Page 3 of Lying Hearts
Chapter Two
Brendan
Earlier That Day
San Francisco. Age: twenty-five. Five years before Mark meets his future wife and everything changes. Coffee: cold. Coffee shop: rife with gorgeous chicks to plunder.
“You hooked up with an older woman, huh? Nicely done. How was it?” Mark leans back and eyes a hot brunette whose breasts shimmy in time with her strut. “Mmm.” Both of us scan her.
“Incredible.” A growing line for lattes blocks our vision. We turn back to each other. Reluctantly.
Mark takes a healthy slug from his coffee. “So… how was it?”
My mouth turns up at the memory of the best blowjob I’ve ever had. “I just said it was incredible.”
Mark laughs. “I thought you were talking about jiggles. Well, I’m glad you finally climbed the joy ride and joined the team. How you stayed with only one girl all through college is beyond me.” He looks back to see if the view has improved, but there’re still too many people and he looks back to me. Reluctantly. “What was her name?”
“Rebecca. Rebecca…I don’t know her last name.” This hits me hard. “Wow.”
Mark touches his tongue to his teeth and smirks. “So you go from Boyfriend Of The Year to hooking up with a cougar whose last name you never even got?” He whistles. “I like the new you, B-man. I like it a lot.”
This makes me sit up straighter. Not really, because we’re both slouching as we should. But in my head? I’m standing tall. I’ve looked up to Mark in more ways than literally just his height. He is taller than my six-foot-one inch frame by a few inches, but it’s not just that. He’s also great at numbers, computer programming, speaking to strangers, gathering the respect of pretty much everyone. And women, they drop their skirts before he even says hello. The guy is a god.
There were a ton of stunners at San Francisco State and not one of ‘em could hold his attention for more than a month. He’s my new role model. Following his lead will rip away the last remaining sentimentality I have for the fairer sex once and for all. Good plan, good plan. I’m glad he met me today and hadn’t given up on me. It’s no wonder he’s stoked. He’s been trying to break me down for years. I am never – and I mean never – going to let another woman under my skin. She can nibble and suck on it all she wants, but she’s not getting under it no matter how beautiful she is.
I’m ready for unattached, unbridled fun. And who knows fun better than Mark? No one. If Mark ever settles down, I will keel over from shock.
I rake my fingers through my wavy hair and look out the window. “Yeah, well, I had to get rid of Sara first. That bitch had to go.” Even though she broke my heart, it hurts a little to call her that out loud. Or maybe this ache in my stomach is just a hangover from having drunk too much booze last night. Alone. Mark doesn’t say anything. I wait for a response and none comes so I turn my head and meet his skeptical eyes. “What?”
He waits a second. Decides if he wants to remind me how much I fell all over Sara during my entire college education, even the first year when she was still in high school and I had to deal with her fucking curfew. He probably wants to tease me about how I never let anyone say a bad word about her even when she was rude and snobby, which she more than sometimes was. How I’m calling her bitch now because I’m heartbroken. I really don’t feel like talking about her or the ring I still have to refund. Leave it alone, Mark. Just drop it. But he’s no mind reader.
He purses his lips and opens his stupid mouth anyway. “You okay?”
My eyebrows twist up the middle of my forehead and my eyes go ice-cold blue. “Are we going to have a moment? Should I break out a violin? She cheated on me. You saw it coming. I didn’t. I’m over it.”
“It ended two weeks ago.”
“It ended a year ago when she moved away. I just didn’t know it ended. So I had plenty of time to get over her, because she wasn’t really here anyway. You want me to cry on your shoulder?”
He concentrates on me and says nothing for an uncomfortable amount of time. I glare at him, challenging him to push the sword in deeper. Slowly, he brings his hand up and pats his own shoulder. “Come to papa. Let it all out.”
Smiling, I look away. “Shut it.” Sipping the end of my cold, weak, coffee while he picks up the paper to read the business section, I stare out the window some more. Passing locals soon blur me into a trance and a sneaky flash of not Sara, but Rebecca sleeping next to me last weekend in Mendocino, creeps in without my noticing. The way her hair fanned out in dark sheets on the pillow. How her mouth was open and the light sounds that came out of it. How one beautiful rosy nipple was exposed, laid bare thanks to a pushed-down corner of the quilt. A smile starts spreading on my lips.
Stop it, Brendan. I shove it back down in the depths of hell it came from. I know that she’s just like them all – she showed me that. I’d stared at her a little too long before I’d left, though. The moonlight from the windows made me stay.
Fuck! The old me is still clinging on like he wants me to get my heart crushed a few thousand more times before I learn. Well, screw that faster than a whore on prom night. I can’t take the kind of emptiness that comes from getting attached and having it not work out. Not again.
“You know what I think?”
Sucked into an interesting article, Mark doesn’t look up. “Mmm?”
“I think we’re going to make a good wing-man team. We cover both bases. I’m Black Irish, dark hair, and blue eyes. I’m normal height. You’re tall as a mountain and you’ve got that golden skin, hair and eyes thing going for you. Between the two of us, we offer whatever suits their taste. We can take it all, if we work together.”
Mark looks up halfway through my speech, very amused. After I finish, he says, “You’ve given this some thought.”
“Just now, yeah.” I lean back in the chair, legs spread out and my hand resting just below my crotch. “A blinding flash of inspiration comes when things are meant to be.”
Mark looks back at the paper. “I’m in.”