Especially when she did things like walk over grates and have her skirt blow up where he could see her slim, milky legs.
“So Stella told me about the VA being up your ass,” Wyatt said, retrieving his flask.
“Yeah. I ditched out on a meeting with her tonight. I figured if she’s going to be taking her sweet time clearing this misunderstanding up, I can take my sweet time giving her answers.” Johnny wasn’t sure why he was having such a strong reaction to Lizette, but he suspected it had to do with the challenge she presented: so buttoned up, yet so feminine. That might explain the weird reason that he had dreamed about her all day while he had slept, and why he’d woken up with a giant erection and the vision of Lizette wearing librarian glasses while riding him like a mechanical bull dancing in front of his eyes.
It had made him edgy, and now he had every reason to believe this wedding reception was going to suck. At least the exchanging of the vows had been short and to the point, though he could have done without seeing Saxon crawl down the makeshift aisle.
“That may be slightly counterproductive, but I can understand your frustration.” Wyatt unscrewed his flask and eyeballed the punch. “Do you think whiskey would taste good in that shit?”
Johnny eyed it. “Is that sherbet floating in there? That stuff is gross. It’s like swallowing a lump of phlegm.”
“Saxon loves the stuff.”
“Saxon is a moron.” Johnny normally loved that quality about him. It made life with him around highly entertaining. But at the moment, he would have preferred an open bar with top-shelf liquor. Or even cheap liquor. “Can I just have a sip of that straight? Please? I’ll give you five bucks.”
“You don’t have five bucks. The VA froze your assets, remember?”
Like he could forget. “Thanks for reminding me.”
But Wyatt took pity on him and handed him the flask. He took a nip off it, glancing around the reception. It was an odd assortment of vampires and mortals, the bride a vision in white leather, her crop whizzing through the air at random intervals and smacking the wall, causing Saxon to giggle. Saxon himself looked like a middle-school girl at her first dance, wearing skinny jeans, Converse, and a tuxedo T-shirt, his long blond hair crimped.
He looked happy.
Zelda looked happy.
Cort and Katie looked happy.
Wyatt and Stella were happy.
Johnny was happy they were all so goddamn happy.
Yet he couldn’t help but feel less than happy for himself.
He was, for lack of a better word, lonely. Which wasn’t an emotion he ever really felt. He was a social guy, and he surrounded himself with people. Friends, women, his sister. He was the guy who sat in the bar talking to the bartender, bouncers, and shot girls for hours, long after his shift playing drums for the night was over. So it was very unusual for him to feel like this. Maybe it was just all this coupling up and settling down that was going on around him. At least he still had Drake as his token single friend. They would have to start hanging out more while everyone else was at home getting laid.
Huh. That was not the least bit reassuring of a thought. Sex with a hot woman or trolling around with Drake. He would have run for the street and married the first woman in sight if those were really the only options, but unfortunately, marriage was a long time, and Johnny had generally found himself allergic to commitment. Which didn’t really make sense, because it wasn’t like he craved change. He hadn’t moved in five years, had lived in New Orleans for thirty, still enjoyed his sister’s company, and wore a pair of jeans he liked until they disintegrated. Even all his one-night stands over the years had turned into friends-with-benefits relationships. He’d never once had a true, never-see-her-again hookup.
So why had he always been so reluctant to commit? He had no idea. He had faked his own death to avoid a more serious turn in his relationship with Bambi. He’d never even lived with a girlfriend. The very idea seemed really . . . intimate.
“What’s it like living with Stella?” he asked Wyatt. It had only been two weeks since his sister had moved in with the bass player, and he was curious if they were still in love, or if toothpaste disputes had already killed the burn of passion.
But Wyatt grinned, his smile so wide and goofy, he rivaled Saxon for a split second. “Dude, it’s amazing. Everywhere I look, she’s there, either literally, or just there in the sense that her stuff is, and her personal touch on my apartment.”
Oh my God. That sounded like hell on earth. Johnny couldn’t imagine looking in every direction and seeing the same woman over and over. It would be like watching The Notebook every day for a millennium. “Can I have that flask again?”