Hustle Me (Bank Shot Romance #1)(31)
Author: Jennifer Foor

"Good idea." Not the reaction I was hoping for. I guess she really did want to forget.

Elle stood up and walked sideways. "I can walk myself upstairs." When she tripped I began to laugh, until she put her weight on me, and walked up the steps.

When we got into the apartment, I told her she had to be quiet and not wake up the kid. It didn’t stop her from laughing at everything I said. We hung out in the kitchen until she got too loud and I was afraid Ryan would come walking out of his room.

She pulled me back to my bedroom and shut the door behind me. I crossed my arms as she walked over to my bed and climbed on top of it. She motioned with her finger for me to join her, but I stood where I was.

Elle giggled and pulled off her top. Her tits weren’t bad, but nice tits weren’t hard to come by. They didn’t compare to her friends, which were still too fresh in my mind to forget about.

“Get over here and help me take off my pants.” Her words were slurred and she was getting all sloppy.

“How about you take your own pants off and I will go grab us some more beers?” I wasn’t very experienced with walking away from pu**y, but I was also not the type of guy to sleep with two friends just because I could. I’d made plenty dick moves in my life and this was still not okay.

“Hurry up. I can’t wait to see what’s hiding underneath those jeans.”

I walked backwards until I got to my door and then I shut it behind me. When I got to Charlie’s bedroom door, I couldn’t remember if it had been open or closed. It was closed now and I was afraid that there might be a pissed off Charlie on the other side. Since I’d taken a few shots through the night with customers and then the last two with Elle, the last thing I wanted to do was go to sleep. My stick was in Charlie’s room, but I knew I didn’t need it to shoot around, so I headed downstairs to a very dark bar.

It was so quiet down there. I walked right into the billiards lounge and turned on the lights. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, but I walked back to my corner table and started racking the balls up.

I found a halfway decent house stick and broke the balls. It felt so good to be shooting on this table again. Of all the places I had ever shot pool, this had to be my favorite table. Shooting pool wasn’t just a hobby for me. It was my whole life. I loved doing it and the fact that I made money didn’t hurt that love. Pool had taken me places and kept me focused. I stayed away from drugs and parties just to focus on my skill. All of the countless hours of practicing had become well worth it. While my friends needed to take trips to rehab, or were even in jail, I was still out playing the game.

I shot a few more racks before I decided to get something to drink. I didn’t want a beer, but a nice glass of bourbon. Joker had told me once that it was his liquor of choice before he got clean. I only drank bourbon when something was weighing on my chest. It helped me relax enough to slow down and make a good decision. Maybe that sounded juvenile, but it did the trick for me.

The bar part of the tavern was still dark, but I knew my way around enough to not have to turn on a light. As I made it to the back, I tripped over something and went falling forward on the floor.

I heard her yell, before I realized it was Charlie. “What the hell?”

I got myself to a sitting position on the floor and tried to focus in the dim light. “Charlie? What are you doing down here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” She held up a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Isn’t it obvious what I’m doing? Can’t you see that I’m drinking away all of my f**kups.” She was talking like she’d been drinking ever since I saw her last. I wanted to laugh, because I couldn’t for the life of me picture her intoxicated, but here she was.

“I came down to shoot pool and clear my head. It’s just something that I do.” I grabbed the bottle out of her hand and drank from it. “I was looking for this when I tripped over you.”

She was leaning against the back wall, so I slid in beside her and leaned back too.

“Did you and Elle have a good time?”

I started laughing, because it was very obvious that me and Elle bothered her. “What do you think?”

She grabbed the bottle out of my hand, no; she jerked it out of my hand. “Ugh, I don’t want to know. If it’s anything like she envisioned, it was epic.”

I laughed again and grabbed the bottle back. Without asking, I found Charlie’s hand and pulled her up. I could see her face more clearly with the billiards lights shining through. “Come shoot a game with me.”

She whined and tried to stop me from pulling her. “I don’t want to play with you.”

“Come on, Charlie. It’s just one game.” I pulled her even closer to the billiards lounge. “One game.”

She rolled her eyes as I led her back to my favorite table. I grabbed the balls and got them set in the rack, then handed her the stick. “I can’t break.”

“Yes you can. Bend over and put your ass into it.” Just mentioning her ass made me think of it.

I took another hit of the bottle and knew I was getting drunk. Nothing bad could happen though. I was locked inside of a building with someone that I trusted, who didn’t want anything to do with me sexually. Nothing bad could happen.

Chapter 19

Charlie

I didn’t know it was Jammer that came downstairs until I heard the pool balls breaking. Then, I wasn’t sure if he was alone. Far be it from me to interrupt his good time with Elle. Obviously, he’d taken my advice and not had sex with her upstairs, if she was, in fact, back there with him.

I kept my jealous sobs to a minimum as I hid behind the bar drinking the bottle of Jack. This was my own fault for sleeping with someone I shouldn’t have. I knew the whole time what kind of guy Jammer was. I knew that he could walk away and never talk to me again and I went through with it anyway.

It wasn’t until he literally came and tripped over me, that I realized he was alone. I wanted nothing more than to know where my friend was, but the second I knew we were alone, I didn’t know how to react. His cologne caught my nostrils and all I could think about were his tattoos and his naked chest.

After I screamed, "What the hell?" I sat back up and tried to focus on Jammer.

He crawled over and sat next to me. "Charlie, what are you doing down here?"

"I could ask you the same thing." I had a bottle of Jack in my hand and I knew he could most likely smell it on me.

"Isn’t it obvious what I’m doing? Can’t you see that I’m drinking away all of my f**kups."