Page 8 of Double Trouble
“I have to admit,” Jake was saying, eyeing me. “When I asked your story, I think I was trying to figure out why you were still single.”
“What, hoping for me to come out and say I secretly own fifty-seven cats?” I teased.
“No.” Jake chuckled. “But now that you mention it.”
“No, I don’t have fifty-seven cats. I don’t even have a dog,” I said. I swallowed thickly. No way was I going to come out and mention how after the accident, I hadn’t been able to connect with anyone until them.
“I could ask the same thing of you,” I said, eager to turn the tables on them and shift the focus of the conversation onto something other than myself. “Two good-looking successful guys like yourselves still single. How come?”
“Why thank you,” Jake said in a female-esque voice, fluttering his lashes.
“Can’t speak for this guy” -Owen thumbed to Jake- “But for me it’s pretty simple. I haven’t found the right girl yet.”
Something in his eyes told me that once again there was more to the story, but I left it at that, shifting my gaze to Jake.
“Me?” he said. “I’ve had my fair share of psycho girlfriends, thank you very much. Staying single now for the foreseeable future is a-ok with me.”
“In other words,” Owen said, smiling blandly as he dipped his lips to my ear, although his whisper was loud enough for Jake to hear. “He’s afraid.”
“Yeah, well you’d be afraid too,” Jake shot back. “After all, it was Amelia who almost had us estranged for months.”
“She said Jake spent too much time hanging out with me,” Owen explained with a light laugh.
“More like she wanted me to be at her beck and call 24-7.” Jake frowned with just the memory. “I had a few fights that I’d tell her about, where she’d be texting me wondering when I’d be back, whining and bitching away. And then-” he paused mid-sentence, smiling ruefully. “Sorry. Bad form complaining about your exes. Suffice to say that she’s a lovely person who is much lovelier at a distance.”
I laughed. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”
“Believe me, she wouldn’t be putting it like that at all. But I digress.”
Just then, our drinks were set down.
“Better late than never,” Owen said, lifting his. “To Jake’s win, in the ring and out.”
I clinked, although I couldn’t shrug the odd feeling I had away completely.
“So getting me here is a win?”
Jake squinted at me. “Is that a trick question?”
I took a larger gulp of my drink to hide my flaming cheeks. The cool of the glass under my fingertips was a bit relieving. All of me was flushing hot and cold, while I had the distinct sensation of being in a dreamworld, where the tide was pulling me into the complete unknown.
“So are you a leg girl?” Jake asked me.
“Come again?”
“Are you a wing girl or a leg girl?” Jake repeated, indicating the menu.
“Either,” I said.
“Great,” Jake said. “We’ll get both.”
“And some celery and carrot sticks,” Owen said.
“Yes, Grandad,” Jake said with a sigh.
Owen smiled thinly. “You get fat and start losing, neither of us gets paid.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jake said.
Under the table, when he had said ‘leg’, Jake’s leg had bobbed into mine. While I’d initially thought it a fluke, his leg was now resting against mine, his heat sending shocks of sensation up my thighs.
Meanwhile, Owen’s foot was against mine, his knee brushing against my other one every so often in the conversation, almost as if casually.
I closed my eyes, inhaled. Cool it, Cin. So what if all of me was aching from the desert of touch-less torture these past few years had been? Didn’t mean I needed to jump into bed the first chance I had with the first guys I happened to like.
When the food arrived, luckily talk dissolved under the eating-fest our table descended into. As it turned out, both fighting and managing a fight gave you a killer appetite, since both Owen and Jake ate with the appetites of men twice their size. Although I didn’t hold back either. Maybe it was nerves or just sheer hunger (in my hurry to get ready, I hadn’t had time for dinner), but I was definitely eating my fair share.
“Here, try this,” Jake said.
Next thing I knew, a chicken wing was pressing against my lips. My gaze caught his. His dropped to my mouth. I bit down, my gaze falling. “Delicious, is that…”
“Mustard, it’s my secret sauce.”
“How is it secret if you tell everyone about it?” Owen pointed out.
“Oh shut up. You’re just pissed because you layer boring-ass ketchup onto everything.”
No sooner had I mostly finished the mustard-covered wing, then was Owen nudging me.
“Check this out.”
The next second, another sauce-covered wing was pressing into my lips. Deja-vu trembled through me as I parted my lips, allowing him to slip it in. Our gazes locked.
