The Truth About Bad Boys

The Velvet Room, Part Two

Gray’s POV

How is she so good at pool?

How is she so good at everything?

I’m practically drooling by the time she leads me over to the bar with her. I mean, where do I even start? The tight, little black dress that makes me realize she has an even more ridiculously sexy body than I initially thought? The messy, half-up-half-down bun she’s rocking that makes her look effortlessly cool? The line of black eyeliner above her gorgeous, green eyes that makes them even brighter?

“Hey, babe,” the bartender says to her when we reach the bar. “Another Plane?”

I shoot him my best scowl as I take in his appearance. He’s probably in his mid-twenties, if I had to guess, with a thick beard and a greasy, flannel shirt. Hipster if I’ve ever seen one. Where does he get off, calling her “babe?” And should I be worried?

“Yes, please,” she says to the bartender as she tosses back the rest of her drink at in one, impressive swig. “Luke, this is Gray. Gray, Luke.”

I nod at the bartender, who shoots me the same scowl I was just shooting at him. If he isn’t sleeping with her, he certainly wants to be. “Right,” he says shortly, and nods to my Old Fashioned. “Still working on that?”

I toss back the rest of my own drink—not exactly easy with an Old Fashioned—before slamming—okay, placing with a bit of force—the glass down in front of him. “I’ll take another.”

He snatches the glass from the counter, then turns toward the back of the bar to make our drinks.

“Somebody likes you,” I tease under my breath as I turn to look at her. “Not that I blame him.”

She waves a hand. “That’s just how he is. Likes girls better than boys.”

I doubt it, but I appreciate her humbleness. “You come here a lot?”

“A decent amount. As you correctly deduced in your article about me, I don’t have much cash to spend on bars, so the free drinks help.”

I had more or less surmised it, but I’m no less curious about her circumstances—not to mention the “tragedy” that brought her, Tally, and Bridget together. How many questions is too many for a not-really-even-first-date? “Can I ask why you moved here from Brooklyn?”

Luke hands us our drinks at that and, to my surprise, she leads me to a different table—out of earshot of the bartender, but also not with her friends.

Not that I’m remotely complaining. I’d much rather be alone with her.

“We’ll get back to them in a minute,” she says when she sees my expression, and takes a sip of her drink. (I don’t know what a Plane is, but I like the orange color of it. I’ll have to order one of those next, if we keep up the drinking.) “We moved here for the schools.”

“Like… for Alexandria?”

“Sort of. My grandparents left a special fund for me to go to an all-girls school so I wouldn’t get knocked up out of wedlock like my mom, so finding one of those was a part of it.”

Knocked up out of wedlock? “Single mom?”

“Actually, no. They got married after the fact. It’s kind of a whole story.”

I wouldn’t mind hearing it, but I get the sense she’s not quite ready to share it yet. “Okay. What’s the other part of why you moved here?”

“Oh. My brother’s school.”

I raise an eyebrow at that. She has a brother? There’s no shortage of schools here in Granger, Connecticut, but Seacoast and Lancaster are certainly the two “nicest” ones. “What school is that?”

She holds my gaze for a moment, as if considering telling me something she’s not quite ready to tell me. I stare back at her, utterly lost in the devastating beauty of her green eyes—did I really just think that absurd sentence?—as I silently beg her to trust me.

“You wouldn’t know it,” she says shortly, and she rises to her feet. “Let’s get back to the game.”

- - - - -

I’m decent at pool, but she’s way better; within twenty minutes, she’s demolished me.

“Don’t worry, Gray,” Bridget teases as she pats me on the back. “You’re still better than me.”

I laugh, but I stop laughing when I spot Memphis slinking off to the bar again. Am I an immature little boy for being offended she didn’t invite me?

“So,” says Tally, sliding in next to me at the high top. “You like her.”

I glance at Kai, who looks amused, then back to Tally. “And I thought I was doing such a good job of hiding it.”

Tally doesn’t laugh, which tells me that she’s going somewhere serious with this.

“Mem isn’t like other girls,” she says carefully.

“I know. That’s why I like her.”

“It’s not just how great she is,” says Bridget, seeming to materialize out of nowhere and take the seat on the other side of me. “She’s… sensitive, too. And… complicated.”

Right. The talk.

I can’t even be mad about it. It’s like I said before—knowing that she’s been through something f****d up involving Lancaster boys, I’m honestly glad to see that she’s got friends looking out for her. If it means having to deal with a little friend-barrier, so be it.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” I promise them. “I’m not here to take advantage of your friend. I just like her, and I want to get to know her better.”

Bridget and Tally exchange a glance at that, and I can tell from their expressions that, at least for now, my answer has satisfied them.

- - - - -

“I feel the need to remind you, not for the first time, that it’s a Sunday night.”

It’s just the two of us again, at our little high top in a dark corner of the bar. We’re both on drink number three. I tried her drink this time, the Paper Plane, and while it’s a tad sweet for me, it’s damn tasty. It almost tastes like how she looks, if that even makes any sense at all.

“I thought you were a shameless rulebreaker,” she teases in response to my reminder. “A Monday hangover can’t be the worst thing you’ve displayed at Seacoast.”

“You’ve got me there,” I admit. “Also, I could just… not show up.”

She grins as she swirls her glass of bright, orange liquid. “That’s certainly my plan.”

I lean forward, seizing the opportunity. “We could always play hooky together.”

Fuck. I can tell from the panic in her eyes that she took it the wrong way—that playing hooky together in the morning, to her, implies spending the night together tonight. “I only meant—”

“What have you heard about me?” she interrupts sharply.

I blink, taken aback by her question. “What?”

“What have you heard about me?” she repeats. “At your school.”

Seacoast boys don’t talk about Alexandria girls because, like I said before, Alexandria girls prefer Lancaster boys. But what is she getting at? “Nothing. Why?”

Her expression softens slightly, but her guard is still up; I definitely struck a nerve. “I’m not going home with you tonight, Gray.”

“I know. I just meant we could play hooky together. Not like—”

“I get it,” she interrupts. “But I just want to be clear.”

I take a second to let that sink in—I just want to be clear. There aren’t many girls our age who say that kind of thing, and the reason she feels the need to say it breaks my heart. I already knew, on some level, what happened to her with a Lancaster boy. But the more tidbits she reveals to me, the more sure I am of it.

She was raped.

I reach carefully out to take her hand, then, thinking better of it, rest my hand just close enough to hers on the table that our pinkies touch. She flinches ever so slightly, but doesn’t move her hand.

“It’s not very manly of me to say this,” I tell her softly, “but I like you, Mem. I like your personality, I like your friends, I like your taste in music—minus the AFI—and, well, I really like looking at you, too. Just as an added bonus.”

She doesn’t laugh out loud, but she can’t quite hide the grin from her face. It’s just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

“I’m not trying to get into your pants,” I promise her. “I just want to get to know you better.”

Her grin fades ever so slightly, but the edges of it remain. “Thank you,” she finally says. Then, I kid you not, the grin returns as she asks, “You’re not even trying to get into my pants a little? You know… at some point?”

Oh, sweet Jesus, this girl is going to be the death of me.

“Believe me,” I say, leaning forward in my chair, “the desire is there.”

For a split second, I resolve to kiss her. The fear and pain in her eyes is gone; it’s been replaced with a fiery spiritedness that makes me confident in what she wants.

But just as quickly as I resolve to do it, I resolve not to. There’s no rush here; both she and her friends have now told me as much, and I knew it to begin with. I’m not looking to score in any capacity at this point; I’m just looking to build a foundation.

She must see the resolution in my eyes, because she stands up at that, kisses me on the cheek, and says, “See you around, Gray.”