Devil's Girl(10)

"Be on my team?" Dawn asked, smiling and jutting her chest out. See? Idiot! He took the stick from her and circled the table.

He hit one of Dawn's balls - the solids - into a pocket right away. Dawn cheered with delight and grabbed his arm. He gently shrugged her off. "Still my turn."

We followed him as he circled the table. Fuck, I need to stop embarrassing myself in front of him. He hit one ball after another into the pockets, his face deep in concentration, his strong arms working with a practiced ease. The longer I watched, the more my heart raced.

Dawn hovered around him like a vulture, deliberately placing herself between him and me, bodily blocking me out of her ceaseless chatter. I placed myself across the table from him instead where I could watch his face as he considered his moves. But he ignored us both as he became lost in the game. I felt like a fly, like an annoyance buzzing around him. Like a tiny moon circling a massive planet. I tried to make conversation, asking questions about the game - "why don't you hit this one here? How can you avoid hitting this striped ball, too?" but his responses were barely grunts. At least he was thoroughly ignoring Dawn as well.

I perked up when one of my favorite songs came on. Frustrated as I was becoming, it never took much to put me back in a good, high-energy mood, and music was one of the easiest buttons for me. So as David Bowie began piping through the speakers, I thought whatever, screw this game, and swayed and sang along.

"Eight ball, corner pocket," Theo said, pointing. With a resounding crack, he hit it right where he'd indicated, winning the game for Dawn. She shrieked and jumped up and down. "You did it, we won!" She grabbed his arm and leaned into him. "That was amazing," she purred, then shot a triumphant grin my way.

Jealousy flared through me, but I tamped it down. I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of seeing me upset, or give him the impression that I was crazy. So I just said, "Good game," with my best bright smile and tore myself away from the table to spend a little quality time with the jukebox.

Irish saw me coming and gave me a few free credits. The neon lights warmed my face as I tapped through the options. While the television above the bar was old, Bill had sprung for the fancy new touchscreen device, and I loved it more than anything. Almost any song I could dream up was on there. I browsed through more options than I could possibly listen to, figuring that the night was a bust - Dawn would entertain Theo, and it was looking like no one else would be coming by that evening.

I was happily bobbing along to a Buckcherry track and browsing the L.A. Guns options when I felt someone looming over my back.

"This one," Theo said, tapping Crazy Bitch.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. I blushed - Stop it! - and turned to face him. He was standing close, and I had to tilt my head back to see his face. "I thought you guys would play another round."

"Nope." He nodded at the screen behind me. "Pick a few more." I turned back, and he hovered even closer as he watched over my shoulder. I could smell the whiskey on his breath, the leather of his cut, hints of motor oil and aftershave. He leaned with a hand on the wall next to the jukebox screen, effectively trapping me there between him and the bar. Oh, boy. I'm in trouble. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.

I was curious to see if our music taste similarities extended to other genres. "Do you like Type O Negative?"

"Mmhmm. I saw them live once." His other hand brushed my hip and just rested there - a feather-light touch that could be suggesting nothing, or could be hinting at everything.

I turned to him again. "No way! I'm totally jealous. Was it mind-blowing?"

He smiled that half-grin that had made me so stupid the night before. "It was. Aren't you too young to be into them?"

All my charm, my flirting skills, my girly wiles abandoned me. My voice even dropped am octave as my whole act melted away. I bounced on my toes as I spoke. "Good music knows no age," I said. "When did you see them? They don’t let me play them in here, they shout until Irish skips it. Jerks don’t know the good stuff when they hear it. It’s like they’re afraid a little goth music will make them want to go home and dye their hair and dress crazy and worship Satan." What the fuck stop rambling dummy! But his grin only broadened as the words poured from my mouth. It made me tingle between my legs. I really wanted to kiss him.

I thought maybe he felt the same. He leaned in even closer as he spoke. "Well, hail Satan. How did you get into them?"

I started to tell him it was my father, but my throat caught. Don’t want to think about that. He must have caught the moment on my face because he looked back at the screen as he said, "Sorry. Pick another?"