Page 18 of Cognac Secrets
Grateful, because Mia meant just that much to me. Frustrated because I didn’t want to be treated differently. It felt… odd. Like I was out of place. Like enough time had honestly passed that Ishouldbe taking a ribbing – but none came – even from the most irreverent of assholes within the club.
It made me seriously wonder just how much of a fuckin’ mess I’d been Saturday night.
I swiped a hand over my face and thought about Sandrine. It was a beautifully haunting name for a beautiful, haunted girl.
I could see the deep-rooted darkness behind those glittering emerald eyes, and her words stuck with me still, about hurting and not wishing to be that hurt for someone else.
I was pretty sure, in this day and age, where petty was the rallying cry and just about everyone did their best to climb over someone else and the smallest slight led to lifelong beef and internet smackdowns and you name it – that right there made her some type of saint.
It also made me wonder what her story was.
Like, it had burrowed under my skin and caused an itch I couldn’t scratch but drove me crazy.
She’d gone way out of her way to comfort me, a man she didn’t know, putting herself at who knows what kind of risk, just so I didn’t have to be alone in my drunk-as-fuck state of mourning. She’d been a light in the dark and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen the light… shit… even when I had been with Mia, it had barely been a glimmer with all the shit going down around us sometimes.
But Sandrine… Sandrine had swung my way and that light of hers had blinded me. I was a plant left too fucking long in the dark and I just soaked in that fucking sunshine and craved more.
It was a borderline obsession, but with a healthy dose of respect.
If I hadn’t heard from her again, I wouldn’t have sought her out – at least I don’t think it would have gotten that far. I would and could and did admit to myself, though, I would have looked for her in passing. Everywhere I went in this city, I would have scanned faces and hoped for that layered high ponytail of dark hair and those flashing emerald-green eyes to meet mine in a crowd. I would have wished for that dazzling smile, perfectly imperfect, with its slight gap between her front top teeth and the one slightly crooked one higher than the rest in the bottom row.
She had good teeth, not dazzling white, but naturally just good – no brown or rot to them, at least in the front. She took care of herself, didn’t drink much, definitely wasn’t on drugs… seemed smart, so I couldn’t get it out of my headwhyshe’d taken such a fucking risk? I mean, I didn’t blame her for dancing with me. I knew I was a good dancer when I decided to cut loose, but why had stayed with me? Taking me home with Saint was already above and beyond… but staying, not to get laid or anything like that, just staying… it boggled my mind.
It bothered me, not that I wasn’t grateful for the kindness – I was – it just bothered mefor her. What other dangerous risks did she take? Did I even want to know?
Then the real question lingered…why did I fucking care so much?
That was the real question. WhydidI care?
I didn’t know, but it was almost this primal impulse, this caveman drive that was encoded into my DNA. Something about Sandrine had flipped my switch. Maybe it was scientific – like pheromones or something – but I was interested. Definitely interested, you know, in that way… but…
But I didn’t know if I had it in me to be anything for her but that. You know, a good lay, fuck buddies, whatever you wanted to call it.
I didn’t let people, and by people, I really meant women, in that way anymore.
Shit, listen to me. Putting the cart before the horse, wasn’t I?
I sighed and scooted my chair in and tried to focus back on my work.
It was hard for once, the numbers swimming and suddenly making no real sense to me, because all I kept thinking about were those glittering green eyes and how when she didn’t think I was looking or paying attention, how solemn they became.
She put on a good show, for sure, but to anyone really looking, she wasn’t as good at it as she thought she was. Certainly not up against me, who was trained to spot these little differences and nuances.
“Fuck,” I muttered when I looked at the clock and realized instead of hours passing, it’d barely been fifteen minutes.
I couldn’t wait to get out of here, to see her, and see what layers to her personality I would be able to peel back. I was dead set on learning more…
Hex’s truck was half up on the curb out front ofMystic’s Dreamwhen I pulled up. It took me a while to find a parking spot I could squeeze the bike into, but eventually I found a space big enough between two cars that I could back it against the curb.
I heaved a sigh, not really sure I was ready for this and not knowing why. It feltbig, you know? Bigger than it should have, and I couldn’t even begin to say why.
I walked up the block to the storefront and was met just inside the door with the spectacle of Hex and Louie taking measurements of an admittedly beautiful life-size bronze statue of some goddess holding a big, deep, shallow bowl in her hands.
I gave a low whistle. “Now I see why you needed help. I didn’t expect this big bitch.”
Sandrine made a happy noise from where she leaned on the shop’s little counter and an older woman with graying red hair said, “So, this is him? You didn’t say he was handsome.”
“Stahhhp!” Sandy said laughing. “I did, too!”
