“You want to find a seat and get something to drink?” Linc asked close to my ear. I didn’t want to stop looking at Krit or miss a word that came out of his mouth. But I was here with Linc, and I couldn’t stand here completely soaking up Krit. That was rude.
“Um, yeah,” I replied.
Linc’s hand wrapped around mine, and he pulled me back through the crowd and toward a tall table over in the corner that didn’t have people around it. A group of people at the table beside it looked like they needed more than one table. Linc must have been thinking the same thing. “Excuse me, but is this table free or are y’all using it?” he asked a guy with long blond hair and a face that belonged on television, it was so perfect. He didn’t even glance in my direction when he answered. “It’s all yours, dude. We’re good with just this table.”
“Thanks,” Linc replied.
“You’re Lilah Keenan’s brother, aren’t you?” asked the girl beside the beautiful blond guy. Her smile was friendly, and she was as perfect as the guy whose arm was possessively wrapped around her shoulders.
“Yeah, Amanda Hardy, right?” Linc replied.
The girl grinned. “Yep. Thought that was you. How’s Lilah?” the girl asked.
“She’s good. She leaves again for Tuscaloosa this week.”
Amanda Hardy turned her pretty eyes to me. She wasn’t even wearing makeup. All that beauty was natural. “We haven’t met, I don’t think. You didn’t go to Sea Breeze High, did you?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not from here,” I replied, then realized I hadn’t told her my name. I felt like an idiot. She seemed so nice. Nothing like the girls back home who looked like her.
“Amanda, this is Blythe Denton. Blythe, this is Amanda Hardy. Blythe is working at the church for my dad,” Linc informed them for me.
“Blythe?” another female voice asked. I hadn’t looked at anyone else at the table because from the one glance I had taken, the group looked intimidating. Forcing myself to look away from the safe connection I had made with Amanda Hardy, I found what looked like a Victoria’s Secret model smiling at me. Where Amanda was very natural, this woman was all fixed up, but she was still gorgeous. The kind who stopped traffic.
“Yes,” I managed to reply, and returned her smile.
“I believe you live in the apartment beneath my brother,” the blonde said. I didn’t need her to say more. I saw it then. The blue of her eyes was identical to Krit’s, and her hair was the same white blond—except hers was long and full of curls.
“Are you . . . Krit’s sister?” I asked.
Her smile went from pleased to brilliant. “Yes, I am,” she replied.
“Krit?” Linc asked, reminding me that he was there beside me.
“Krit and Green are roommates,” I explained to him. I turned back to Krit’s sister. “Linc has only met Green.”
The blonde flicked her gaze to Linc then back at me. “I’m Trisha. It’s nice to meet you, Blythe.”
“This is about to get f**king interesting. I need another beer first.” A deep drawl from the guy at the back of the table caused Trisha to roll her eyes as she shot an annoyed glare in the guy’s direction. I took a quick glance and saw a well-built guy with dark eyes and thick lashes. He had dreadlocks pulled back in a ponytail that hung down the back of his neck. Intimidating wasn’t even a strong enough word for him. His face was striking, but the rest of him was terrifying.
“Shut up, Dewayne. Don’t start shit,” Trisha snapped.
“I was gonna leave, but I think we might need to stick around for a few minutes,” the beautiful blond guy said.
Amanda gave me an apologetic smile and then elbowed the guy still holding her close. He only chuckled and then bent his head to whisper in her ear. The pink blush on her cheeks had me turning away from them to look at Linc.
He took that as his cue. “Well, it was nice to see you, Amanda,” He looked at the blond guy. “And Preston. We need to get a drink and grab this table before it’s snatched up,” Linc said politely.
I smiled at Amanda and then at Trisha before giving them a small wave and following Linc to the table beside them. I didn’t want to talk about Krit just yet, and I had a feeling Linc was going to ask me about him. I had seen the look in his eyes when Trisha had recognized my name. Which gave me a secret thrill. Had he told his sister about me?
“Did you go to school with all of them?” I asked, curious to know more about Trisha and her friends. I hadn’t seen any of them at his parties.
“Yeah. But we didn’t run in the same crowds. Amanda and my sister were friends. Her older brother, Marcus, is a part of that group. I hadn’t heard that Amanda was dating Preston Drake.” He lowered his voice. “I’m surprised her brother allows that. Preston isn’t known to be a one-woman guy. And Marcus, being his best friend, knows that better than anyone.”
I felt like I was watching an episode of Dawson’s Creek, listening to this. “He seemed like he was unaware of any other female in the world,” I said honestly. That good-looking blond guy had spent the majority of his time staring at Amanda while holding her close to his side.
“I noticed that. Little Hardy must have managed to tame the beast,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m gonna get a Coke. You want anything?”
I wanted a sweet tea, but I wasn’t sure they had that here. “Um, sure. A Coke will do,” I replied.
He nodded and stood up. “Be right back.”
Linc hadn’t gotten far when someone moved back his chair. It was Trisha. She sat down on it. “Hello again,” she said.
“Hi.” I wasn’t sure why she was at my table. Then I took a quick glance back at the stage and noticed Green announcing that they were taking a break and would be back in fifteen minutes.
“I don’t have much time before he gets down here,” she mumbled.
Who? Krit? Would he be mad that she was talking to me?
“Anyway, Green told me you were new in town, and I wanted to invite you to lunch one day.”
Green told Trisha about me. Not Krit. My stomach knotted up. I managed to nod. “That sounds nice.”
She beamed at me, and I felt even more insecure. Why would someone like her want to spend anytime with me? And did I want to take the chance that she would see the true awkward me the way Krit had? Trisha would drop me just like Krit did. Green was still friendly, but he wasn’t asking me to hang out with him either.
“Perfect. What day is best for you?”
“Tuesday. I get out of my last class at eleven, and I don’t have to be at work until one thirty.”
Trisha grinned then glanced up and scrunched her nose. Even that looked good on her. “Here he comes,” she said.
I turned to see Krit walking our way. His eyes were locked on me, and he was smiling that dimpled smile that meant he really was happy. Good. He had meant what he’d said in the text message.
“You came,” he said to me while ignoring the table beside me, the one full of his sister’s friends.
“You asked,” I replied, unable to keep the silly smile off my face at seeing him again after two weeks without his visits. I had missed him.
“I thought you had a date.”
I had told him I was out with a friend. I hadn’t said date. I started to reply, when I was cut off.
“She does,” Linc said as he set my Coke on the table and slid it over in front of me. “I’m Linc, her date,” he said to Krit in his ever-polite tone of voice. “You must be Krit, the neighbor.”
Krit’s happy smile was gone. In its place was an annoyed frown I had seen before. “Her friend,” he corrected Linc.
Linc seemed unaffected by Krit’s clipped tone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. She hadn’t mentioned you before tonight,” Linc responded.
What? Did he really just say that? I swung my eyes to Linc and noticed the sudden change in his demeanor. He wasn’t calm, cool, and collected. He was tense, and the smile on his face was fake.
Krit’s hand moved from the back of my chair to rest on my back. “How did you like the set?” he asked me as if Linc hadn’t just been rude.
“I loved it. You sounded amazing. I had no idea you could sing so well.” I was gushing. I knew it, but I couldn’t seem to help it. There was a reason why women threw themselves at Krit. He was like a magnet, and it was hard to pull away from him. When he got close, you just wanted to get closer.
Krit lowered his head until his mouth was at my ear. “I’ve missed you,” he said softly.
I hadn’t gone anywhere. I wanted to point that out, but then Trisha was watching us with undisguised interest, and Linc had given up the nice-guy smile. I was here with Linc, and I had to remember that.
I picked up my Coke and smiled at Linc. His frown eased some. “We’re glad we came. It’s a great way to end the evening.”
Trisha ducked her head and covered her mouth, but her eyes were dancing with laughter. She then composed herself. “Come on, Krit, you’re ignoring everyone else. Let these two enjoy their date. You can talk to Blythe later,” Trisha said, standing up. To me, she said, “Tuesday at eleven fifteen, meet me at the Pickle Shack. It’s less than a mile from the college, so you should find it easily.” She reached for her brother’s arm, tugging him away from me. “Come on,” she said in a stern whisper, and led Krit to her table.
Krit didn’t say good-bye to me, but then, Trisha might have caused a scene if he had. I tried to block out the laughter behind me and not listen to what they were all saying. I could hear the dreadlocks guy saying something about being shot down, and I winced, wondering if he was talking to Krit. They misunderstood the situation. I didn’t want to hear Krit correct them. That would just have been embarrassing.
Couldn’t they look at me and tell I wasn’t Krit’s type? He was completely out of my league. Glancing over at Linc, I realized he was too. Yet there he sat.
“I didn’t realize you were so tight with the lead singer of Jackdown,” Linc said, then took a slow sip of his soda while studying me.
I shrugged. “He lives above me and when I first moved in, we did talk a lot and stuff, but then he just kind of stopped coming by. I haven’t even seen him in a couple of weeks.” I wasn’t going to tell him about our dinners together, the ones that had stopped with no explanation.
“He’s bad news, Blythe. I don’t know him, but everyone has heard of him. Jackdown is pretty big around the southeast. Krit is . . . well, for lack of a better word, he’s a male whore,” he said quietly, so the table beside us wouldn’t hear him.
I nodded. I already knew Krit slept with a lot of girls. “I know what Krit is like. We were just friendly. Nothing more. I’m not his type anyway.”
Linc nodded in agreement. “No, you’re not. I’m glad you realize that.”
The ache in my chest couldn’t be helped. Hearing Linc confirm that I wasn’t tall and beautiful like the girls Krit brought back to his place was painful. Knowing it and hearing it from someone else were two different things.
I wasn’t in the mood to stay. I wanted my apartment and my pajamas. I wanted my silence. Taking one more drink of my soda I stood up. “I think I’m ready to go home now,” I told Linc.
He looked relieved, which only made me feel worse. Our date had started out nice, but it hadn’t ended well. I wasn’t the only one ready to escape it.
“Of course,” he said standing up. “Let’s go.”
KRIT
“I like her,” Trisha announced as I watched Blythe walk away with that guy. “She’s gorgeous and really sweet.”
“Linc’s a really nice guy. He was always friends with everyone in high school. I can’t think of one person who didn’t like him,” Amanda added to the conversation.
A pair of tits pressed against my arm. I wasn’t in the mood. My head was somewhere else. Shrugging off the unwanted female, I turned to look at Amanda Hardy. “You know that guy?” I asked. I didn’t want to let this bunch know I gave a shit that Blythe was on a date. They would all misunderstand and harass me about it endlessly.
Amanda nodded and bit her bottom lip nervously.
“She’s right. Guy’s nice,” Preston said. “He always did that Christian teens group thingy in the mornings. But he wasn’t like the other religious kids. He even stopped one night when Marcus and I had a flat tire. I didn’t have a spare or some shit like that, and Marcus wouldn’t call his dad because I was so hammered. So Linc gave us a ride.”
This wasn’t something I wanted to hear. Preston Drake liking someone so completely different from him meant this Linc guy probably was f**king perfect for Blythe.
Shit.
“Do you like her?” Trisha asked me. My sister wasn’t one to beat around the bush. She was a straight talker. I just wish she’d chosen to ask me this without all her nosey-ass friends watching me.
I shrugged. “She’s not my type. But, yeah, she’s a friend. Glad to know the guy she’s with is worthy of her.” I took a swig of my beer. “I need to get back. Fifteen minutes are almost up.” I never made it backstage on time. They were all thinking just that as I walked to the door leading to the stage.
I ignored the girls trying to get my attention. I just needed to get the hell away from everyone and hit something. I didn’t want to f**king care that Blythe was on a date. She wasn’t someone I could mess with. She was fragile. The more time I had spent with her, the more I realized just how fragile she was. I wasn’t good with fragile. I broke shit. I’d never forgive myself if I broke her. That would likely destroy me.