Chapter Five
Out the entire evening, the highlight for me was sitting in a tux at B&D’s, stuffing my face with a burger and fries, with a beautiful girl across from me. Once we devoured our food and had gotten enough odd looks from the other patrons because of our formal wear, we headed back to Allison’s place. I stopped off and picked up a six-pack on the way.
After I parked the car, I turned to Allison who hadn’t made a move to get out yet. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m a little scared to go inside.”
Twisting in my seat to see her better, I asked, “What do you mean?”
She giggled. “I have a feeling that Cassie and her date might be banging on the couch. They were already making out on my bed earlier tonight.”
“Damn,” I muttered, trying to rid myself of any thoughts of Cassie having sex.
After Allison got out of the car, she glanced up at the clear sky filled with stars. “It’s such a pretty night. Why don’t we have our drinks out on the veranda?”
“Sounds good to me, Scarlett,” I teased.
“Oh, shut up. Like you don’t have a veranda yourself,” she said, as we started around the side of the house.
“Why of course we have a veranda. I just like to be uncouth and call it a back porch.”
Allison laughed, causing my chest to have an odd clenching feeling. I’m not sure why I cared so much that she found me amusing. But more than hearing her laugh, I loved making her laugh. “What is it about being in Savannah that makes me want to talk and act like a proper Southerner?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. But the city certainly has some kind of pull on you,” I replied, as I uncapped a beer and handed it to her.
“Think it’s the voodoo?”
I snorted. “Could be.” I then raised my beer up to the full moon. “Here’s to all the voodoo and hoodoo that makes Savannah what it is.”
Thrusting up her longneck, Allison said, “To the hoodoo and voodoo.” Then she took a long swig of the beer.
I sat the six-pack on the table, and then we eased down onto the porch swing. For a while we sat in silence, merely listening to the heave and sigh of the swing. Turning my head, I eyed her profile in the moonlight. “You know, I just keep learning more and more about you, Allie-Bean.”
“And precisely what did you learn about me tonight?”
I swallowed a large gulp of beer. Then I grinned at her. “First of all, you become a tough little cookie when provoked.”
Allison threw back her shoulders and huffed out a breath. “She was a bitch. No, actually, she was a cunt,” she replied.
Beer spewed out of my mouth onto the tiled floor. “Holy shit, did you just say cunt?”
Giggling, she ducked her head. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Okay, chalk that up as something else I’ve learned tonight. You can have a real potty mouth when you want to.”
She smirked at me. “Like I didn’t learn it from my big brother?”
“Well, that’s probably true,” I conceded.
“So what else did you learn about me?” Allison prompted.
“Well, besides the fact you can go from genteel to raging bitch in a few seconds, I found out that you can handle your own in a tough social situation like that. And you certainly know how to dress to impress.”
“Thank you,” she murmured softly.
“Most of all, I’ve learned you are a woman of many complexities, and it’s very intriguing.”
Her mouth made a perfect little “O” at my declaration. Everything I said was the truth. In the last thirty-six hours, I truly had come to see Allison in an entirely different light. It was hard imagining that I’d known her seven years and not realized it at all. Not only was she a woman now, but she was a very interesting one. I wasn’t even sure Jake was aware of all the many facets that made up her character.
“You’ve learned so much about me, but I’m still missing some things on you,” she said.
“I’m sure all you would have to do is Google me, and a lot of shit would come up.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want impersonal information like that about you. I want it straight from the horse’s mouth.”
“Fine. I have nothing to hide, so fire away.” I cocked my brows at her. “But be forewarned that turnabout is fair play.”
“I don’t mind.”
“So shoot.”
Tilting her head, Allison asked, “How old were you when you lost your virginity?”
The audacious question, coupled with her interested expression, caused me to spew out the sip of beer I’d just taken. Swiping my hand across my mouth, I said, “Damn. Going straight for the jugular on that one, aren’t you?”
She giggled. “Would you rather me have asked the last time you cried?”
I shook my head furiously. I wasn’t one of those emotionally stunted men who thought it was weak to cry. It was more the fact that I didn’t want to have to acknowledge that it had been three days ago after I saw my sister. I wasn’t ready to go there with her yet.
“So answer the question,” she pressed.
“Actually, I was a late bloomer. I was nineteen.”
Her brows rose in surprise. “Seriously?”
I laughed. “You sound so shocked.”
With a shrug, she said, “I just imagined you being young. Like fifteen.”
“I was finishing up high school at fifteen. Trust me, for most of my teenage years, I wore glasses, had acne, and weighed one thirty soaking wet.” I shook my head as I was assaulted by a barrage of painful teenage memories of being bullied and being made fun of. It was just another reason that I hated living in the past—it was too f*cking painful.
Trying to lighten the dark mood pervading me, I motioned to myself. “I was not always the stud you see before you today,” I teased.
My efforts were rewarded by a laugh from Allison. “I find that hard to believe.”
I couldn’t help shuddering. “Oh trust me, there’s photographic and video evidence.”
She shook her head. “Nope, I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine a time when you weren’t a hottie.”
“As f*cking misguided as you are, I gotta say thanks for the compliment.”
With a grin, she took another sip of her beer. “So who was she?”
Shifting in my chair, I couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable with her questioning. I mean, where the hell was she going with this? And now because she had brought it up, I couldn’t help wanting to know the same shit about her…or did I?
“You want me to elaborate about losing my virginity?”
“Of course. After all, elaboration is the key element of Southern storytelling, and we are in the most Southern city in the South.”
“True, very true.” I took a long pull from my longneck. For reasons I couldn’t even fathom, I felt the need to defend myself to Allison. “The thing is, I had gotten some action, but I still hadn’t sealed the deal, so to speak.”
“Lovely,” Allison said, wrinkling her nose.
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted me to elaborate.”
She laughed. “You’re right. Please continue.”
“By the time I’d turned nineteen, things finally were looking up for me. I’d just met Jake and the other guys, and we were starting to play at Eastman’s. After being sick, I got put on steroids and started beefing up. I got Lasik surgery, and my mother actually gave me a year’s supply of chemical peels for my acne as a birthday present.”
“But you digress,” Allison said, with a grin.
“I’m trying to save face here about why I was so old when I lost my virginity.”
“Pray continue.”
I laughed. “Anyway, her name was Melanie. She was in some of my law classes at Emory. Since I was feeling more confident, I got up the nerve to ask her out. Thankfully, she said yes, and we started dating.”
Surprise filled Allison’s face. “Oh, so you have been in a relationship.”
“A few, yeah. None really lasted a long time. I did have my heart broken when I was twenty-one.”
“Interesting. And where was the deed done?”
With a wink, I replied, “In a pretty posh suite at the Ritz in Atlanta.”
Her eyes bulged. “Really?”
“Hey, give me some credit here. I’m not the type of guy to lose it in the backseat of a car.”
She giggled. “No, I can’t see you doing that.” Leaning her elbows on the table, she added with a teasing lilt to her voice, “Of course, you had to pick somewhere high-end. Couldn’t lose the V-Card at the Holiday Inn, could you?”
“Hey now. I can’t help how I was raised, even if I try to escape it as often as I can.”
“So we know you had a posh first experience. But what about the relationship itself? How long did it last between the two of you?”
Tilting my head, I delved into my past. “Six months. She was a few years older than me.” At Allison’s continued questioning expression, I said, “She wanted more—a whole lot more than I was ready or willing to give at nineteen.”
“I see,” she murmured.
“And what about you?” When her usual red flush tinged Allison’s cheeks, I shook my head. “Oh no, don’t think you’re getting out of this one.”
“I’m not,” she huffed.
“Then spill it.”
“Fine,” she muttered. I turned a laugh into a cough when she squared her shoulders determinedly while downing the rest of her beer. “I was seventeen.”
“Man, you beat me by two years, huh?”
“Sex is never a competition.”
“Sometimes it is to see who will finish first,” I mused, which caused her to blush. “Anyway, please continue with the sordid details.”
“Like you, I was in a relationship. Dylan and I started dating when I was sixteen.”
Holding up my hand, I asked, “Just how old was he?”
“Eighteen.”
“Older man, huh?”
With a slight shrug, she replied, “I was a junior, and he was a senior.”
“Cradle robber,” I teased.
“I would hardly call that age difference cradle robbing.”
“Was he like the typical older guy who dated younger girls to get one thing?”
“Not exactly. I mean, our six month anniversary fell right after my seventeenth birthday, and he hadn’t really been pressuring me or demanding anything of me.”
“So where did you do the deed?”
A shy smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “Jake’s farm.”
Her declaration caused me to bolt upright in my chair. “Excuse me?”
“You guys were out on tour, and no one was there. It was the perfect place where we could be alone. I told my mom I was spending the weekend with my best friend, Kim. We didn’t go in the house—we stayed in the loft.”
I shook my head in disbelief at her. “Jake would blow a f*cking gasket if he knew you lost your virginity in his loft.”
Allison merely rolled her eyes at my declaration. “Like he hadn’t defiled that place in a million different ways before Abby came along.”
“Actually, he never brought chicks to the farm. I’m pretty sure the only woman he’s ever had sex there with is Abby.”
“Really?” Allison asked, her brows rising in surprise.
“It’s the truth. I’d tell you to ask him, but that would be totally inappropriate.”
She giggled. “I agree.”
We sat in silence for a few moments. After I popped the tops on another beer for the two of us, my curiosity got the better of me. I detoured to a questioning path I had no f*cking business going down. “Besides this Dylan, has there been a lot of other guys?”
Allison cocked her brows at me. “Are you actually asking me for my number?”
Grimacing, I guzzled down half the beer I’d just opened. After I swallowed, I shook my head. “Sorry. That was wrong of me.”
As her fingers played with the label on the beer bottle, Allison stared straight ahead. Finally, she murmured, “Three.”
“Excuse me?”
Her gaze flicked to mine, and she gave me a mischievous smile. “My number is three.”
I sucked in a breath like I’d been sucker punched in the gut. I wasn’t sure why her number mattered to me. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or slightly shocked. Not that in the vast scheme of things, three was that big a number. I knew Jake would be horrified she had been with one guy. “I see.”
Raising her beer bottle to her lips, Allison snorted. After taking a sip, she eyed me. “That’s all you have to say. ‘I see’?”
“Congratulations?” I suggested.
She laughed and shook her head. “Not quite the reaction I expected.”
“And what did you think I would do?”
Tilting her chin in thought, Allison replied, “Go all apeshit and tell me that three was entirely too many partners for a girl my age.”
“Oh please, you make me sound like some uptight Neanderthal man. Your life, including the sexual aspect of it, is entirely your business and yours alone. F*ck anyone else who tries to tell you anything different.”
“Thank you for your candor.”
“You’re welcome,” I replied, with a smile.
“As much as I would like to think I was liberated sexually, I’m still pretty old school.”
“You mean like not wanting to partake in that a*shole’s sex games?”
“No, I meant my attitude about who I will be with.” Cutting her eyes over at me, she shook her head. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. It seems the alcohol is freeing my tongue more than I would like. The truth is that two were relationships, Dylan and then the douchebag of late, and then one was pure lust.”
“Seriously?”
“Now you’re getting judgey?”
I laughed. “No, it’s just hard to believe that after how you’ve described yourself that you actually just succumbed to lust.”
A giggle burst out of Allison lips. “Did you just say succumbed?” This time she snorted. “Oh Rhys, you sound positively blue blood when you’re down here and away from the guys. They would so call your ass out if they heard you.”
“Whatever,” I grumbled.
Nudging my shoulder with hers, she said, “Your turn.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“And why not?”
“I don’t want you to think badly of me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like I don’t already know you’re a slut.”
“Y-You think I’m a slut?” I sputtered indignantly.
“Yeah, I do.”
“I’ll have you know my number isn’t over a hundred.”
“How comforting,” she mused.
Rising to my feet, I stalked over to the trashcan and tossed my beer bottle. “You know, the fact that I’m now a famous musician and have that low a number is pretty impressive. Your brother’s was off the charts.”
“Not surprising that Jake surpassed slut to reside into dirty whore territory.”
My anger dissipated, and I found myself laughing at the summation of her brother. After popping the top of my third beer, I sighed. “I think it’s time for a conversation change.”
“More questions?”
“Sure. Just ones that don’t have anything to do with sex.”
“Sounds fair to me.” With a grin, she added, “Fire away.”
I thought about a safe question to ask her. “Okay, how old were you when you drank for the first time?”
“Sixteen—it was the champagne at my party.”
“Ah, I see.”
“And you?”
“Twelve.”
Allison’s eyes bulged. “Twelve? That’s just a baby.”
“It was just one drink. I didn’t start down an alcoholic path at that age.”
She giggled. “I’d hope not.” Taking another sip of her beer, she asked, “So where was it?”
“It was during a society party of my parents. I wanted to be like the older guys who were there. We’ve already established that I was a socially awkward misfit, so it should make total sense that I was being a dick to try and fit in. So when they dared me to drink a glass of Scotch, I downed it in one gulp.” I shuddered as the memory flickered through my mind. “I thought I was going to die. I think I ended up puking most of the night, and lying to my nanny that it was some stomach bug.”
Allison frowned. “You poor thing.”
I chuckled. “Nah, I deserved it. But it did teach me a lesson about trying to fit in with the older kids. From that point on, I didn’t give a shit about what they thought—I was really my own person.”
“Such a wise revelation to have for such a young person,” Allison mused.
Shaking my head, I replied, “Kids in my world grow up fast. When you’re shuttled away to boarding school practically as a baby, you learn to only rely on yourself. In the end, that’s all you have.”
When I looked up at Allison, tears shimmered like diamonds in her dark eyes. Trying to ease the tension of the moment, I laughed. “Okay, no more beers for you.”
“Sometimes you remind me so much of Jake.”
“I do?”
She nodded. “He tried for so long to close himself off to other people—not to let them see his weaknesses.” A lone tear streaked down her face. “His pain.”
“Allison—”
“I see you, Rhys,” she whispered.
My heartbeat thrummed wildly in fear at her statement, causing me to feel like an utter pansy. Christ, what had I done to make it so easy for her to be able to see through all my bullshit? The better question was why she was still sitting beside me after seeing the real me?
As if reading my mind, Allison said, “I see all of you, and I’m not disgusted.”
Not liking the direction the conversation was taking, I rose out of the swing. I needed to put distance between Allison and myself. Things were getting too personal and deep too quickly. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d opened up to anyone like I had with her. It wasn’t enough that she was so compassionate and caring. At the same time, she distracted me by being so f*cking hot. At one moment, I wanted to hug her to me for the comfort she could provide. Then at the next, I wanted to peel her sexy-as-hell black dress off that could make a guy spring wood at fifty paces and stroke every inch of her creamy white skin.
“Yeah, well, I think that’s enough for tonight. You have class in the morning, and I need my beauty sleep to gird up strength to deal with my parents.”
After wiping her tear-stained cheeks, Allison bent over and picked up her sexy heels that she had discarded when we sat down. Her eyes held so much emotion that I could tell she was fighting hard to hold it back. “Thank you for inviting me tonight.”
“It’s me that should be thanking you. I might’ve been auctioned off to a cunt, as you called it, if it hadn’t been for you.”
A shadow of a smile played on her lips. “I’m glad I could save the day.”
Without second guessing myself, I leaned in and gave her a hug. As we swayed back and forth, Allison’s hands came up to grip the back of my shirt. Having my arms around her stirred me on both an emotional and physical level. But with her sexy curves pressed against me, I was certainly focusing more on the physical side. She was so delicate, just like the magnolia on the pendant I’d given her. With her scent and softness overwhelming me, my mind railed at me to pull away. All right, a*shole, you have about two seconds to pull away before she feels just how much you’re enjoying copping a feel.
When I finally pried myself away, I smiled at Allison. “I’ll text you about doing movie night soon.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
After placing a tender kiss on her cheek, I turned and walked away. But even as I put distance between us, I couldn’t shake the feeling of that hug. Even when I lay down that night, I could almost still feel her in my arms.
And that made me scared as hell.