Welcome to Sugartown (5 page)

“
Hey, Ana
Belle. How you doin’ today?”

“
What’s up
Cade? We haven’t seen you here for a couple of days—” Her eyes
widen, and she tugs her bottom lip in tight with her teeth. “You
just called me Ana Belle, didn’t you?”

“
Jigs up,
baby girl.”

From the
counter I can see Holly chortling, though she’s such a tiny thing
it sounds more like a cat sneezing. Ana chuckles too, like having
me on is the funniest damn thing in the world. “You know I spent
the last two weeks screaming at your dad and parading myself around
half-naked in front of him because I was worried he’d fire me if I
didn’t. Now I think he might fire me because I was dumb enough to
listen to you two little girls.”

Ana frowns
like she’s honestly offended by that and by the way Holly guffaws
and throws herself over the counter, I’m convinced she’s off her
rocker and may need to be sedated before she starts throwing pies
at the customers. “We’re hardly little girls.”

“
No? What
would you call yourselves then? Grown women?”

“
Yes.” She
says indignantly. I know she’s anything
but
little, still I can’t
resist.

“
Prove
it.”

Shut the fuck
up, you dickhead
,
Bob is going to have your arse for this,
I think
.
My
mouth opens anyway and my Johnson dances a fucking jig inside my
pants. “Go out with me tonight.”

“
What?”

“
You heard
me.”

“
I’m not
going out with you.”

“
Why
not?”

“
Because
you’d more than likely leave me by the side of the road to get back
at me.”

“
You could
always drive.”

“
You’d ride
with me on my scooter?” She sounds doubtful.

“
Sure.” I’m
sure the look I give her says it’s not my favourite idea, but the
smile that breaks out across her lips is so fucking spectacular I’d
consider riding on the back of her scooter every day of my life
just to see that flash of pretty white teeth.

“
I don’t know
if you’ve noticed, but this is Sugartown. There’s not exactly an
abundance of places to go.”

“
There’s a
pub isn’t there?”

“
Well, yeah,
but—”

“
There a pool
table?” She nods, and I feel myself smile so wide I know my dimples
are coming out. “You play?”

Her cheeks
turn the prettiest shade of pink. I have to fight the urge the grab
her face with my hands and force her lips to mine.

“
Not for a
long time.” She holds my stare for what feels like forever, and
there’s something calculating behind her eyes, but then she looks
away. “Listen, I can’t go out with you tonight, I have to babysit
Sammy.”

“
I thought he
was staying at what’s-his-name’s house tonight?” Holly pipes up
from behind the counter. Clearly, pretending she’s not listening to
our conversation is something she’s not fazed with.

“
Holly!” Ana
shoots her a look, it’s one I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving
end of, but Holly just shrugs her shoulders and stares defiantly.
Her friend may be as freaking crazy as a monkey on meth, but I
think I’m beginning to like her.

“
What? It’s
true.”

“
Well, it may
be true, but you know what he’s like at a sleepover. He’s there ten
minutes before he’s begging an adult to drive him home.”

“
Couldn’t you
just go until you get a call to come pick him up?”

“
Come on, Ana
Belle, it’s the least you could do after humiliating me in front of
your dad for the past two weeks.”

“
Hey, you
brought that on yourself.”

“
How
so?”

“
You came
strutting in here all cocky, with your dimples and your tattoos and
your big brown eyes and expected us to swoon.”

“
Baby girl,
if that’s all it takes to make you swoon then you just wait ‘til
you see what I do with my hands.”

Ana swallows
hard and becomes a little misty eyed before her face shuts down
into the scowl she often wears around me. “I don’t think
so.”

She turns to
walk away and I lurch forward and grab her wrist. “Come on, Ana.
I’ll be on my best behaviour.”

“
That’s not
saying much, Elijah.”

“
Do you judge
every guy this unfairly, or just me?”

She turns
with a cocky grin, but when she sees I’m deadly serious, the smile
fades. I don’t mean to be such a dick, but I’ve lived most my life
living up to the bad expectations others place on me and I won’t
have that with her. I can’t have her thinking of me that way, even
if it’s all I deserve.

“
I’m sorry.
You must think I’m a complete bitch?”

“
Well, not
a
complete
bitch,
maybe 99.9 per cent of one—”

“
Hey.” She
swats at my arm and, like a complete tool, I flex my bicep beneath
her fingers. It wasn’t even deliberate, just instinct. For a half
second I imagine what it’d be like to give into the urge to bend
her over the table and fuck her senseless, but then the way she
smiles at me makes me feel like a complete arsehole for
objectifying her so blatantly. This should tell me I’m in over my
head with this girl.

I’m not the
guy who stays in one place long enough to have a second date. When
they’re seeing proposals and picket fences I’m checking out of
shitty motels and watching road signs turn to dust in my rear-view
mirrors. I’m practically married to that white line.

So why the
hell can’t I walk away?

“
You can make
it up to me by letting me pick you up at eight o’clock,” I
say.

She shakes
her head, but her smile tells me I’ve won. “I thought you said I
could drive?”

“
You can,” I
say and tuck into my pie. “You can drive my bike. As long as you
can handle the pace, that is. I have to warn you, though; the
steering’s a little different from a Vespa.”

“
I can drive
anything.”

“
Somehow I
don’t doubt that, Ana Belle. I don’t doubt that at all.”

Chapter Five

Ana

Holly bounces
up and down on my bed and I have to count backwards from
one-hundred so I don’t choke her. I can’t believe she screwed me
over so thoroughly. I tell her as much, and she pokes her tongue
out at me in her typical response to being reprimanded.

“
Come on,
Ana, would it really kill you to go out with Mr I’m So Freaking Hot
Even My Mother Would Sell Her Soul to Get a Piece Of This? Would it
kill you to have a little fun for once?”

I wrinkle my
nose. “You have some serious issues. That’s gross.”

“
Gross, but
true. Ana, he’s gorgeous and you
need
this.”

“
I do
not
need
a date
with Elijah Cade.”

“
Okay fine,
you know what? I need a date with Elijah. Take off that outfit, I’m
gonna trade places with you.” She grabs at my top and tries to lift
it over my head but I bat her away.

“
Elijah’s my
date, and I’m not having you steal him away like you did with Matt
Roberts at Vanessa Carter’s party in year nine.”

Holly rolls
her eyes. “Are you ever going to get over that? I told you, I was
standing in the hall and he just happened to fall onto my lips. It
wasn’t my fault that the place was so crowded you could barely
breathe without making out with someone. And I thought you said
this wasn’t a date.”

“
It’s not. I
mean, it is, but it’s not. I don’t know. He makes me all
twitchy.”

“
Aww, you
really like him.”

It’s my turn
to roll my eyes. “He’s all kinds of wrong for me,
Holly.”

“
Who cares?
No one’s asking you to marry him.”

“
He’s
trouble. Exactly the kind of guy I should avoid.” I sigh. She’s
looking at me like I just strung up her kitten as a Christmas
ornament. “You know what this town is like. Within five minutes of
walking into that pub tongues will be wagging and Sugartown will be
rife with gossip. You know how antsy my dad gets with talk like
that? The next time Constable Davis sees him throwing down, he’ll
be locked up for weeks.”

“
Ana, this is
exactly why you need a distraction like Elijah. Between Sam, your
dad, the dragon and the shop you have too much stress in your life.
If you don’t blow off a little tension, you’re gonna explode! And I
am not cleaning up chunks of Ana from the shop floor.”

“
And you
don’t think a date with Elijah’s just going to add to the
stress?”

“
Not with
those hands, he’s not. I wonder what kind of orgasm face he makes?”
she asks and performs some kind of facial gymnastics. Either that,
or she’s having a stroke. I’m kicking myself that my phone is in
the other room, because moments like this should be documented for
all time. “Ooh, oh, take a picture of it for me, will
you?”

“
You are
sick. You know that, right?”

“
Yep.” She
leaps off the bed and scoops up a black top that I’d been
considering. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a hot date with
Zac Effron. He is so freaking hot post
High School Musical
. I wonder what
kind of face Zac makes? Wear the white top, not the yellow, it
makes your boobs look bigger and don’t forget to take pictures. I
wanna see how far down those tattoos go.”

After she
leaves I apply a little make-up and consider pinning up my hair,
but then I think about dealing with the helmet hair that’s bound to
have me fussing all night and I decide to tie it in a loose knot at
the back of my head until we pull up at the pub.

When I’m
done, I hear Elijah’s bike on the gravel drive outside. I tear
through the house, scooping up an over the shoulder bag and my
helmet from the kitchen table.

I open the
door and Elijah’s standing before me with his hand raised to knock.
He gives me a startled smile. “Hi.”

“
Hi,” I
reply.

I start to
pull the door shut behind me and he looks over my shoulder, “Your
dad home?”

“
No. He and
the dragon left already.”

“
Okay. You
ready?”

“
Yeah. Let’s
go.” I breeze past him.

I knew my
entrance with Elijah would cause a stir. Walking into the only pub
in town with the newest resident sexy biker after you’ve been
labelled the town whore is bound to make waves. The stares and
silence that ensued were deafening. And thank god my dad was down
at the river or Constable Davis would be making good on his
threat.

“
We shouldn’t
have come here,” I whisper to Elijah as he takes my hand in his and
leads me to the privacy of the pool room—and, by privacy, I mean
not-at-all-private, as there are at least two walls that open out
to the main bar.

“
No one’s
looking at you, Ana, they’re looking at me and I’m used to it. If
I’m not worried, then you shouldn’t be either.” He takes out his
wallet from his back pocket and lines four coins up along one end
of the pool table, securing it as ours for the next good long
while. “You know how to rack ’em?”

I nod and
bite down on my lip to avoid the smile that wants to spring forth.
If there’s one thing my dad taught me to do, it’s play pool. I’ve
been hustling money off of his friends, men three times my age,
since I was ten-years-old.

“
Yeah, I
think I’ve got it,” I mutter to Elijah as I take the cues down from
the wall and set about racking up the balls.

“
What’s your
poison, Ana?” The huskiness in his tone forces my gaze to lock onto
his and heat to spread over my cheeks and between my thighs. And,
as he stands there, challenging me with those melty eyes, I’m quite
sure he already knows the answer to that question.

Instead of
making a complete fool out of myself I smile sweetly and say,
“Vodka, lime and soda.”