Page 57 of Rule Number One
“See. Women are just trouble,” I said. “Better to have some fun flings and go live my life just the way I like it. Like mom always says, “‘You don’t want to look back and say, ‘I wish I woulda.’”
“Yeah. But that door swings both ways,” Tim argued. “You don’t want to have a great girl in your grasp and let her walk away. You don’t want to look back one day and say, ‘I wish I woulda’ about her. Just something to think about.”
He arched an eyebrow, and his words hit harder than I’d expected. I hadn’t thought about that ... about ignoring this sizzling connection with Ivy and then someday regretting I’d never acted on it. Sure, my past choices with women had ended up with me giving up all the parts of me that made meme, but maybe they were right. Maybe with the right woman, I wouldn’t be giving anything up ... maybe I could be getting so much more.
“To Tim and Tami!” Matt said, lifting up his shot glass.
We all did the same, and Tim shot me a look just as we all slammed them back. In unison, we tossed the tequila over our shoulders and then slammed the empty glasses back down. We laughed together as we bit the slice of orange with cinnamon and sugar that completes the Bernie shot at JJ’s, and no one was the wiser that we had ditched our shots and the epic hangovers that would follow.
The high pitches of female squeals behind us pulled our attention, and we spun around to see the bachelorette party heading our way.
“Baby!” Tami called from the doorway. When Tim called back, she opened her arms and sent her pink boa flying in the face of the man sitting at the table by the door. “Oops! Sorry!” she apologized, then started making her way through the crowd.
I sat up straight, my eyes scanning for Ivy’s face. When she made it through the doorway, the breath trapped in my lungs.
My God is she beautiful.
She looked positively radiant with her huge smile as she danced her way in with the girls. So different from the reserved girl I’d met just a few days ago. I couldn’t pull my eyes off her as she made her way to the bar, and when she finally saw me and our gazes connected, it felt like my whole world flipped upside down.
“Oh, yeah. You’re not into her at all,” Tim teased.
“Yeah, definitely not into her,” Ian joined in, and the other guys all laughed as heat raced to my cheeks.
“I’m not! We’re just friends!”
Jake shook his head. “Jo and I are just friends, and I’m not looking at her the way you’re looking at Ivy. Just saying.”
Ivy gave me a shy wave, and her penis crown slipped off to the side. She laughed as she righted it, and the cute way she went about it made my heart start that damned thumping again.
“Oh!” Hayden covered his mouth. “Dude! He’s blushing!”
“I’m not fucking blushing,” I lied, and it only made the heat in my cheeks reach scalding.
Shit. I’m blushing.
The girls climbed up on the bar, one after another, and the crowd cheered as they started dancing to the song “Single Ladies” the bartender had put on when he’d seen them enter. Ivy got up on the bar, and that smile of hers nearly split her face as she danced her way toward me, carefully stepping over cocktails as she and the other five girls shook what their mamas gave them.
“Yeah, baby!” Tim called to Tami, pulling out a twenty and waving it in the air. “That’s my girl!”
Tami kept her interest focused on him, ignoring all the other men in the bar vying for her attention. When she got to him, she slung her boa around his neck, pulling him to standing as she bent down and gave him a kiss. The other girls danced beside her, and as they moved around, they maneuvered in a way where Ivy landed square in front of me.
Watching her ass in those tight jeans shimming in front of me had me shifting in my chair to hide my growing erection. The button-down shirt she wore hugged her breasts just right, and I couldn’t help secretly wishing her dancing would pop one of them open. Damn, she looked good up there. As wild and free as she’d looked plummeting down the big drops on the rollercoaster.
“Hey!” she called down.
“Hey, yourself!” I called back. “Having fun?”
“Yes!” she shouted over the music. “I’ve never danced on a bar before! I can cross it off my list!”
“Atta girl!” I smiled back at her, happy to see her living her life to the fullest the way I lived mine.
“I hope I don’t fall!”
“I’ll catch you if you do!” I laughed, opening my arms, and in my mind, I kinda hoped she would. The thought of holding Ivy up against me had my mind racing with all kinds of thoughts.
The song ended, and Tami leaped down into Tim’s arms. He caught her and dipped her backward, giving her a wet kiss before sitting her back upright again.
“A little help?” Ivy said, holding out her hand for me.