Bad Boy Attraction

Chapter 2

“Jade, it’s your turn” Stan says, elbowing me.

I wake up from my trance, blinking a few times. I mutter a sorry, before going around the pool. I completely miss our balls and even make the white ball falling down the hole. My team boos me with a laugh.

I laugh with them, joining Chloe on the high chairs of our table, giving my pool cue to her another of friend, giving up for this round.

I steal a glance before sitting down to the table on the right corner, where I saw the stranger with the intense gaze. He is not there anymore. I look quickly in the bar but I cannot spot him.

“I’m bored,” Chloe complains with a yawn. I look at my phone, it is already one am., but I am not tired. I want to have fun.

“Want another drink?” I offer. I know, the worst thing I could have offered her at this moment, seeing her in the state she is.

She lazily nods, and I go toward the bar. There are less people at the bar, and I manage to reach it directly. All the barmen are still busy, but I wait patiently for my turn. I look at my phone, seeing a few texts from my friends back home asking me how is this first night I was dreading a bit.

“Hey,” a manly voice says next to me. I look up from my phone to see my stranger, a smile on the lips.

“Hey,” I answer simply.

“Pretty bad play just now,” he continues with a smirk, mentioning my poor play at the pool table.

“Not my finest moment, I agree,” I reply with a laugh.

“Mind if I buy a drink to forget this horrible roast you and your team are getting?” he says without really asking, making a sign to the barman for him to come. Before I could answer, he orders two glasses.

“Thank you” I mutter, not really comfortable with the fact that a stranger is buying me a drink.

He turns toward the room, leaning on the bar.

“New in town?” he asks.

I nod, while thanking the barman handing me my glass. I take a sip of the sweet cocktail.

“Yeah,” I repeat, since he stays silent.

“How do you like it here so far?”

“Not seen much to be honest, but it seems like a good place to live.”

“That’s because you haven’t seen much, love,” replies the stranger with a smirk, looking at me with amusement.

“Ah ah,” I reply, rolling my eyes, turning toward the room like him.

“I heard he became a police officer?” he asks pointing at Logan.

“Yeah,” I reply with a smile, looking at my newly made friend. I hear him chuckling, and I can see disdain in his face.

“Nothing changes here,” he explains. “His dad is the chief of the police, his brother is a police officer, and now he enters it as well. What a surprise,” he says with his smirk, taking another sip of his glass.

“What’s so bad about it?” I ask him, not understanding his point.

He turns to me, his attention fully on me and I feel shrieking under his intense gaze. “Nothing never changes here. People never change. If you are from a police officer’s family, you’ll be a police officer. If your parents are doctors, you’ll be a doctor. If your parents are nothing, you are nothing.”

“That’s not true,” I reply with a frown. “You can be whatever you want. Nothing defines you.”

“Easier said than done, if you have an label on yourself, it’s not easy to take it off.”

“Nothing is easy in life, but as long as you put your mind to it, nothing is impossible too.”

The stranger stares at me, no expression on his face. After a few seconds like this, he leans toward me.

“So if a guy who has always lived in the dark decides to get in the light, if he puts his mind to it, he can?”

“I see no reason he couldn’t” I reply, staring into his eyes, matching the intensity of his blue ones.

“I’m not sure society will like that,” he replies with a smirk, his eyes falling on my lips.

“It seems to me more like a them problem than his problem, no?”

He stops, and look at me with amusement before chuckling and getting back to his position on the bar. He takes another sip of his cocktail while I have a better look of him. He is handsome, even more than I first thought when I noticed at the pool table. He has this bad boy look, and I have no doubt it is not just for show.

“I am Jordan,” he introduces himself, making me realize that we haven’t even exchange name yet.

“Jade,” I reply.

“Beautiful,” he says simply, making me wonder what he meant.

“Thanks,” I mutter, assuming he means my name. I take another sip of my cocktail, feeling the alcohol making its way in my head. I already know that tomorrow will not be fun at all.

“Where’d you move, love? This town can have quite different faces depending on where you go.”

“Jane’s street,” I reply automatically, starting to play with the umbrella from my drink.

“The new building?” asks Jordan. “I heard they have built a new one but thought it was still under construction.”

“No it’s not done yet, I moved into the building over the jewellery. It is nice cause it gets quiet pretty early. I think they close at 4pm.”

I look up at him, he doesn’t look at me and look at the crowd in front of us, a smile on the lips.

“Why did you move?” he continues.

“For work,” I reply simply, putting a hand in front of my mouth, yawning. The excitement from the alcohol had let place to tiredness.

I freeze when I feel a hand close to my face, and his finger brushing a tear from my face, from most probably my latest yawn.

“And you like it?” he asks, looking attentively at me.

I look at him puzzled, not feeling awake and myself enough to think of the meaning of his words.

“Your new job, you like it?” he repeats, explaining what he meant to ask.

“Yeah, I mean it’s only been two weeks but yeah, it’s nice.”

“What’d you do?” he continues.

“Paralegal in Sheriton’s law firm,” I answer.

“The one on Liberty’s street?”

“Yeah, you know it?”

“By name only, never been inside though.”

“Good,” I reply with a smile. “That means that you had never needed a layer.”

“Yeah,” he replies with a chuckle, “you can say that.”

“What about you?”

He takes a big inspiration, like he was looking for his words. “I don’t really have a stable job, more like missions given to me.”

“Like an interim job?” I ask him, genuinely curious.

He looks at me with amusement, “yeah, like interim jobs.”

I see that he was about to say something else before stopping himself and turning toward the bar. I was about to ask him but I feel a hand on my arm.

“Jade,” Chloe says childishly. “I need to pee but there isn’t any toilet paper left, and I can’t pee without toilet paper,” she tells me. I want to laugh but I try very hard to keep my calm. “Do you have any tissue?”

I put down my phone on the counter that I was still holding to look in my purse. I find a pack of tissue and hands it to her. She thanks me with a kiss on the cheek before leaving from where she came from.

“Here, love,” Logan says handing me my phone before I forget it on the counter.

“Thanks,” I reply with a smile, taking back my phone to put it in my purse.

I look back at him but he isn’t looking at me. He looks at something, or someone, behind me, I’m guessing next to the door. Before I can have the chance to turn to follow his gaze, his eyes go back on me, with a gentle smile.

“I’ve got to go, but I’m hoping to see you soon.”

I see him telling something to the barman, and pointing at me with a smirk, but I don’t understand what he said. Before I could say anything, he takes my drink from my hand to put it on the counter, and give me a kiss on the forehead.

“Be careful, love. I’ll see you around,” he says with a wink, before leaving the bar. I watch his silhouette disappear from view, while trying to catch my glass without looking.

An unfamiliar glass shape comes in my hand, and I look with surprise that my cocktail has been replace with another drink.

“It’s water for you now,” explains the barman with a grin.