Blue Notes Read Online Free PDF Page B

keeps catching them.
    “You’re moving,” he says quietly but firmly to the jock. “You just don’t know it yet.”
    “Look, freak show, if you think I’m leaving my girl here with you, you’re a whole ton of crazy.”
    “Forget him,” the woman says, glaring up from under eyelashes thick with blue mascara.
    My stranger shrugs. It’s a show of restrained tension—a hint of what he can do, what he’s holding back—no matter his seemingly carefree demeanor.
    “I didn’t ask you to leave her or take her with you when you go. I want that seat, and that seat only.” He leans over at the waist, nearly eye to eye with the couple. He’s wearing the expression of a father who’s nearly lost his patience and speaks to them just that way, parent to child. “Time to run along. You’ll thank me after.”
    No way. No way will this bullshit work.
    His stare hasn’t wavered since locking eyes with the jock. They square off in silence. The jock has the advantage of probably forty pounds of free-weight muscle. But it doesn’t matter. Amazingly, he’s the one at the disadvantage and I can’t figure out why. He blinks, defeated by steady, glacial blue confidence.
    “Come on, Livvy,” he says. “We don’t need this crap.”
    He shifts so that Livvy can stand on her own. She’s sputtering quiet profanity and tugging her skirt into place. The guy stands just as my stranger straightens to his full height—at least two inches taller. He looks so sleek compared to his bulkier opponent. I shiver thinking that, if forced, he’d be able to hold his own in any fight. Something about his posture. His fluid, powerful grace. I can’t help but take him in from head to toe. He’s treating me to the sweet privilege of another long, appreciative look, when I’d thought pride would keep me from soaking in him again.
    He catches me in the act. He winks. My cheeks burst into flames, embarrassed like nobody’s business. The humor in his smile takes on a sharper edge.
    If I want you, I’ll come find you.
    Yeah, he found me. He’d won some weird duel between us. Or, he’s in the process of winning.
    He extends his hand to the jock. “No hard feelings. Go put two rounds on my tab,” he says, handing the girl Livvy a business card fished out of his wallet. “Jude Villars.”
    Her eyes widen. “No way.” Then she tosses her hair and puts on a defiant expression. “We have a lot of friends here, you know,” she says, like a dare. “Could get expensive.”
    “Then the bartenders will be busy. Enjoy your night.”
    “Thanks.” The jock stops mid-motion. Just as predicted, he’d thanked this man Jude for the trouble of vacating his own seat.
    “Don’t worry,” Jude says. “I won’t rub it in.”
    There’s no huge change to his bright smile, except it suddenly seems dismissive—some change behind his eyes, where his interest winks out. He doesn’t shove them aside. He doesn’t gloat. He simply sits beside me with quiet nonchalance, as if the jock and his girl had never existed.
    “And here we are again.”
    “We weren’t here when we started,” I say. I need water or something. The Sahara has nothing on my parched throat.
    “But you must admit this is a vast improvement over the stairwell.” Leaning back, he crosses his arms as if what he just did was perfectly normal human behavior. Our legs touch, shoved together by the narrow seating. If he wanted to move his thigh away from where it presses against mine, he would’ve done it by now. But he doesn’t.
    I need to take the offensive or I’ll reveal what I know I am: a lamb to the slaughter, ready to walk to my doom for a bit of flirting. “Where do you get the nerve to make a scene like that?”
    “Make a scene? Says you.” He adds a quirking eyebrow to his smirk, which spikes my blush to inferno levels. “Besides, I have a reputation to live up to. Would you believe I’ve been told I’m an arrogant asshole?”
    “Yes, I believe it.”
    “By some