A Is for Alpha Male (20 page)

Someone was going to have to tell her that when she made it that obvious it just looked stupid. A subtle sway was much more alluring.

I would know. I had been practicing it for years.

Plopping down in my seat, I couldn’t help but feel like I had been on this date for hours when it had really only been about thirty minutes.

I could only hope that Allison’s date was going better. If not, I was in for years of torture.

Bad Christmas presents.

Poisoned food.

The works.

Well, okay. Not
actually
poisoned. She wouldn’t put arsenic in it or anything. It would just be laced with things to make it taste bad. Like mushroom filled cupcakes. Or anchovy stuffed hamburgers. It was always camouflaged.

Frankly, her effort was pretty impressive. Many hours and much work went into making my food life hell when she was inflicting revenge.

“Do you think you know what you want?” Jason asked, breaking me out of my reverie. I realized quickly that to him, I had been staring at my menu, so the question made sense.

Eek. I had no idea what I wanted. I hadn’t even looked.

Forcing my brain to think faster than normal, I smiled, met his eyes, and lied, “I was thinking about just getting all appetizers instead of one big meal. Pick on a couple of different things.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” he said, matching my smile easily and reminding me why I was on this date in the first place.

He reached over and grabbed my hand, rubbing the back of it with his long, tan thumb, as he said, “Why don’t you pick out a couple of things, and I’ll do the same. We can share everything.”

When I actually did look at the menu, the choice was easy. “I’m totally down for some pulled pork sliders and queso dip.”

His white teeth made an appearance just before adding his selections to the mix. “Good. I’ll choose the Mexican Egg Rolls and Potato Skins.”

Thrumming the fingers of my free hand on the table, I nodded, and murmured my approval. “Solid choices, Zack.”

Oops. I hadn’t meant to call him Zack to his face anymore, but it just slipped out.

When he smiled a confused smile in return, I had confirmation that he had tuned me out last night when I was ranting and raving my way through a
Saved By the Bell
explanation.

It wasn’t all that surprising. After all, tuning me out was the route a lot of people took. Most people, in fact. But it
was
a little disappointing.

I needed someone to like my rants. To feed off of them even.

Like Danny.

Fuck me, stop it, Haley. Danny doesn’t like you!

Jesus, I really had never been this dense before.

I needed to focus on my date. The guy right in front of me who wanted in my pants, and wanted it pretty obviously if his always active stroking thumb was any indication.

After my personal pep talk, I did nothing but focus on Jason.

Laughing at his jokes. Even though they were kind of lame.

Giving him warm smiles and gentle touches in answer to all of his.

Talking openly and answering all of his questions.

Overall, really putting the effort in.

It was a good idea in theory, and it certainly made the date go better, but now it had started to get me into a little bit of trouble. I found myself in the backseat of his car, getting groped, like some kind of fucking overly hormonal teenager.

His tongue was in my mouth, and his hands were exploring any and every patch of skin he could find.

His lips were overeager, and every once in a while I would feel the bump of his teeth against mine. The blouse-y top had seemed like a good idea, but in reality it made getting his hand underneath my shirt just that much easier.

The location, altogether sloppy kisses, and far too firm grip he was using on my breasts all added up in the perfect equation. And the solution was “What the fuck? This isn’t supposed to happen after high school.”

Needless to say, he was
not
living up to the list, as nice of a guy as he may be. He was a good guy, but he was not for me.

I could feel his hand skating down my side, heading for the button on my shorts, and I knew I had to think fast.

Think, Haley, think.

I had to stop his hand’s forward motion, and I had to find a way to do it without sounding like a total bitch. Ole Zacky didn’t do anything wrong. He was just a man looking for the goods from a drive-through date (Drive-through being that I wasn’t staying in Denver). Therefore, I had to find a way to break the news as gently as possible. In other words, pretend the problem wasn’t with him but with something else entirely.

So really, the same thing everyone else did.

Shit, think, Haley. His fingers were fumbling around at the top of my shorts, and I knew they were trying to figure out the fastest way to give my button a new home on the opposite side of its hole.

My period!

Yes! That was perfect.

Though, if I was really on my period, I would never on my life be wearing white shorts. But Jason wouldn’t know that.

“Oh damn,” I said pulling away and trying to put as much distance between us as possible. He leaned forward again, so I went in for the kill. “It’s my special time of month. You know, the crimson wave?”

He shrunk back in horror, the crinkles around his eyes straining under the effort to keep his face semi-neutral. I found his struggle all kinds of amusing, actually having to keep talking in order to keep my smile under wraps. “Yeah, it’s terrible really. Little fucking minions in there hacking away with their teeny individual pick axes, tearing away the lining of my uterus piece by piece, basking in glory every time I let out a little cry of pain.”

Faced with the visual, even though it was
just
the visual, I still winced just a little. It was fun freaking him out, but God, that description of pain was the scary, absolute fucking truth.

I just didn’t happen to actually be in that pain at the present moment.

I know, it was a lie.
Me
.
Lying
. But desperate times call for desperate lies...er...measures. And nothing scares a man more than a woman’s period. Especially if said woman is a virtual stranger, an acquaintance, or someone with whom they plan to keep their sexual escapades brief.

Jason’s hands left me so fast that it was almost insulting, not only leaving my body but going up in a defensive position as if I was going to attack him.

Christ, I had my period, not a sexually transmitted disease.

If I hadn’t wanted him to stop touching me so badly, I might have thrown him attitude about it.

Under the current circumstances, I thought it was best to keep my mouth shut, let him drive me back to the hotel, make my way back up to the room, check to make sure Allison was still alive, and then try and convince her not to kill me by cutting out my heart with a spoon.

Or something even duller than a spoon. A napkin. Yeah, a fucking napkin. It would be hard, take an enormous amount of time, and be an unbelievable feat, but if it was possible to cut out my heart with it, my mom would probably do it.

That was how much malice her earlier glare conveyed.

And I knew she would carry through.

For good or bad, she always did.

WHEN I GOT back to the room, Allison was already asleep.

On the surface, it looked like a good thing. But it could really go either way.

I may not have had to face her wrath tonight, but I would surely meet it head on tomorrow. With such an early bed time, I had no doubts that her date went just as well (read: badly) as, if not worse than, mine, and that I would be feeling the backlash of that for as long as she could stand to keep it up.

Based on her past performance in stamina, her retaliation would last a long time.

Something to look forward to.

But now, I had to face the other barracuda.

Dan Fucking Smith.

I was pretty sure it even said “Fucking” on his birth certificate. What parents would do that to a baby, I wasn’t sure.

I considered not calling him, but only briefly. If I didn’t call, I knew he would worry, and if the shoe was on the other foot, meaning I was expecting a call from him and didn’t get it, I would be super pissed.

The night had not gone at all how I had imagined it. Somehow, I had gone on a subpar date and still ended up getting physical with the guy. It didn’t really make sense.

The truth was I hadn’t really wanted it to happen. I mean I hadn’t said no, but in no way had I intended for it to go that far. I think part of me was compensating for my earlier disposition, letting him go further than I would have otherwise. I was working so hard to be into a date that I wasn’t into, that I got in so deep I couldn’t get out without a little collateral damage.

And another part of me was trying to make it work to get over Danny.

Or maybe it was to
get back at
Danny.

As much as I hated to admit it, I was a little bitter about not having the opportunity to be with someone I liked. Someone who I felt more for in a few days than I had ever felt for a guy before.

So I tried to get a little revenge. I tried to build myself back up. Feel wanted.

I knew that using a guy’s opinion to build or maintain self-esteem was about the stupidest thing you could do, but sometimes actions don’t follow the guidance of knowledge.

Maybe that was me playing a little too fast and loose with my body, but I just couldn’t motivate myself to hold my virtue any closer to my chest. Or under my chastity belt, as it were.

I was twenty-seven and by no means a slut, though I wasn’t really sure where the cutoff was for that kind of distinction, but I
was
a woman and it’s nice to get a little action every once in a while if for no other reason than to keep in practice.

When I met
the
guy, I wanted my skills to be finely honed.

I would have gladly given the task to Danny, but things hadn’t worked out that way.

As unfortunate as that may have been.

Yeah, I wasn’t bitter about that at all.

Right.

But now that the date was over, and the proverbial dust had settled, I was undeniably nervous to tell Danny about it.

Doing my best to gloss over the unpleasantries, I talked fast and kept my voice low during all of the details I was less than keen for him to know.

“So we went to dinner at Reiver’s, which was cool because of the KA reference, conversation was mediocre but pretty slow.” Lowering my voice, talking really fast, and mumbling so that I had a chance of him failing to decode the hidden message, I continued, “Then we made out for a while and he may or may not have felt me up a little bit.” I raised the volume of my voice, perked it up to downright cheerful, and attempted to switch the focus to him. “So how was your night?”

“He touched you?” he questioned, his voice scary quiet and rough in my ear.

“Well, yeah. Just my boobs though. It was no big deal,” I answered, trying to play it off.

“
Just
your boobs?! Jesus, Hales. Don’t give it up so easily!”

“Are you calling me slutty, Danny?!” I asked, making sure to put all of the outrage I could manage into my voice. If he was busy defending himself, he would have less time to attack me.

“What?! God, no. I just meant...Jesus, fucking hell...” he paused for a couple of seconds, seeming to waver, maybe considering whether he really wanted to say it or not. It actually kind of seemed like he was trying to talk through a clenched jaw, but I couldn’t see him to confirm. Regardless, when he spoke again his voice was fortified with the mightiest of steel. “I meant that you deserve the fucking
best
guy the world has to offer. So give yourself a little more time to see if that’s a standard the guy meets. That’s all.”

“Oh.” Wow. That was really nice. “Thanks, Danny.” There was a moment of silence. An awkward silence, specifically. So, me being me, I broke it. “He fucking sucked by the way. Definitely didn’t know top from bottom or left from right if you catch my drift.”