Emma Swan has been on a lot of awful dates. She’s been cheated on, lied to, has had her date flirt with other women instead of with her.
And that was just with Neal.
She’s learned how to get past all that, though. Especially through the bail bonds business, she’s learned how to deal with asshole men -- and, usually, even in their incredibly drunk states, they realize what she’s doing, how defensive she’s become, and they leave her alone.
But the man sitting next to her at the bar tonight is not one of these men. The man sitting next to her tonight is belligerent, drunk, and altogether jackassish.
That’s totally a word. If it wasn’t before, it is now.
She stopped listening about ten minutes ago, but that doesn’t mean that he’s stopped talking. In fact, he’s currently going on and on about whether the Cubs should have signed someone that another team won the bid for, anger rising through him as he talks more and more about it.
Fuck the Cubs, she thinks. Why is he even in Boston if he’s a damned Cubs fan? But that’s nothing compared to the anger rising through her as his hand inches closer and closer to her arms, resting against the bar.
And then, it happens. She feels his hand on her arm and is about to fly off the rails, about to really lose her cool, when she suddenly sees a new plan of action: a man, walking towards the empty space at the bar on the other side of her.
He leans up against the counter, his toned arms peeking out from under the sleeves of his tee-shirt, and he smiles at Emma. So she goes in, wrapping her hand around his forearm.
“Hi,” she breathes, smiling at her as she leans into him, pressing her lips against his cheek. “This jackass won’t leave me alone, just stay here until he leaves, please?”
She pulls back, watching him look over her and at the jackass in question, before turning his eyes down to her and nodding.
“Of course, darling,” he says, wrapping his arm around her waist, then ordering his Captain and coke from the bartender. She hears the babbling from the man behind her cease, and it does not take long before he’s tossed a few bills on the bar and disappeared.
Emma’s learned that his name is Killian, and that he works for one of the publishing houses down by the water as a writer and an editor. She tells him that she’s in bail bonds, and he takes a very pointed look at her body for the first time, down to her heels and back up to her face, before wetting his lips and ticking the corner of his mouth up into a smile.
“Is this one of your, what do you call them? Honey traps?”
“No,” she says, shaking her head, but leans closer to him, her hand still pressed onto his arm. “This is just what I wear for a night at the bar.”
There’s an obvious attraction between them, one that flickers hotter with every touch shared between them.
It is not until the man next to her -- the Jackass That Started It All -- leaves that she realizes she’s failed to ask him what he’s doing out that night, and he’s told her about his shitty day at work, his editor that basically told him his manuscript was trash and the fact that he uprooted everything he knew in England to come work here when she realizes that they’re still touching, even though the Jackass has been gone for a few minutes.
“So, you have no one in Boston?” she asks, running her finger down the length of his forearm, a movement that she watches him follow with his eyes.
“No, I’ve yet to be here long enough to forge relationships,” he responds, turning his eyes back up to hers. “Though I wouldn’t be opposed to starting.”
She’s hoping that she’s read the signs correctly, that she’s interpreted this statement the way he meant for her to, but is most of the way through leaning towards him to press her lips against his by the time the thought reaches the front of her mind.
But when his hand comes up and wraps around the back of her neck, his fingers getting lost in her blonde curls as his warm lips press against hers, she knows she was right.
send me prompts to keep me sane!
