ON AIR (5 page)

7

M
y sister was sometimes a providential sight for me. When I’d sit in her coffee shop and just observe her for a few minutes, my life automatically seemed to benefit from it. Chloe had always been a happy girl; that smile and those vibrant eyes had brought me out of some dark places over the years. She seemed to have that effect on others as well.

After our parents died, I often wondered if my sister was trying way too hard to mask her devastation. She’d been extremely close to our mom and I’d been pretty close to our dad; together we just sort of combined those bonds and it worked. I knew a lot about my mom because of Chloe, and Chloe understood our dad better because of me.

It was the Thomas way.

But there was never anything fake about my sister. She felt joy in her heart, and because she didn’t hide it, others felt it too. Her personality was infectious that way.

I’d been sitting in her shop for about ten minutes before she headed my way. The slight lull in customers allowed it so she sat down across from me in the chair I’d thoughtfully named “Gertrude.” I had also noticed Natalie the second I’d entered, fixing coffee right along with Chloe. I didn’t know if she was now working for my sister or was just in for today or what…but I made a note to myself that I wasn’t going to ask.

“Hey, handsome,” Chloe grinned. “Let’s cut to the chase and you can tell me what’s on your mind.”

She could also read me like a book.

I barely shrugged and got straight to it. “I met someone last week.”

Her eyebrows shot as high as they could possibly go. Then she leaned in and whispered, “Okay, this was not what I was expecting. Dish it, Dane.”

I gave her an abbreviated version of my evening at the bar with Holly. My sister didn’t make a peep until I was completely finished, obviously waiting to hear her opinion.

“Hmm. I like her.”

I scoffed. “You’ve never even met her. And you pretty much like everyone, so that’s not fair either.”

Smiling, she shook her head. “I know, but like you said, she seems extremely interesting. Different.” She paused. “Wow, I’m intrigued. So tell me what she looks like.”

I needed a moment to assess that statement. I really hadn’t said a word about her physical appearance. Everything fascinating about Holly Hansen had nothing to do with what she looked like. Okay, that wasn’t completely true. Her looks had drawn me to her originally, but I stayed because I was captivated by her wit and the few morsels of her life I knew about.

“Nothing to say about her looks?” Chloe added, her mouth open in awe. “Dane Michael Thomas, what the fuck?”

It was my turn to be surprised. “Chloe Madeline Thomas, watch your mouth.”

She laughed but reached across to grab my hand, digging her nails into my skin. “Spill it or I gouge harder.”

“Ow, why are you so violent?”

“Because I’m desperate to hear something good about your life, big brother.
Tellllll meeeeeee
,” she begged.

“Fine, fine…” She let go of me, so I massaged her claw marks with my fingers. “She’s…blonde. Like a golden blonde, long hair. Has dark blue eyes, almost navy. She doesn’t wear a lot of makeup, or at least didn’t when I met her. She was about five-foot-seven, average build but slightly busty. I think she had some freckles across her nose but the lighting didn’t help with that. Straight teeth, beautiful smile…”

I shrugged to signify I was done. Chloe was still sitting there, leaning forward like I had the answer to world peace. I gave her a look that meant, “What?” I mean hell, I just gave her a shit ton of information.

“That’s it? No number?”

Nodding, I answered, “Yeah, she gave me her—”

“Your scale, dufus. You know, that shitty little rating scale you put women on within five seconds of seeing them?”

I scowled. Mainly because I really had put Holly on that scale, but also because, for the first time, I felt like a huge douche for doing so. “Okay, so maybe I did at first. An eight. But…”

My sister narrowed her eyes at me. “But what? You finally realized how stupid that is?”

I was going to admit Holly had turned into a nine by the next day, especially after I’d read her column, but I decided to withhold that info. “Jeez, child, lay off the insults today,” I chuckled warily. “What is with you?”

She took a deep breath and vacantly stared across the room. “Nothing,” she mumbled. “I just… I love you, Dane, but you know how I feel about that stuff.”

“You know what?” I said, feeling a bit defensive, “that was a guy thing that should have been kept a guy thing. Chris should have kept his fucking mouth shut.”

She glared at me but eventually her face returned to neutral. “Well it’s the dumbest thing ever.”

“What, looking at something and giving my honest assessment of it? When you got your car, do you know how many we looked at before the damn color was to your satisfaction? The
color
, Chloe. Not the gas mileage, or not the ease of the drive… the fucking
color
—”

“Dane, that is a car and not a human being!” she scoffed.

“Well it’s still superficial as fuck. You can get rid of a car you don’t like easier than you can get rid of a person. You can repaint a car until you like it; you can’t do that with a person. I stand by my measures.”

“You are terrible!” she laughed, reaching across the table to smack me in the arm. “How are we even related?”

“I ask myself that everyday,” I heard Natalie say from behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder and said, “You butt out. You know too much.”

“Exactly,” she smiled as she dialed the blinds on the window to bring in more light. “And I think I’m ready to dabble in blackmail one of these days.”

Chloe laughed and looked at me pointedly. “Hmm, someone should be worried.”

Before I could answer, Natalie cut in with, “Yeah, and you too, little miss.”

I feigned major disbelief and gaped at my sister. “Ah! What does she have on
you
? Oh I’m
so
gonna do some research!”

“Shut up,” Chloe rolled her eyes. “She’s just talking about the Brad Paisley concert. I was a little bit…in love with him.”

“The Paisley concert
and
the waxing incident.”

“Oh my God!” Chloe gasped, turning bright red. “You wouldn’t!”

“And I’m out of here on that note,” I said, standing from my “Igor” chair. No way I wanted to hear anything on my sister being waxed. I gave her a kiss on the back of the head since she’d dropped her face onto the table in embarrassment. “Don’t worry,” I told her quietly but just loud enough for Natalie to hear. “I know
alllll
about Nat’s sweatshirt collection.”

Feeling smug, I skirted past Natalie before she could nail me with her fist. “And by the way, I want mine back,” I told her.

“You little shit,” she glared at me, just as my sister asked what we were talking about.

Knowing I had the upper hand, I pointed at Natalie and added, “I’m serious, I want it back.”

“Can’t handle the conquest?” she sassed at me with a smile.

I only smiled in return as I left, but yeah, that was a fucking blow to my ego.

***

I’d only seen Holly the one time so far—the night we’d met. Sunday night, after I’d read her column, I had called to see if I could take her out sometime. She’d said yes right away but we couldn’t seem to get our schedules to match up that week or the next weekend.

I’ll admit I was a bit of a workaholic and failed to make time for…well, a lot of things. But after a week had gone by and I wasn’t able to see Holly, I was getting somewhat spacey. I had to refocus on what I was working on three or four times an hour. I knew myself well, and when I couldn’t get something off my mind, I needed to do something about it.

I sent her a text. Just a short one, asking if I could bring her lunch or even just coffee to wherever she was. But when she replied, I had to spend a minute warding off my annoyance.

Aww you don’t have to do that but thanks anyway!

So… I’ll confess I have a few pet peeves when it comes to people. Okay, okay, probably a lot more than a few. You can say it, it doesn’t bother me: it’s why I’m an extremely handsome man—and very successful—but still single. I never said I wasn’t arrogant, either. But anyway, responses like that—“you don’t have to do that but thanks anyway”—really aggravate me. Of course I don’t fucking have to. But obviously I want to, right? I mean I’m taking the time to offer it, which means I’m putting myself in a position to follow through.

I took a deep breath and slowly released it. At this point, I think I was only fooling myself. She was giving me the slip, and I was being too overconfident to admit it. I’m generally not the type to let it get this far anyway, so I decided not to reply at all. The ball was in her court. She had my number, and after several attempts to get together with Holly, it was all on
her
now.

When Madden suggested we go out that Friday night, I was all for it. I’d been staying late each night to work on projects I was taking too long on because of my lack of concentration, so I was more than ready to have a guys night out.

We hit a place we frequent quite a bit called Baseline. After twenty minutes of beer and baseball on the big screen, I was finally feeling some of my week dissolve from my shoulders. Madden had been given the outline of my experiences with Holly, but he was able to read me well and chose to drop it. Sometimes my situations with women were a closed subject, and this was one of them. I was glad we could have a casual night out without any chick drama.

Until Natalie showed up. I won’t even use being drunk as an excuse because I wasn’t, but it didn’t take long before she and I were arguing about a bunch of shit—random things from the past five years and even stupid stuff like why she was with those same two bitches again. I guess that’s what set her off the most because she called me a bunch of nasty names, including a manwhore, and the three of them left in one collective huff.

At that point I’d basically segregated myself from everyone I knew who had shown up that night, including Madden. He especially knew to let me simmer at the end of the bar on my own.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever understand you two,” Darius told me as he slid over my order of Jameson. I’d met Darius in college, but he probably knew me the best just from me coming into his bar the last few years.

“Yeah, me either,” I admitted, downing the shot. I thought he’d leave it as a rhetorical statement and go away, but he stood there, waiting for me to expound. I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t know what she wants from me.”

He chuckled. “Have you ever asked her?”

“Have I fucking asked her,” I murmured under my breath.

But Darius heard me and scoffed. “Hey, sometimes the obvious answer is
the
answer. I’m just saying. Natalie has loved you for a long time. You two have been through a lot together.”

“Pssh, I’ve known her for five years. We’ve
fucked
a lot in five years.”

Darius shook his head. “Maybe so. But I think you sweep things under the rug too quickly.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, ready to argue. But I knew he was right. However, those words “Natalie has loved you for a long time” kept repeating in my head.

“She doesn’t love me like that, Dare. She’s a
female version of the old me
. She likes the challenge, gets what she wants, and then moves on.” I thought back to her damn sweatshirt collection, and yep, just the idea of her trophies confirmed how I felt.

“Naw, man, you’re wrong because like you said, you’re not like that. Neither is she. I’m a bartender and I may see a lot—and I’m in no way an expert—
but
… I’ve witnessed my share of Dane-and-Natalie moments over the years. She changed you, man. Before Nat, you didn’t seem to care who you dated. When Natalie came into the picture, your standards changed. Explain that to me.”

“I grew the fuck up. Nothing to explain. I got a great job and I have a nice house. And I’m not that impressed by most women. I need someone who grabs my attention.”

“A guy needs to get laid, though.”

“And I do just fine.”
But it’s always with Natalie
, I reminded myself.

Darius only smiled because he was probably thinking the same thing, and when a customer asked for a vodka-cranberry, he left me to fix it quick. He returned less than a minute later. “You’re looking for something better than just hookups,” he stated.

I shrugged. “Well…maybe. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. A guy hits a point in his life where he wants more from it. Whether it be his job or a relationship, he knows he can achieve something better and has a goal in mind. So…what’s your goal?”

I didn’t answer.

“Serious relationship? Marriage? Kids?”

Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could see myself with kids anytime soon. I was twenty-nine years old but felt like I was just starting the “adult” part of my life. Why screw it up so soon?