Come Out Swinging (Reach for the Moon Book 2), Sam Hall [leveled readers .TXT] 📗

I took one shot and downed it as he sat next to me, his elbow perilously close to mine.

“What is truth? Like when you come down to it, what does that actually mean?” I growled out.

“Oh crap, we’ve started with philosophising? Usually, you need at least a few drinks in you before you start with that shit.”

I glared at Stevie, who held her hands up in response, moving off to serve a customer but leaving the bottle behind. I heard Aidan shift beside me, so close yet not. There was a prickle in the air between us, the memory of him unzipping his pants to show—

“Tell me something true,” I said, putting my hands across the shots, stopping him from taking one, a small smile forming and fading as he studied my face, wanting to see if I was joking or not. “Doesn’t have to be deep or profound or even about Dad, but—”

“I remember you from school.”

I blinked, the words just blurted out, so it took me a bit to take them in.

“What? You can’t have.”

“You were too young. Way, way too young. I was in year eleven when you were in year seven, so you were just a kid, but I knew who you were, what you looked like when you came to high school.” He reached out, picking up my hand, taking a shot from beneath my lax fingers, and downing it. “I used to catch you watching me sometimes. I’d be mucking around with my friends or girls, and I’d look across the yard and…” He smiled as he put the glass down. “It wasn’t a sexual thing or anything, but…I liked it, your attention. I found myself doing more and more crazy things, hoping I’d get it.”

I frowned as I grabbed another shot, drinking it but watching him over the rim of the glass until I put it down empty again.

“You were like the golden boy of the school.”

“I was just a dumb kid, along with all the other dumb kids,” he replied, his hands flattening out on the bar. “I got tall, filled out early, and girls noticed.” I knew that was true because I’d noticed. “I had a core group of mates from primary school like everyone else, but if you can draw the girls in, you find a whole lot more.” He shook his head, his eyes sliding to me. “I knew nothing was gonna happen with you, not until you were out of school too, but…” A slow smile formed. “I liked you watching me. A fucked-up part of me felt like…I was performing for you, showing you what it would be like.”

“If I chose you?”

“If you chose me.” He held my gaze for several seconds, a full glass between his fingers as we stared. “Of course Declan happened, then Mason. I figured it was all stitched up and I’d missed my chance. And then you left town.”

“You never came near me. Never said a thing,” I said, my eyes narrowing.

“You broke up with Declan and needed time to grieve. I wasn’t going to hit on someone else’s girl, and trying to glom onto you when you were getting over a guy just seemed wrong. I figured I’d come by, talk to the alpha, see if it was OK to ask you out.”

“And did you?”

This felt like a car crash I couldn’t look away from. It wasn’t horrible, the story he was telling, but just…weird. He told me a story that was just so different to the reality I’d been used to, it was hard to reconcile.

“Several times.” He tipped his head in my direction, then downed his drink, and I watched him wince at the taste. “You know what Adam said each time?” I shook my head. “‘Not yet.’ Not yet when you broke up with Dec. Not yet when six months had passed. Not yet when your eighteenth was looming closer. When my family had been invited to the big party. When you were about to make your big choice. Not yet. I figured then he was just letting me down easy, which pissed my dad off. He felt like it was just the same old shit as with your mum and him, that Adam was standing in our way again.”

He shifted in his seat, swivelling around so his elbow rested on the bar, his body facing mine. “Dad berated and harangued me every damn day until the moment you left. And then you came back.”

“And then you harangued me.” My eyes narrowed to slits. “You hassled me about getting time with me, about Selma not being a suitable candidate.” My fingers tightened into fists, and he noted that. “You tried to force things, force me.”

“Everything I’ve been raised to believe about the heir came from my dad. That’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation. Our parents, they leave a lot out in their recounts of what happened to them. They want us to learn from their mistakes, but at the same time, they don’t fully understand what they went through. Did Dad feel what I felt when you walked into my office asking for me? Did his heart flutter in his chest, did twin feelings of desperate fear and sheer fucking gratitude hit him? Did he find himself shaking like a goddamn leaf when your mum spoke to him about whatever prosaic thing she wanted to talk about, his eyes following her lips, struggling to follow her words? I did better on my own, kissing girls and playing the fool at school. You wanted to watch me, wanted to see what I’d do next. When I followed his, my interpretation of what he taught me, it all went to shit. I could feel you slipping through my fingers, so I just gripped harder…”

He stared with eyes shining silver for several heartbeats, then turned back to the bar.

“I get it now, all the fucking trite things they say about love. Dad thought he missed the boat