Maybe Not (Maybe #1.5)(10)
Author: Colleen Hoover

Ridge backs up until his hand is on the front door. “I’m going to Maggie’s for the night,” he signs. “We’ll pray for you.”

I flip him off as he makes his way out. When I turn back to face Bridgette, she’s walking toward her bedroom. She passes the TV and doesn’t even have the audacity to plug it back in.

I plug in the TV, because there isn’t a doubt in my mind now. I have to find that porno, because after experiencing that kiss, I’m addicted. Addicted to all things Bridgette.

• • •

I barely slept last night. Being in the same apartment with her, knowing Ridge and Brennan were both gone, was too much. It took all I had not to make an excuse to knock on her bedroom door. But I’m learning how her mind works, and I know she’d turn me down in a heartbeat just to stay in control.

And now, Ridge and Brennan are both still gone and she’s at work and I’ve exhausted all the porn on pay-per-view. I can’t keep track of how much porn I’ve watched in the past two weeks. It’s ridiculous. How many could there possibly be? And I’ve narrowed it down to the ones that have been recorded in the last few years, because she had to be over eighteen when she filmed it. She’s twenty-two now, so that’s four years of porn films to sift through.

Oh, my God. I’m obsessed.

I’m like a stalker.

I am a stalker.

The front door swings open and Bridgette walks in. She slams it shut so hard, I flinch. She walks to the kitchen and begins opening cabinets and banging them shut. She finally rests her palms on the bar and looks straight at me. “Where the hell do you keep the alcohol?”

Bad day, I guess.

I stand up and walk over to the sink. I open the cabinet beneath it and take out the bottle of Pine-Sol. I don’t even bother grabbing her a glass. She looks like the type who can take a good swig.

“Are you trying to kill me?” she asks, staring at the bottle in my hands.

I push it into her hand. “Ridge thinks he’s clever by hiding it in old cleaner bottles. He doesn’t like it when I drink all his alcohol.”

She brings the bottle to her nose and winces. “Is whiskey the only thing you have?”

I nod. She shrugs and brings the bottle to her lips, tilts her head back, and takes a long swig.

She hands the bottle back to me as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. I take a sip from the bottle myself and then hand it back to her. We do this several times until her anger seems to have subsided, as much as anger can subside in Bridgette’s world. I put the top back on the bottle and return it to the cabinet.

“Bad day?” I ask.

She leans against the counter and pulls at the elastic of her orange shorts. “The worst.”

“Want to talk about it?”

She looks up at me through her lashes and then rolls her eyes. “No,” she says flatly.

I don’t push it. I don’t even know that I really want to know about her day. Anything and everything seems to set her off, so she’s probably pissed over something stupid, like a red light on her way home. It has to be exhausting to respond to all aspects of life with so much anger.

“Why are you always so mad?”

She laughs under her breath. “That’s easy,” she says. “Assholes, stupid customers, a shitty job, worthless parents, crappy friends, bad weather, annoying roommates who don’t know how to kiss.”

I laugh at the last comment, which I’m sure was supposed to be a dig, but it felt more like an underhanded flirt.

“How are you so happy all the time?” she asks. “You think everything is funny.”

“That’s easy,” I say. “Great parents, being lucky enough to have a job, loyal friends, sunny days, and roommates who starred in porn films.”

She glances away quickly in an attempt to hide a smile that almost appeared on her face. God, I wish she would let that smile out, because I’m dying to see what it looks like. As long as she’s lived here, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen her smile.

“Is that why you watch so much porn? Because you’re hoping to find out which one I was in?”

I don’t nod, but I don’t shake my head, either. I lean my hip into the counter and fold my arms over my chest. “Just tell me the name of it.”

“No,” she says quickly. “Besides, I was just an extra. I didn’t even really do anything.”

An extra. That helps narrow down my search a little.

“Didn’t really do anything doesn’t mean didn’t.”

She rolls her eyes at me, but she’s still standing here, so I keep going. “Were you naked?”

“It was a porn, Warren. I wasn’t wearing a sweater.”

That means yes.

“Did you have sex on camera?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“But you made out with a guy?”

She shakes her head again. “Wasn’t a guy.”

Holy fuck.

I turn around and grip the bar with one hand while making the form of a cross over my body with the other. When I turn back around, she’s still standing in the same spot, but she actually looks relaxed. She should drink whiskey every day.

“So you’re telling me you made out with another girl? And it’s documented somewhere? On film?”

The corner of her mouth curls up into a ghostly smile.

“You smiled.”

She stops smiling immediately. “I did not.”

I take a step toward her and nod my head. “Yes, you did. I made you smile.”

She begins to shake her head in disagreement, so I slip my hand behind her neck. Her eyes widen, and I’m almost positive she’s about to push me away, but I can’t help it. That smile.

“You did smile, Bridgette,” I whisper. “And you need to own it, because it was fucking beautiful.”

She gasps in shock right before my lips crash against hers. I don’t think she was expecting this kiss to happen, but she certainly isn’t objecting. Her mouth is warm and responsive and when I part her lips with my tongue, she actually lets me.

I don’t know if it’s the whiskey or her, but my heart is thrashing around in my chest like a caged beast. I slide my hands down her back until they meet her ass and I squeeze as I pick her up and set her back down on the bar.

Our lips separate, and we stare at each other silently, each of us hesitant to believe that the other isn’t about to walk away again. When I realize that neither of us seems to want to stop this, I bring my hands up to her cheeks and lean in again, taking her lips between mine.