Broken:Flirt New Adult Romance(21)

I quickly stamp down the surge of jealousy. They were just kids, for  God's sake. Friends. At least I think they were just friends. And not  that it's any of my business if they were more.

"He know you're here tonight?" she asks, her tone casual. Too casual. I  know what she's really asking: Why hasn't he come to see me?

"He, um . . . he's not so much the social type," I say.

"Yeah," she mutters. "I gathered that after getting turned away at the door every day for a month after he moved in."

My heart twists a little at the sadness in her voice.         

     



 

What the hell, Paul? It's clear to me now that he's friendless and alone  because he wants to be. Not because everybody shunned him.

"How's he doing?" she asks. "I mean, we all hear things, but you know  small towns and their rumors. It's hard to pull out the facts."

"He's probably about like you've heard," I say, maintaining eye contact. "Rude, angry, and generally unpleasant."

"Well now," a low voice says from behind me. "There's something to make a guy's heart skip a beat."

I freeze at the familiar voice. Too late I realize that the place has  grown mostly quiet, save for the music. I turn around and realize that  the awkward staring I've been expecting has finally commenced.

Only they're not staring at me.

They're staring at Paul.

His eyes hold mine for several seconds, his thumb doing that slow  stroking over the head of his cane before his eyes move over my shoulder  and lock on the girl behind the bar. "Hey, Kali."

Please don't reject him, I silently beg of her. Please understand how big a moment this is for him.

I don't know if she hears my unspoken plea or if she's just a really,  really good sort of person, because she doesn't throw a beer in his face  or make any kind of snotty remark. Instead she launches herself across  the bar and winds her arms around his neck. It's a hug. The stunned look  of pleasure on his face almost breaks my heart.

When Kali releases him, Paul gives an almost shy smile and starts to sit  on the stool to my right, but then inexplicably moves around to sit on  the other side of me.

The pressure in my chest tightens as I realize what he's just done. He's  intentionally sat with the scarred side of his face toward me, his good  side facing everyone else.

He trusts me.

The realization makes me ridiculously warm.

"What can I get you?" Kali asks. "Last time we drank together, it was sneaking citrus vodka out of your dad's liquor cabinet."

Paul laughs. "I've graduated. How about whisky and Coke?"

Kali plops the drink down in front of him before reluctantly moving back down the bar to attend to a gesturing patron.

Several people are still looking our way and whispering, but Paul seems determined to ignore them, and I follow suit.

"So my chili was that bad?" I ask, taking a sip of my wine.

He stabs at his ice with the stir stick. "I had some. It wasn't awful."

"It was amazing, and you know it. Take back what you said about me not being able to cook."

The corner of his mouth turns up slightly. "I found a sandwich in the  fridge. I'm guessing you made it for lunch and then took it away because  I was hiding like a little bitch?"

I tap my nose. Bingo.

He smirks. "Well, I had a bite of the sandwich. Completely pedestrian."

"It was turkey and cheddar on wheat. What the hell were you expecting  for lunch, some sort of asiago soufflé and escarole salad?"

Paul snorts. "Your New York is showing."

He has a point. I've long been part of the high-priced wine bar and  frou-frou café set. Asiago soufflés used to be part of an average  Wednesday. Even though I've been holed up here in Maine for all of a few  weeks, those days feel like they were forever ago. It somehow feels  exactly right to be perched on this worn leather stool at a wooden bar  that looks older than I am, sitting next to a guy who's one part  beautiful mystery and one part unpredictable beast.

"You can relax," I say quietly. "Everyone's gone back to their business."

"Only because they can't see the scars from this angle. If they could,  they'd be heading toward the door or puking up their onion rings."

"I see them, and I'm not running toward the door."

His eyes flick to mine then, and for a second there's this moment between us.

Kali comes back and the moment's gone. I don't resent her. Not really.  She represents a normal side of Paul that I haven't been able to  access-his pre-Afghanistan self. And her response to his new appearance  couldn't have been more perfect.

But that doesn't mean I have to like the way he keeps laughing at every  other thing she says, or the way they're both dropping names of mutual  friends I've never heard of. Five minutes ago I thought Kali was just  about the cutest, nicest thing on the planet-definite Maine BFF  material. Now I hate that she's the cutest, nicest thing on the planet. I  also hate the way Paul is smiling so easily around her. He never smiles  like that around me.

Pull it together, Olivia. This is what I want for him. A normal social  life. Human interaction. Cute girls who can see beyond his scars.         

     



 

Annnnnnnd now Kali's hand is on his arm. And he's not removing it.  Awesome. I take a huge sip of wine before leaning in and breaking up the  sweet little tête-à-tête.

"Hey, Kali, ladies' room?" I ask.

She shifts her friendly smile over to me and removes her hand from  Paul's arm-good girl-to point me in the right direction. "Follow the bar  along this way, and then take a left. Ladies' room is at the end of the  hall on the right."

Since the rest rooms are in the opposite direction of the front door, I  pass a whole new set of tables and realize I may have been a little bit  hasty in my assumption that I'd avoided the worst of people staring at  the "new girl." There's a couple of middle-aged men in the corner who do  that up-and-down leer and are either too crass or too inebriated to  care how obvious they are. Whatever. We have those kinds of creeps in  New York, too. I move on.

At the table next to them is a group of older women who also give me the  once-over, but more with an envious oh-to-be-young-again expression.  It's pretty universal female language, and I give them a friendly smile.

The last table before the bathroom is the rowdiest. It's a group of  guys, close to my own age. They're all wearing matching sweatshirts with  their college name, although by the time I pass their table (to a few  tacky whistles, I might add), I still haven't figured out what the  little logo on their sleeve is supposed to be. Crew, maybe? Alas, sports  have never been my thing, and I don't give it another thought.

The guys, however, aren't as quick to forget me as I am to forget them. I  barely make it back into the main room of the bar after going to pee  before three of them have me cornered against the wall. Not in a  threatening way, not really. They seem more drunk and stupid than  menacing, but I'm so not in the mood.

I start to push through when a good-looking guy with an admittedly  great-if sharkish-smile gently puts a hand on my arm. "Hey, can we buy  you a drink?"

My eyes flick to the table, where there are several half-empty pitchers  of beer. "No thanks." I give him my best not-interested smile and start  to walk away again, but he moves so he's still in front of me. Still not  threatening, but increasingly annoying.

I glance around as though surprised. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I somehow give  off the vibe that I came back here to be harassed by a group of boys?"  It's a low blow, considering they're probably about the same age as me,  but I mean it to be insulting.

The handsome one's eyes narrow. "No need to get bitchy."

"Actually, there's every need if you don't let me get back to my date."

"Date, huh?" He folds his arms over his chest. "What kind of date can a girl like you find in a place like this?"

"The worst kind," comes a low voice from behind my harasser. Paul.

I immediately start to tell him it's no big deal, that these boys were  just about to let me pass, but then I see his face. This isn't the  friendly, at-ease Paul who was talking to Kali at the bar. This is the  other Paul. The Marine Corps Paul whose anger at the world is wound so  tightly that the merest spark will set him off in a dangerous way.

And then it gets worse.

The stupid kid turns around and visibly blanches at the sight of Paul's  ravaged face. Then his face turns cruel as he lets out a mean laugh.

"This is your date?" he asks me, walking around Paul as though circling a circus spectacle. "This freak?"

"Don't," I whisper, unsure if I'm talking to the jackass kid or Paul.  Not that it matters, because neither of them pays attention to me.

"What are you, an extra on a horror set?" the kid says, egged on by the laughter of his stupid, drunk friends.

I close my eyes. This is why Paul doesn't leave his house. This is what I forced him into.