Just This Once (Just Us Series Book 1) Read online

  Finally, she spots her target and tugs me through the crowd. I stumble along after her, apologizing profusely as I bump into a dozen or so people along the way.

  Finally, we arrive in one of the corners, where a man with dark curls is running his fingers through the long, red hair of a young woman laying across his lap. The man looks up and his face lights up when he sees us. “Max!”

  The woman opens her eyes and gets to her feet. Even in the baby giraffe heels, I find I have to look up at her to see her face, and a glance at her feet, clad in flats, reveals that the height is all hers. “Finally,” she complains, then grabs Max, bends low and kisses her.

  Ah, so this must be who I’m here to meet. I think as I blink in surprise. I wondered how long they’d been together, and wondered why Max had acted so cagey about it. It’s not like she’d never dated a woman before.

  But then the man gets to his feet. “Hand her over,” he tells the redhead, who spins my giggling best friend into his arms.

  When he leans in for a kiss, my eyebrows shoot up. Oh.

  Finally, Max turns to me, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed. Her face glows with the happiness of new, puppy love. “So, Lacey, these are the people I wanted you to meet. This is my girlfriend, Kate McGinnis, and our boyfriend, Gavin Barnes.”

  She looks nervous, waiting for my reaction. I reach out a hand for Kate to shake. “Lacey Calyx,” I say with a smile, “Nice to meet you both.”

  Kate shakes my hand, then Gavin. “We’ve heard lots about you,” Kate says with a smile.

  I grimace, and she laughs. “Mostly good, promise,” she replies with a wink.

  “Mostly, huh?” I shoot Max a side-eye and she shrugs, smiling sheepishly.

  There’s a look of relief on her face now, intertwined with her joy. I almost want to laugh. Max is my best friend. Did she really think I was going to judge her just because she found love and happiness in a less-than-conventional way?

  As long as they treat her right, Kate and Gavin are fine by me. I make a note to talk to her about it later, and grill her for all the details.

  But for now, Kate drags us all out onto the dance floor, and before long, I’m actually losing myself in the pounding beat and undulating crowd.

  But the heels start to get to me and I look around for a place to sit. I look back at the couch Gavin and Kate were snuggled up on when we arrived, and to my shock, I see a man sitting in the spot we’d vacated with a girl between his legs sucking him off.

  I look around in surprise, wondering how I’m the only one seeing this, when I realize: They aren’t the only ones. Most of the plush furniture is occupied by couples and groups hooking up. I’m nearly blinded by the flash of a strobe light off of some girl’s nipple ring.

  I turn to Max. “Max, what the fuck, I thought you said this was just a normal nightclub!” I hiss in her ear.

  “It is!...Mostly,” Max says with an impish smile.

  “You’re such an asshole,” I grumble, turning my gaze to the bar to avoid catching another eyeful of someone’s junk.

  But what I see at the bar shocks me far more than anything else that’s happened tonight.

  Adam.

  Fucking.

  Olsen.

  Is here.

  And he is staring right at me.

  I didn’t even know he was living here, and for a moment, a particularly catchy and heinous little Disney jingle about the size of the world passes through my brain. I shudder, more at the tune than anything else, and I reach over and slap Max’s arm repeatedly to get her attention.

  She swats my hand away in annoyance before she follows my gaze and her jaw drops. “Holy shit, is that-?”

  I nod.

  “Well, come on, let’s go talk to him!” Max grabs my arm and starts hauling me through the crowd.

  “Are you fucking insane?” I try and pull away from her, but she’s insistent, bulldozing through the crowd.

  “Come on, this is your chance to get your closure after all this time!”

  “You are insane,” I confirm, “Great. Let’s just call the nice men in the white coats to come take you to and we can call it a night!” I throw up my free hand in exasperation.

  Max pointedly ignores me, dragging me nearer and nearer to the bar. My heart is racing, my palms sweaty, and I’m actually concerned about the possibility of fainting. “Come on, Max, don’t make me do this, seriously!” I hiss, but Max ignores me once again.

  Finally, we push through the crowd and I see Adam chugging a glass of water while a devastatingly handsome, dark-haired man looks at him with concern.

  I speak before I can stop myself.

  “Adam?”

  Chapter Four

  Adam

  As I’m drinking, I give the place another scan. Towards the front, dancing with a tall redhead, I see a familiar face. Fuck, what was her name again? She was Lacey’s best friend back in high school, and I’d hung out with her a little when the two of them were together, but we’d never been what I would call close.

  Max! That was it. I lean over and I’m about to point her out to Dante when I see a pretty blonde girl lean over and shout something into Max’s ear. She brushes the smooth curtain of her hair behind her ears, and when I see her face, the shock feels like ice in my veins.

  Holy shit.

  Lacey.

  I feel like my body turns to stone, but my heart is slamming so hard in my chest that it’s rivaling the pounding of the bass in the speakers. A dozen feelings are running through me, but chief among them is guilt.

  I feel a massive surge of guilt, because I’m immediately pulled toward her, and even though I’m still sitting here beside Dante, I already feel like a traitor just for the thought.

  But then she looks up and catches my eye.

  It’s like she’s seen a ghost. She goes dead white and I see her slapping Max’s arm to get her attention, her eyes never leaving mine as she yells something at the other girl. Max turns to look and her eyebrows shoot up.

  So of course, the two of them start making their way over and I start to panic. I down the rest of my beer in two massive gulps and Dante looks at me in alarm. “Babe? You ok?” he asks.

  I can’t bring myself to answer. I signal the bartender for another beer and take a large swig of water to give me something to stall in the meantime. Dante grabs my wrist as I finally set the glass on the bar. “Adam, what the fuck?”

  “Adam?”

  Oh, God.

  I hear her voice behind me and I turn slowly. Fuck, she’s even more beautiful than the last time I saw her, her body even more curvy and lush than I remembered, encased in a short, glittering blue dress and heels that make her legs look miles long.

  Her hair had been varying shades of pink and blue throughout all four years of high school, and I think this is the first time I’ve actually seen its natural shade of shining gold.

  But it’s her eyes that really get me. Those big blue eyes take me right back, hitting me like a punch in the chest, and suddenly I’m lost in a flood of memories.

  I remember being fourteen, leaning in to share my first kiss with her and tasting her strawberry lip gloss.

  I remember being sixteen and holding her while she cried after her father was diagnosed with cancer.

  I remember seventeen, telling her that I loved her for the first time, and a month later when she said it back and we surrendered our virginities to each other in the backseat of my car.

  And I remember eighteen. When I lost her.

  I snap out of it. “Lacey,” I breathe, “Hey.”

  I hear Dante make a little gasp of surprise, and I turn to look at him. “Dante, this is Lacey Calyx and Maxine Kieran.”

  “Max,” Max says, making a face at Adam and laughing as she reaches out to shake Dante’s hand, “Please, call me Max.”

  “This is my fiancé, Dante Bautista,” I say, gesturing.

  Max’s eyebrows shoot up for a moment and I see an expression of shock on Lacey’s face, but t
hey both quickly steel themselves and shake his hand. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear there’s a weird, lingering moment between Dante and Lacey.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Max says as a pair of arms snakes out from the crowd to coil around her waist.

  The arms belong to the tall redheaded girl she was dancing with earlier. “Max, come on, Gavin’s grumpy he didn’t get to dance with you yet.”

  A lazy grin spreads across Max’s freckled face as she leans into the girl’s embrace. “Yeah, and we both know when he says “dance,” he really means copping a feel of my ass,” she retorts cheerfully.

  The redhead smirks. “It’s a nice ass,” she says, “Now come on.”

  Max turns to the rest of us and excuses herself, and I don’t miss the fleeting panic on Lacey’s face as Max melts into the crowd with the other girl.

  But she plasters on a smile and looks up at me. “Wow, so you’re living here now?”

  I nod. “About two years now. What about you, where are you these days?”

  Her smiles wavers. “Um, just got a new place, actually,” she says.

  “Why don’t you come sit with us and tell us all about it?” Dante suggests, patting the barstool between us.

  I shoot him a look of surprise, but the smile on his face is unreadable. What in the world is he doing?

  Hesitantly, Lacey sits between us, and the sight of her short skirt riding up her thighs is enough to send a rush of blood to my dick, to my horror.

  It’s just nature. She’s a pretty girl, I can’t control it. I tell myself. That’s all it is.

  “So,” Dante says, leaning in closer to Lacey, “Tell us about your new place.”

  Her face reddens. “I-it’s nothing special, really,” she insists, rubbing a spot on the back of her head, “Just time to get out of the old place. Change of scenery, nothing exciting.”

  Her darting eyes tell me there’s more to the story, and my curiosity is piqued, but my fiancé senses her discomfort and smoothly changes the subject. It actually makes me smile a bit. Here he is, faced with my ex, who he should have every reason to hate, but he treats her like any other friend.

  That kindness, that empathetic heart, is probably the biggest thing I fell in love with. We healed each other in a time when we were both very much broken, and his huge heart stole mine.

  The two of them talk, and I watch Lacey slowly relax as Dante charms her and puts her at ease. I want to join in the conversation, but my brain feels like it’s slogging through syrup, still trying to process that she’s really here, in the flesh, laughing with my fiancé.

  Finally, she realizes that I’ve been sitting silently and she turns to me. “Adam? You all right?”

  Fuck. Those blue eyes again. I wonder if she’s remembering everything I am.

  I wonder if she misses me.

  “Yeah,” I say, giving my head a little shake as if trying to fully wake, “Just zoned out.”

  They both look at me and I know that they don’t believe it for a second, but to my relief, they play along anyway.

  “Could you guys excuse me for a minute?” Lacey asks, getting off her stool, “I need to go find the ladies’ room.”

  “The bathrooms are right back there,” Dante says, pointing to the back.

  She thanks him and walks off, and I let out a breath.

  Dante hops over to her stool and looks at me. “Adam, I think she’s our girl.”

  “Our-you mean, to-what?!” I stammer in shock.

  He puts a hand on my leg. “I know it sounds crazy, Adam, but I’m just so drawn to her. And you can’t tell me you don’t still want her,” he says.

  I start to protest, but I know he’s right, and I feel the guilt flare again. It’s a lot being thrown at me all at once: my ex showing up after all these years, and now my fiancé wants both of us to sleep with her?

  Guilt and desire war in my brain. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” I hedge, staring at the bubbles rising from the bottom of my beer.

  But an image flits through my head, replacing the faceless mystery girl riding Dante’s cock in my fantasies with Lacey, and the thought makes a rush of blood flow south.

  Dante cups my cheek and turns my face toward his. “Hey, I’m not going to make you do this if you don’t want to. But I think there’s a reason we ran into her, tonight of all nights. I think it’s a sign.”

  “She’s my ex, Dante, you can’t tell me that won’t be weird for you,” I say.

  He laughs. “This whole thing is weird. But I’m not jealous, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Really?” I ask skeptically, “You’re not?”

  “Not in the slightest,” he says with a shrug.

  He’s so nonchalant, so relaxed, I know he’s telling the truth. And it’s true, he’s never exhibited even the barest hint of jealousy before, but this has to be different, right? Maybe he’s not jealous now, but that doesn’t mean that won’t change.

  “Adam, I love you, and I trust you,” he says simply, “If you didn’t want to be with me, you wouldn’t. But here you are, and I don’t see you going anywhere anytime soon.”

  I can’t help but smile. “Damn straight.”

  “Unlike us,” he quips back, and the two of us laugh.

  “So you really want her to be the one we share, huh?” I ask him.

  He nods, and I let out a shaky sigh. “I mean, I guess if she’s down, I’m up to giving it a shot.”

  Dante grins. “Who could resist?”

  I lean in and brush a kiss over his lips. “Resist you? No one.”

  Chapter Five

  Lacey

  I spend a long time in the restroom, stalling. I carefully fix my makeup, reapplying lipstick at turtle speed and adjusting my hair. I don’t even know why I’m so nervous about going back out there, Adam has barely said two words to me.

  Maybe it’s the fact that I seem to have the hots on my ex boyfriend’s fiancé. Dante is fucking gorgeous, and I can see how Adam fell for him. He’s really sweet and funny, too.

  So now I get to throw those weird, crush-y feelings into my mental blender with the mess of emotions from seeing Adam again.

  Ugh.

  Maybe I should just climb out the window and make a break for it.

  Seeing him again is so weird, like being eighteen again, but somehow not. It’s like the years between us never happened, even though he’s being so quiet.

  I wonder if he resents me, for the way things happened. For all I know, he’s sitting there planning to hire an assassin to take me out. But the way he looked at me…

  I shake my head. I can’t let myself think like that. For fuck’s sake, he’s engaged. They both are.

  I take a deep breath and steel myself, looking in the mirror. You can do this, I tell myself firmly. You’re going to go back out there, finish your drink and have a polite conversation, and then you’re going get out of here and go have a very large glass of wine at Max’s to try and forget this night ever happened.

  I make my way back to the bar and carefully maneuver onto my barstool, tugging down the hem of my dress to avoid flashing my panties to everyone in the bar. Even though I had taken Max’s advice and put on a cute pair.

  Adam leans in close to speak to me, and I can’t help a little shiver of desire when I feel his breath on my skin and his deep voice in my ear. “Listen, Lace, Dante and I wanted to go somewhere a little quieter, spend a little more time catching up with you, and we were wondering if you want to come back to our place with us.”

  Just the phrase “come back to our place,” renders images in my mind that would definitely be one way to “catch up” with Adam after all these years. I know that can’t possibly be what he means, but I find myself blushing anyway, as if he’d seen the raunchy scene going on in my head right now.

  And it shocks me that I’m even thinking this way. I’d never really considered the possibility of being with more than one guy at a time, but now, the idea stirs my arousal like nothing ev
er has before.

  Pushing the filthy thoughts out of my brain, I realize I need to come up with an answer. Do I really want to prolong this?

  There’s part of me that desperately wants to stick to my original plan and run back to Max’s, but a bigger part of me is just so drawn to them that I know I can’t resist the chance to be around them a little longer.

  “I, um-“ my voice cracks and I clear my throat, “Sure, yeah. Let me just go tell Max I’m leaving.”

  I find Max on another one of the couches, sitting on Gavin’s lap and giggling at something Kate is saying. I tell her I’m leaving with Adam and her jaw drops. “Wait, seriously? He’s engaged!”

  “No, stupid,” I laugh, “I’m hanging out with both of them. Just talking, catching up. It’s not a big deal.”

  I wonder if I’m actually trying to convince her of that, or myself.

  “You sure you want to do this?” she asks.

  “Hey, you’re the one who said I needed closure, right?”

  “Yeah, but-“

  “But nothing, Max,” I tell her firmly, “I’ll be fine.”

  “Ok, but you call me if anything goes south, ok?” she demands.

  “Of course,” I smile, “But don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll laugh about the past, maybe he’ll pull out a yearbook or something and show off some terrible pictures, it’ll be fine!”

  “Don’t you dare let him show anyone the one from sophomore year with the bangs!” she calls after me as I leave.

  When I rejoin Dante and Adam, they lead me outside. “Oh, fuck, I forgot we brought the Vantage,” Adam says, frowning.

  “That’s fine, Lacey can just ride in your lap,” Dante says matter-of-factly.

  My face flames and Dante looks at me with a smile. “As long as that’s ok with you, Lace?”

  I kind of love the way he picks up the nickname, so effortlessly, as if he’s known me my whole life. I know the suggestion is risky, but everything about this situation feels a little dangerous. “Um, sure,” I look at Adam, searching his face to see how he feels about the idea.

  At first, I can’t read his expression, but just like I remember, he can’t maintain a poker face worth a damn. But to my surprise, what I finally pick up in his expression isn’t awkwardness or annoyance.