Coming Home (Pierpoint View #1)

Chapter Fifteen - Brooks

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Brooks

I only have one night to catch up with the boys before I need to be on my best behavior, so even though Jax and Tobias aren’t drinking, I still have tonight and I’m going to take full advantage of it.

We wouldn’t usually head out to a bar, not wanting the attention we’d get, especially mid season, we’d prefer to head back to one of our houses, but today there’s a football game on at our team’s local bar and much to Jax’s pleasure, we’ve decided to go there.

Jax loves the attention we get whenever we go anywhere, especially from girls. He’s been known to leave wherever we are to go home with said girls within 10 minutes of getting there. Much like today.

We’re sat in a corner booth, away from the majority of the crowd, a TV screen at the perfect angle to catch the game and what was meant to be a catch up with the boys has turned into a meet and greet.

Jax went to get his round in, bringing a group of girls back with him. They all knew our names before we’d even introduced ourselves which is a sign they’re only here for one reason. This bar is known to the team’s hangout so there will always be people here hoping to catch a peek of us or in the case of these girls, hoping to get an invitation to sit at our table.

“We’re such huge fans of yours!” a redheaded girl says, already way too drunk for this early in the evening.

“Yeah, we love watching you play!” a blonde, basically sitting on Jax’s lap, pipes up over the loud music.

For a Wednesday, the place is pretty busy with a bachelor party over by the pool tables and another large group of what like university students huddling around the bar making it ten times harder to grab a drink.

It’s a grungy bar, so it’s dark which we all prefer to help us keep a low profile, and the music is always super loud, which add that to the amount of people in here right now, it’s hard for me to even hear Toby and he’s sat right next to me.

“We love our fans!” Jax says, rubbing the blonde’s arm and she leans her head on his shoulder, giggling. In fact, that made all the girls at the table laugh like it’s the funniest thing they’d ever heard.

I roll my eyes and turn my attention to Tobias, ignoring the two across the table, “What do you mean Leila’s getting married?” I ask, continuing our previous conversation. “Last I heard she was single?”

When I say Tobias talks about Leila all the time, I mean it, I feel like I know the girl more than I know my own sister.

“Apparently she got back with that dick head of an ex,” he grumbles so quietly I barely hear him.

“I thought you’d scared him off?”

Leila met her ex, or I guess fiancée now, in college in the states. Tobias followed Lelia there, knowing his career was going to pop off whenever he wanted it to and he wasn’t going to let Leila go by herself. He tells me it was so he could look out for her and refuses to believe me when I tell him it’s because he couldn’t let her go. When Toby joined the college hockey team, he befriended their goalie, a second year who seemed great at the time apparently, but when their team threw a party, Tobias brought Leila with him and she met Brian, the goalie, and they hit it off.

A little while later they get together, Leila was in love and they lasted all the way through college until earlier this year when Toby caught the guy with another girl at a football game, apparently he’d been having an affair. Suffice to say, Toby made him cut it off with Leila, although that doesn’t seem to have lasted very long.

“I did... I’m just going to have to pay him another visit.”

“I’ll come with you,” I say, clapping him on the back.

“I’ll come too!” Jax calls out, not one to miss out. I wasn’t aware he could even hear our conversation.

“What about that girl you were talking about? The one who’s been taking up everyone’s time?” Tobias smirks.

“Her name’s Summer.” I forgot I had told him about her. It was just after I’d spoken to Stevie and John about Lennon, and went to meet Gray at the pub only for him to tell me he has to use my truck to run an errand for Summer. Toby called while I was waiting for Gray to load the truck and I’d cursed her out, telling him how she just rocked up to town and is getting special treatment, how she wasn’t one of us. It was not my finest moment. That and my outburst as we got to the cafe are embarrassing to think about, especially now I know the girl and can’t stop thinking about her like a love sick teenage boy.

I’d just downed my fourth beer, on top of the two shots we did earlier to start the night and the drink is not helping me forget her, it’s making me want her more.

In my drunken haze, any rational thought has flown out the window and if she were here right now, I wouldn’t push her away; I’d take her home, strip her down and do what she all but begged me to do yesterday.

“She hot?” Jax pipes up.

“So fucking hot,” I groan, just thinking about her in that towel.

Tobias laughs. “Sounds like she’s taking up all your time, eh?” If only he knew how much time she’s been taking up in my brain.

“She a good lay?” Jax again, the only one disrespectful enough out of the three of us to ask that. The blonde is kissing his neck, paying no attention to anyone else at the table while her three friends talk loudly between each other, taking pictures.

Tobias lean over the table and slaps him around the head. “Don’t talk about girls like that, dude.”

His comment grates me and Tobias notices, patting me on the back; I’m sure if we ever did have sex it would be fantastic if our chemistry is anything to go by but I can’t go there with her.

“Don’t listen to him, man. You like her?”

I think back to the week we spent seeing each other everyday and the only answer I can come up with is fuck yes, but she still doesn’t even know I play hockey because I’m scared she’ll write me off as soon as she finds out. She said that she doesn’t ever want to be with another guy that has the money and influence like her ex did, and I have exactly that, maybe more, who the fuck knows. Just as long as she doesn’t find out, we can still be friends and thats all I can ever allow her to be .

A little angry at my situation with Summer and Jax’s stupid comments, I stand up, climb over Tobias and ask, “You want another?” I point to the boys’ cokes, they’d had their shots for a buzz and then stopped drinking anything stronger.

“You should take it easy, B,” Toby warns.

I wave him off, it’s my last hurrah after all. I make my way to the bar, pushing through the group of students, and it’s only when I lean my elbows on the bar do I start to feel the effects of the drinks.

The room spins and there’s two bartenders until I close my eyes tight and reopen them, then everything is back to normal. Even so, I order another beer.

“Here you go, bro.” The bartender hands me my bottle of beer and I take a swig and ending it with a satisfied noise, there’s nothing like that first sip of an ice cold beer.

As I make my way back to the table, my vision still a little wavy, I notice a girl walking into the bar, long brown hair, small. Summer.

She moves into the crowd and I try getting through but by the time I get to where I last saw her, she’s disappeared.

Disappointed, I head back. Tobias has taken my seat in the booth, sitting with the redhead, she’s chatting to him about god knows what and he’s looking off into the distance, taking small sips of his coke, not paying any attention.

I take the open space at the end of the booth just as the girls start screaming, the blonde seemingly only now just coming up for air.

“Tara! You made it!” Their screams turn unintelligible to the point even Jax looks like he’s not having a good time anymore, though that might be because he’s now not got a leach stuck to his throat .

“Hey!” I turn at the new voice and see the brunette from earlier. Not Summer, but something in me lights up regardless in my drunken brain at the sight of her.

She’s wearing a white dress and heels that add 5 inches to her small stature that do not look like the most comfortable things in the world and her hair is down in little curls. I make room for her next to me on the end of the bench since there’s not a lot of room anywhere else.

Her body is pressed against me, her breasts pressing into my arm as she leans over to grab a shot from the middle of the table and it reminds me of when Summer was pressed against me in nothing but her towel.

“Cheers!” all the girls cheer, including Jax, and I take one too for the hell of it.

I try and converse with Tobias over the redheads head but the girls are chatting too loudly and we can barely hear each other. Maybe coming here to catch up wasn’t a good idea.

“I think I’m going to head out,” he calls out, going to stand up. We all let him out and as I stand the room spins faster.

God, I haven’t felt this drunk in a long time.

Tobias hugs me goodbye. “Just think about it,” he says, nodding to the girl in the white dress, though I’m not sure what he means.

I sit back down moving into the corner of the booth, the brunette taking the seat next to me, sitting closer than necessary despite the extra room.

She lays a hand on my arm, running it up to my shoulder and squeezing, leaning up to my ear so she can be heard. “I’m Tara.”

She moves away just enough so that I could count the freckles on her face if I weren’t so drunk and seeing double.

Realizing she’s waiting for my name, I hold my hand out for her to shake and she grabs it in her small one. “Brooks.” She keeps a hold of my hand and brings it down to rest in her lap and I can’t help but like the way her small hand looks in mine.

She leans back in and continues talking to me, her lips brushing the shell of my ear. There’s no accent, not like Summer, but her voice is soft and I’m not paying much attention to what she’s saying because my mind is going back to the last girl to whisper in my ear like that. I doubt I could really answer without slurring my words now anyway, the bass of the music matching the pounding of the blood in my veins.

All I can see is the long brown hair, the white dress, like the one I saw Summer where that one day. The feel of the girls hand on my chest.

She must’ve asked me something because she pulls away ever so slightly, looking at me expectantly. I have no idea what she could’ve said so I just smile and nod, not really seeing her, seeing someone else in her place. I’d say yes to anything she asked me.

The girl reaches up and wraps an arm around the back of my neck as her lips press against my cheek. She moves to kneel beside me, giving her extra leverage.

The smell of coconut fills my sense and it’s the last straw.

I grab her by the chin, bringing her lips to my own. My hand tangles in her hair, bringing her closer and she falls into my lap, straddling one of my legs with her own.

I can faintly hear shouts around us but I’m too focused on her, focused on the feel of her, the heat of her. She makes a little noise in the back of her throat and it causes one of my own and I bring her body even closer to mine, one hand pressing into the small of her back.

I’ve wanted this too long. I’m a guy, there’s only so much restraint I can show before it’s too much.

She starts grinding on my thigh, making more of those noises and it’s too much.

I need her and I need her now. I help her move her hips, bringing them closer and closer to my own, my jeans getting tighter.

I rip my lips from hers and rest my head back on the booth, eyes closed. The lack of oxygen and the alcohol making me dizzy, and revel in the feel of her lips moving across my cheek, to my neck. Sucking, licking, nipping.

“Fuck, Summer,” I groan.

Almost immediately, she pulls away and she brings my face down to look at her disapproving glare.

“My names Tara.” My eyes meet her brown ones. I knew that.

I was getting carried away in the fantasy of Summer like a fucking idiot. I was meant to forget about her, get over her even though I was never even under her.

I peer over her shoulder and he’s sat in between the blonde and the redhead, both of them attacking his neck. I look around the table and the other two girls seem to have left which is fair enough. Even in my inebriated state I wouldn’t want to be sat in this booth with people going at it around me.

The girl clears her throat, bringing my attention back to her. I’ve forgotten her name already and now the spell is broken.

I gently press her shoulders away and thankfully she moves back to sit by herself next to me. “What you have a girlfriend or something?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest, obviously not happy.

“No,” I say, my hand roughing up my hair and running down my face.

“Then why won’t you fuck me?” Summer would never sound so whiny asking me that, which is a thought I never would have seriously considered if she hadn’t done what she did yesterday.

“I’m just not in the mood,” I say, not knowing how to even explain it.

I don’t have a girlfriend, I have a friend who’s a girl who is off limits indefinitely and my brain needs to understand that.

“I’m sorry.” I sigh. And I am. “I need to go home.” I push up and out the booth, completely ignoring the calls of my name as I leave the bar.

Once my head is clear from the alcohol, I need to figure this shit out, but for right now, I just need to pass out, alone, in my own bed.