka soda?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll get your drink. Two limes?” Adam raised an eyebrow at Alexa.

“Yes, thank you.”

“I’ll take a Macallan 18, neat.” Graham’s smooth smile achieved its desired result—a contemptuous pout from the Brit.

“I’ll be right back.”

Adam jogged up the two steps to the main bar area and disappeared around the corner. Graham couldn’t help but comment. “He likes you.”

“I guess. I’ve told him that I’m not starting anything up with him again.”

“So it is ‘again?’”

Alexa paused and met Graham’s eyes directly. “It would be, except that it’s not. What about you and Trista? Is that ‘again?’”

“Does ‘never again’ count? We had a pretty bad breakup. I’m not going down that road again.”

“Then watch out. I think she has other ideas.”

“How do you know?”

“The way she threw herself at you the other day.”

Graham shrugged. “No. We hadn’t seen each other in forever. That’s all.”

“Good. Because sharing a man with one of my employees isn’t on my ‘to do’ list. It’s bad business.”

Her jealousy had nothing to do with business, and it delighted Graham more than he wanted to admit.

“Point taken. And while we’re issuing warnings, watch out for that one.”

“Adam?” Alexa chuckled.

“The looks he’s throwing me…I don’t like him.”

“Whereas, you’re looking at him with peace in your heart?” She laughed again. “Both of you are just being macho. I’m not taking either one of you seriously.”

Graham skirted around the table until he was close enough to reach out and draw his fingertips down her bicep. “That hurts. I take us quite seriously.”

She stepped back and squared up to him. Her height matched his, and Graham realized how often he depended on his greater physicality to draw a reaction from a woman.

Amusement brightened her eyes, and Graham leaned closer. A clean, floral scent filled the air between them. Perfume? Or maybe shampoo? Either way, Graham dipped his face behind her ear and inhaled. He reveled in her smell and her sudden intake of breath.

She turned her head and whispered in his ear. “Enjoy it. This is what a winner smells like.”

Graham fell back with laughter and sat on the edge of the pool table. The half-moon of her pearlescent smile warmed his insides. He’d never thought of a woman as cocky before, but that’s what she was.

Alexa smacked his thigh with the back of her hand and stepped back, rolling her pool cue between her hands. “Rack ‘em up.”

“There you go being bossy again. God, the money you’re leaving on the table. As a businessman, it so hard to watch.”

“What, are you a pimp now? The way you talk and you with your crazy friends, maybe I better watch out for you.”

“Hmm. Yes. Keep an eye on me.” Graham jumped up, grabbed the pool rack, and began pulling the balls out from the end of the table. Alexa squinted at him with faux suspicion, glaring and laughing.

Graham slid his fingers into the bottom of the loaded rack and slid it along the table to get it in position. “Shall I break?”

“Have at it.”

Graham lined up the cue ball and leaned over. Right as he took a shot, Adam loudly announced his return. The cue ball skittered, tapping the lead ball in the wrong spot, and the balls moved no more than a few inches.

Adam sat the three drinks he triangulated in his hands on the nearby table and glanced at the still-clustered balls in the center of the pool table. “Tough go there, mate. Maybe give the lady a try at it.”

Alexa took her drink off the table and tossed Graham a sympathetic look. “Go ahead and re-rack. Your shot got interrupted.”

Graham had no choice but to take the redo and ignore Adam’s baseless bravado. “Why don’t you play this round, Adam? Getting in the game is more fun than looking on from the sidelines.”

Sizing up the Brit, Graham knew that if the asshole had any skills at all, he would take great delight in mopping the floor with either one of them. “Why don’t we play in teams? Alexa can see if Melissa wants to join us.”

“Sounds good. You and Melissa versus me and Alexa.” Adam spoke as if his suggestion settled the case.

“Or,” Alexa began, “we could go with a battle of the sexes.”

Graham eyed Adam. Be on the same team with that jerk off? He wanted to argue, but Melissa stepped down into the side room with the pool table, clutching her cocktail.

“Just in time. You and I are going to take it to these guys in the next game.” Alexa pulled a stick off the wall and handed it to Melissa, who froze. Her neck tensed, not moving, while her eyes flung back and forth between Graham and his rival.

“O-kay. I hardly ever play, and when I do, I suck. So, I guess that makes sense.”

Graham hid his smile. “Excellent idea. This way, the teams can be balanced. Adam doesn’t play much and neither does Melissa.”

He pulled another stick from the wall and handed it to Adam, then slapped him heartily on the back. The bare teeth of the Brit’s taut grin stiffened Graham’s spine.

Graham stepped toward him, unflinching. “I’ll break.”

“Perfect.” Alexa bowed her head with Melissa’s, chuckling.

Adam chalked his cue stick, still fixated darkly in Graham’s direction. Graham squeezed him out of his peripheral vision and snapped his break shot quickly, accurately. The balls scattered wildly across the felt.

Graham would have to keep an eye on Alexa’s new suitor if she wouldn’t.

A
lexa hated
the term “Girls’ Night Out.” It always sounded to her like some housewife escaped her chain in the basement for the evening. Nevertheless, she and her friends enjoyed the happy hour specials, dubbed “GNO Saturday” at one of their favorite sushi restaurants downtown.

She toasted with their half-price sake, grateful her long week was over. She reveled in the fact that she had taught the last of her Saturday classes. Bringing Trista on board would be a godsend. She crossed her fingers that it would work out.

“To getting work off my plate.”

“Here, here,” Melissa cheered.

Holly lifted her small ceramic cup of hot sake. “I’ve got good vibes about Trista.”

“Me too. I hope she likes it and sticks with Starlight. The worst thing about aerobics instructors is how flaky some of them are. The good ones are great, but the bad ones…” Alexa dropped her forehead to the table three times.

“Same with massage therapists.”

“Maybe it’s a universal human thing,” Holly proffered.

“Maybe.” Alexa shrugged. “It’s crazy. All you want are good employees who show up when they’re supposed to and don’t suck.”

“Remember that one girl you hired after Nina left?”

“Luna.”

Holly snorted. “Looney more like it.”

“Yeah. That should have been a clue. I don’t know what she was on.”

Melissa downed her sake and refilled her cup. “Or if she needed to be on something. Isn’t she the one you caught having a threesome in the hot tub overnight?”

Alexa grimaced. “She used her key to get into the gym with her friends. I found them passed out the next morning tangled up like a sex pretzel.”

“Thank God for bleach.” Holly shuddered. “But you know, we catch people screwing at the gym every once in a while. It’s gross. I don’t understand it.”

Alexa did – sort of. “The blood gets pumping. A lot of them are really fit. Hormones get raging. People start screwing. Every gym I’ve worked in has had the same problem at some point.”

Holly kept shaking her head. “No. Still disgusting.”

“Gyms are pick-up joints,” Melissa explained. “That’s where I met Kyle. The gym in the student center when we were in college. He had the worst pick-up line. ‘I got stopped by the police on the way here. He told me it was illegal to carry these guns.’”

“No!” Holly shouted.

“He flexed and everything. It was so bad.”

Alexa squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head. “I can’t believe he recovered from that.”

“Somehow, he made it come across as cute. We started talking, and there you go.” Melissa flicked her hand in the air and then stared at Alexa. “It just goes to show that first impressions don’t have to last.”

Alexa gulped her drink. Just because Melissa and Kyle were bounding toward a happily ever after, didn’t mean she had to be. She and Graham had a completely different deal.

“How are things with Graham?” Holly asked.

“There aren’t really ‘things’ with Graham. We’ve gone out a few times. It’s not serious.”

Her face relaxed in relief. “Good.”

“Why?”

Holly caught her bottom lip in her teeth. “I—I’ve seen him chatting up a couple of other women at the gym, and I heard Shauna talking with Bridget. She said she thought she was making progress with him. Ever since he joined, half the single women started circling like there’s blood in the water.”

Melissa jumped in. “She could be exaggerating. You know Shauna.”

Alexa breathed through the instant tightening of her diaphragm. He was a good-looking guy, and like she said, gyms were a hot bed of hookups.

“He’s a flirt. We’re not exclusive or anything. That said, I don’t want to get into a catfight with a client over him. I’ll ask him and see what he says.”

“I almost didn’t say anything.”

Alexa smiled. “Don’t worry about it. We’re not serious.”

* * *

G
raham agreed
to meet Trista again at Logan’s—just the two of them. He arrived shortly after seven and squeezed his way to the bar, which was packed wall to wall. With no seating readily available, Graham joined the throngs hovering and waiting for the people who had seats to give them up.

After a few minutes, he noticed a man asking for the check while his female companion gathered their things. Rather than take a chance, Graham tapped the guy in the shoulder and asked straight out if he could have their seat.

“There are a lot of people waiting.” The man glanced around the bar.

“Can you do me this favor? I’m waiting for a friend. A friend of the female variety…”

As Graham suspected, the guy did the bro-code thing and set him up to impress his lady friend with his ability to score seats. The couple left, and Graham staked his claim—much to the irritation of several people around him. He didn’t care. He hated waiting.

She arrived about fifteen minutes later as the mob grew impatient with Graham’s occupation of two seats.

“Hey, you! It’s so great to see you.”

Trista attempted to give him a hug, which didn’t quite work since he was seated in the bar stool. She settled for curling her hands around the back of his neck and pulling him cheek to cheek.

She wore the same perfume she always had—a designer fragrance that smelled of cinnamon and musk. It always made Graham’s nose itch. He stifled a sneeze as she climbed into the stool next to him.

Her short, black skirt climbed up her thighs. The outfit showed off her strong, defined legs, which flowed down to a sexy pair of open-toed platform pumps. “Fuck me” shoes if there ever were a pair. She wore a red halter top, tied behind her neck with an inviting bow. The blouse plunged in the front, and as she positioned herself on the stool, her breasts pushed together, swelling nearly to the point of spilling. Graham cast his eyes away and caught the attention of the bartender.

“What do you want to drink?” He looked at his non-date sideways.

She peered over into his glass. “What are you having?”

“A glass of Cabernet.”

“Sounds good.”

He ordered her the same and launched into small talk.

“Did it take you long to get here? The traffic has been a mess.”

“I guess. I hardly even notice anymore. I’d been living out in Round Rock, so anytime I had to come into the city, it was a nightmare.”

“You’re not still there?”

“No. I sold my mom’s house and moved to East Austin.”

Graham read her face for signs of whether she would want to talk about her mother. He knew from experience that sometimes you just wanted to stay happy.

Trista smiled and flipped her hair.

He’d keep it light. “I still can’t believe that part of town is now the trendy place to live. Back in the day, all you wanted to do was avoid East Austin.”

“I love it. I’m glad to be back in the thick of things. What about you? Where do you live in these days?”

She crossed one leg over the other below the knee, brushing her leg against his. Her smile puckered in invitation.

Graham swallowed hard. “The other side of town. In West Lake.”

“Nice. Posh.” Trista giggled. “You’re making me regret that I ever broke up with you.”

Her hand brushed his thigh, and he turned, catching her fanning her lashes at him.

His crotch tightened, and he pressed his heels into the bar stool.

Their tumultuous relationship always seesawed between her not being able to get enough of him and then nearly throttling him. Trista ran hot—surface of the sun hot—and ice cold.

He wasn’t doing that again.

“That was probably for the best.” Graham laughed. “As I remember it, we didn’t want the same things.”

“You still don’t want to get married? Or have kids?”

“Those are big questions.”

“I’m just curious.” Trista picked up the red wine newly delivered in front of her and swirled it gently, nosing the glass.

Graham couldn’t respond to Trista’s inquiry. Not because he was incapable, but because the answers would never be applicable to her. When Graham was younger, he took screaming and yelling and passionate make-up sex as a sign of great feeling.

He couldn’t contemplate marriage and kids sitting across from a woman so tempestuous.

“I’m not ruling anything out if I meet the right woman.”

“You’ve matured. That’s good news.”

“I suppose I have.”
Have you?
He wouldn’t ask her that question. “What else is been going on in the past seven years?”

“I sold my half of the studio to Trina. From what I hear, the business has really taken off. I think she’s opened a couple of extra locations.”

“You don’t keep in touch with her?”

“We lost touch,” she answered curtly.
Hot and cold.

“Do you miss having your own business? You always loved being in charge of every aspect of the operation.”

“I did, but running everything is exhausting. Mostly what I miss is the personal contact with clients. I’m excited to start working at Starlight Fitness. Alexa seems like she’ll be a great boss. Do you know her well?”

Graham poured over Trista’s blank expression. Innocently asked question or a mining expedition? She sipped her wine and continued to gaze at him with wide-eyed interest.

“I haven’t known her long. We bought the building back in January, and that’s when we met.”

“Oh. I thought you two seemed friendlier when I ran into you at the gym that day.”

Her innocent eyes blinked at him, but he realized her game. “We’ve gotten to know each other since I started working out there. From what I’ve seen, you’re right. She’s a good boss, and you’re lucky to work there.”

“Cool. That’s good to know. How’s your dad?”

Graham welcomed the new line of questioning. He caught her up on the goings on of his family and the few friends they’d once shared. Once they ordered dinner at the bar, Graham relaxed. Trista quit pumping him for information about his personal life, and he remembered how much fun she could be when he wasn’t entangled in the messy way she ran her relationships.

After they ate, they surrendered their bar seats to other people who wanted to grab dinner, moving closer to the entrance as the throngs pressed toward the bar.

“I miss this.” Trista tipped her face up toward him. A man passed behind her, and she made a big show of being bumped, throwing her body against his and bracing herself with her hands on his shoulders. Not sure if she were really about to topple over, he grabbed her around her waist.

He righted her on her feet and his hand slipped down, trailing over her firm ass. He couldn’t go there again, but damn, she still had a rocking body. Feeling a little nostalgic, he held his hand there, smiling down at her.

“I do, but I don’t.”

She tossed her hair back, which thrust her breasts up and gave him a tantalizing view. Oh, the mistakes he’d once made. He gave her backside another quick pat, looked up, and froze.

The last person he needed to see him right now walked in the front door. The statuesque woman blazed at him with rage-filled eyes.
Oh, shit.

* * *

A
lexa spotted
Graham as soon as she walked into Logan’s. His hands slid down the back of a firmly built woman and then settled squarely on her ass. The woman in the skintight outfit and “fuck me” pumps laughed. Graham’s familiar smirk shined down on her. Not until he lifted his eyes and met Alexa’s did he push the woman away.

“Oh, shit.”

The expletive got the petite, but muscled, woman to turn around and blanch before blushing. Alexa approached them with calm resolve.

“I see you’re getting to know my new instructor. Oh, wait. That’s right. You two already know each other.” Alexa pressed her lips together and tried to keep her nostrils from flaring like a longhorn bull.

“Look, Alexa, this isn’t what it looks like. I was telling Trista that she and I are just going to be friends.”

“Really?” Alexa and Trista expressed their disbelief at the same time, causing Alexa to shake her head.

“You know what, Graham. I can’t even be mad. You and I aren’t exclusive. That’s clear. So, it’s none of my business. Except it is. She does work for me, but that’s not your problem.” Alexa turned heel and returned to her friends.