His storm cloud gaze meets mine, roving over my face, a half smile tipping up the right side of his mouth.
“The night’s still young, you never know where we might end up,” I say with a wink at the girls.
I have no idea what the protocol is here. He’s naturally flirty. That’s just the way he is. So him sliding into the booth and putting his arm around me is par for the course. I should definitely not read into it.
“Like the next town over at the Steel Sword!” Tawny slaps the table, eyes alight with excitement. She’s already on her second glass of wine since Allie is the designated driver of their pair.
“The Steel Sword? Is that the name of a bar?” I wrinkle my nose. It does not sound like a place I want to go.
“Oh, it’s a bar, all right.” Dillion grins widely.
Aaron’s playful smile drops, and he looks over my head at her. “You’re not taking Teagan there.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with the Steel Sword?” Troy used to monitor where I went and with who, but I realize now it was so he could sneak around behind my back with Portia. I don’t think this is anything close to the same, but I don’t like that my head goes there at all.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with the Steel Sword?” Allie props her chin on her fist.
“Didn’t they get shut down for violating the health code?” Aaron’s eyes swing her way and narrow. “And Teagan doesn’t need to see a bunch of second-rate strippers fumble their way out of their clothes when she has me around.” He turns his hot gaze on me. He’s close, his sweet breath washing over my face. He’s been drinking root beer. His fingers sweep up the side of my neck. There’s a hint of vulnerability and maybe the tiniest bit of worry lurking behind his eyes, as though he’s not fond of the idea of me going there. “Listen, babe, you don’t need the Steel Sword. You want a lap dance, you come to me.”
“Hey, Saunders, stop hitting on the locals. They know better than to let you into their beds!” Billy, Dillion’s younger brother, calls out from the pool tables across the room.
Aaron flinches, and his brow pulls into a furrow. He turns his head slowly in the direction of the heckling. “I’m having a conversation!”
“I’m gonna let Tommy take your shot if you’re not over here in thirty seconds.” Billy sets his nonalcoholic beer on the table and starts chalking up his cue.
Aaron rolls his eyes and turns back to me. “I gotta show them what real pool looks like.” He pushes up off the bench and unfurls to his full height. “Don’t leave without saying goodbye.” He takes a step toward the pool tables but stops and turns back to us, narrowed eyes on Allie and Tawny. “And I mean it: don’t take her to the Steel Sword.” He braces one hand on the back of the bench and leans down, the fingers on his free hand settling under my chin, and he tips my head up. “By the way, you look fucking delicious tonight. If I lose this game, it’s your fault for being such a distraction.” He brushes his lips over mine.
It’s all too brief. He winks and saunters across the room, toward the pool table.
My table suddenly feels like there’s an earthquake happening under it. Allie and Tawny both look like their eyeballs are going to pop out of their heads.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” they both whisper-shriek.
Tawny leans forward and looks around the bar. I do the same and notice there are quite a few people looking at our table. “I guess now we know who Aaron’s mystery woman is!”
“Mystery woman?” I echo.
“I saw Billy in town, and he was complaining last week about Aaron not being around to help him with something. I guess he kept blowing him off because he was busy with you, but he wouldn’t give him a straight answer. Billy figured it had to be a woman, because Aaron has been in a great mood lately,” Tawny says.
“Aaron is usually pretty upbeat, though,” Allie says.
“Yeah, but he’s been whistling, with a hop in his step and a twinkle in his eyes,” Dillion adds.
I give her a look. “What is this? A Hallmark movie?”
She laughs. “Seriously, though, Aaron is a fun guy, but there’s always been an edge to him, like there’s something dark hiding behind that smile of his. He’s different than he was in high school, which I guess is to be expected. I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it, but what I do know is that he’s been in a ridiculously good mood lately and he hasn’t been flirting with everyone.”
“He was just flirting with me,” I point out.
Dillion rolls her eyes. “That’s my point. He’s only flirting with you, from what I can see. On Monday we were at one of the jobs across the lake, and they have a college-aged daughter. She was flouncing around in her bikini at nine in the morning, full makeup, following Aaron around like a lost puppy, and he wouldn’t give her the time of day. Eventually he told her she had to find something else to do because she didn’t have on the appropriate footwear to be around power tools.”
“Ouch.” Tawny makes a face.
Dillion shrugs. “He wasn’t wrong, but before you arrived, he would’ve at least flirted back.”
I glance over at the pool tables as Aaron heads toward the door with his phone at his ear.
“He’s kind of, like . . . mysterious,” Allie says.
He does disappear outside to take phone calls pretty often when we’re together. I just assume he needs the privacy.
“He dropped out of college in his final semester; do you know what happened?” I ask Tawny and Allie, since they’re local and Dillion lived in Chicago for almost a decade until she moved back to Pearl Lake last year. I haven’t tried to bring it up again since the last time we talked about it.
Tawny looks over her shoulder, checking to make sure no one is eavesdropping. She lowers her voice and shakes her head. “Not really. He came back a couple months after Christmas break in his final semester. He went through a rough patch. Had that little piece of land, and I think he lived in a trailer for a while. No one saw much of him. Got shit-faced drunk a few times here. Once I think he ended up in the hospital.”
“Is that why I always see him with root beer?” I ask.
Tawny shrugs. “Maybe? It was pretty bad. Something must have happened at college, but none of us know what it was. After the hospital thing, I think he stopped drinking altogether.”
“And then he started working for the Stitches,” Allie adds.
“And sleeping with the McMansion women,” I mutter.
“Yeah, but it’s been a long time since we’ve heard anything about that,” Tawny says.
“I think last summer was when he put a stop to things. Remember when he was at Harry’s and one of those women showed up and made a big scene right in the middle of the lumberyard?” Allie says to Tawny.
“Oh yeah, that was something else.” Tawny looks over her shoulder at the pool table, but the guys aren’t paying attention to us.
I lean in and lower my voice anyway. “What kind of scene?”
“She was day drunk,” Tawny says. “She started freaking out on him, saying she knew she wasn’t the only one and how dare he. Aaron’s mom works there, so that was . . . not the best.”