“Next round’s on me,” she offers, tipping back the rest of her drink. I work to catch up, gulping my beer down. If Lorelai wants to sit in this bar and get drunk, then that’s what we’ll do.
* * *
An hour later, Georgie’s is packed to the rafters with inebriated bodies and the off-kilter soundtrack of a cover band that is quite literally ruining the originals. Not that Lorelai cares about the travesty that is Lynyrd Skynyrd being played with a calypso backbeat. She pulled me to the suffocating dance floor three songs ago and hasn’t let up.
If I’m being honest, I’m an excellent dancer, so I don’t mind much. Typically, when we’re back in town and hitting up the local bar scene, I’m too beat down with exhaustion and jet lag to hold cohesive conversations with pretty girls, so I’ll cheat and head straight for the dance floor. What I lack in physique, I more than make up for in rhythm. Many a hookup was born out of my ability to two-step. Which is a good thing, because otherwise, I completely missed out on the three tenets good old southern boys are supposed to excel at: hunting, football, and/or rodeo. I’m an embarrassment to my hometown. A proud vegetarian who couldn’t catch a fucking yoga ball if you threw it directly at my head.
But I can roll my hips like the devil himself blessed me. And according to my older sister, he has.
It’s not a lot, but it’s what I have, and you can be damn sure I’ve learned to use it to my advantage. Except with my current partner, who is at least two drinks ahead of me while also weighing seventy pounds less. I twirl Lorelai out and drag her back in. Her entire body accidentally on purpose brushes against me before she grabs my hips with her small hands, steadying herself on wobbly legs, and lets out a breathless giggle.
“Do it again, Huckleberry.”
Yep, proof in the pudding right there. We’re at least four shots in when “Huckleberry” comes out. Back when I first met Lorelai Jones, I told her my name was Craig Boseman, and she immediately shut that down, saying, “No way. I can do Boseman. Bose, even, but definitely not Craig. My first singing coach was a Craig, and he was a dick.”
Eventually she found out my middle name was Huckleberry. （Yes, like Finn. Yeah, I know, I can’t believe I can’t catch a football, either. All the key elements are right fucking there.） Whenever she’s feeling really good, she calls me Huck, and when she’s feeling really, really good, like “three sheets to the wind” good, she calls me Huckleberry. Consequently, Drake has always hated the name. Because Drake hates fun.
I wink, rolling my hips in an exaggerated effort, and she throws her head back, smoky peals of laughter erupting from her golden vocal cords before she starts singing along to the band, outshining them from the middle of a crowded bar where no one cares she’s someone trending on Twitter.
Damn, she’s fun.
The band transitions into the next tune, and it’s something sultry, sexy, and way too familiar. Lorelai freezes in place as the singer breathes into the mic, doing a terrible imitation of Drake Colter’s signature raspy tenor.
Even in the dim glow of the bar, I can see the color leach out of Lorelai’s flushed face. Her eyes grow wide and her pulse flutters against her long throat. I immediately take action, stepping into her space, my hands grasping hers, still fisted against my hips, and I lean close to her ear. She’s mostly drunk, so what I’m about to tell her probably doesn’t matter. She’s likely to forget this in the morning. I’m counting on it, actually. But for the moment … it’s the one thing I can think of that might snap her out of her heartache.
“Want to know a secret no one else knows?”
I have to imagine it takes all the strength she possesses to jerk her head even the tiny bit she gives me, but it’s enough and I press even closer, my lips a hairsbreadth from the delicate shell of her ear.
“Drake didn’t even write this stupid song. I did.”
She pulls back as though electrocuted and blinks, absorbing my dead-serious expression.
I lift a shoulder, still clasping her hands. “I wrote all of them, actually.”
Her lips form around the words all of them, and I nod.
Her dark brown eyes dart back and forth between mine, searching for the truth, and I let her. After a beat, she presses herself against me, her slender arms wrapping possessively around my neck. “You wrote this beautiful song. You wrote all of them.”
I feel myself heat at her reaction, but it feels good. To be honest for once. To admit the truth, even if she won’t remember it in the morning and even if no one else will ever know.
“Yeah. Don’t tell anyone. I have a rep to protect.” Because I’m the good time and Drake Colter is the serious musician. I’m just your average country boy with average looks and average style and average stage presence. You’d never in a million years suspect I was the words behind Drake Colter’s star.
Which is why our arrangement works so well.
Lorelai snorts against my neck but doesn’t move back to place space between us. Which she should do. Or I should. There should be space between us, is all I’m saying.
But she doesn’t and I don’t. In fact, she bucks against me, and reflexively I tighten my hold, wrapping her in both my arms, one slipping into the mythically soft hair at her nape and the other dipping to brush just under the waistband of her jeans.
And it feels fucking amazing. Don’t think. Whatever you do, don’t think.
Her whispered “Thank you” caresses the heated skin under my collar.
I’m not sure what she’s thanking me for exactly. Thanks for finding her? For getting drunk with her? For practically dry humping her in the middle of a dive bar?
“Take me home, Huckleberry.”
I freeze in place, head to toe, because she’s not asking me. That was a declarative sentence. A softly spoken demand. But she can’t possibly mean what I think she means. Lorelai Jones and I have been friends for years. Close friends. Best friends, even. We’ve never crossed that line.
Have I thought about crossing the proverbial line? Hell yes. Have you seen Lorelai? She’s gorgeous and funny and sweet and talented, and for sure my dickish partner can’t come close to deserving her. Not that I ever said anything, but the fact remains. Still, we’ve never been like that.
We go out and dance and drink and let loose and then she leaves with Drake and I leave with someone else, and that’s how it’s always been.
Lorelai’s hand slips from my neck, her fingers dancing along that same feverish skin of my open collar and down my front until she stops, cupping me through my suddenly tight denim, making her intent crystal clear.
A hiss mixes with a surprised moan somewhere in the back of my throat and I work to keep my body still, my thoughts battling wildly against booze and hormones.
“Please, Huck?”
“We’re pretty drunk, Lorelai.”
She grips me harder and I press against her hot hand, feeling dizzy.
“We’ll sober up on the way.”
“Yeah, but will you even want to, sober? Let’s just stay here and dance,” I suggest, and it’s not even halfhearted. It’s quarterhearted at best.
She pauses, seeming to consider. Then she removes her hand from my cock and tugs my head down to hers, ever so slightly, offering me an out.