Chapter sixteen

is this an upload?!

Okay, okay, it hasn't been that long but I was excited to write and all that so here it is! Also, this chapter was hell of alot of fun to write!

I would also like to mention two things. One: I never played pool. Well, I have, but never a legit game. So, if it doesn't sound right, I am sorry. I tried Google. Second: There's Spanish in this chap. and you know what that means. Me screwing it up. I tried to look on many sites and this is what I found. I hope it is right and stuff (:

Anyways, here it is!

Love, always, NickyMb <3

Oh, and how about you give me a generous amount of votes for this chapter, please? (:

Ya'll don't even know how long it took me to freaking find that spanish! :p

* Unedited *

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"Raise you five."

"Make it ten."

I have the sweet satisfaction of watching Julio stop mid-step and shoot me a startled look over his shoulder. I bring my finger up and making a twirling motion, telling him to turn around, and I watch as the corner of his mouth quips up before finally making his way to the back wall.

If I was going to gamble, I realized I might as well go all the way. I lean forward and look at the pool table in front of me.

The dimmed light above showcases the square thing in a dull light and there in the middle sat the perfect triangle of tamed balls.

To be honest, when I picture a bar I pictured something totally different. I have been to plenty of clubs in my day, always with Kayla and Mia, and while those nights usually involved dancing, drinking, and Mia getting in a fight, a bar held a more subtle attitude.

Let me rephrase that.

By subtle, I mean less in your face. The horrible band I heard earlier retired for the night and now two dusty speakers on the wooden bar was bleating some 80's soft core music. Most of the occupants seemed to be regulars and most of them stayed in their little groups, or if alone, by the bar with a shot of bourbon.

If I was being even more honest, I would admit to myself that making a deal with Julio was stupid. I had no idea how to play pool and I was still trying to wash away what I did in the parking lot.

When I walked away from him, the reality of what I said settled in. I was going to show Julio the real Kelsey and he was going to show me the real Julio.

The idea of me seeing the other side of Julio, the side that was unpredictable, scared me more than satan in a bikini.

Lost in my thoughts, I don't notice the pool stick in front of me until julio throws it on the pool table. Blinking, I reach for the stick laying in the middle but get stopped by Julio bringing out his and blocking my path.

" Do you even know what you are doing angel?" I give him a look and quickly dodge for the stick. With reflexes like a lion, Julio easily blocks my way again. Frustrated, and not wanting to admit I needed help, I let out a annoyed sigh.

"Do you need a demonstration?! Give me the stick Julio." I watch as he leans forward fast and snatches my stick in his left hand. Pissed, I lean back and fold my arms over my chest.

Silence stretches between us and the 80's music turns into soft punk 90's music. Julio smiles a little and brings my stick out a little taunting me.

"Show me." I lock my jaw and try to figure out a way to get out of this mess. I could either admit that I never once in my life played pool or I could grab the stick and take a leap of faith.

Deciding to go with the later, I reach for my stick, trying my hardest to avoid touching Julio's skin even the slightest.

I try not to make it obvious as I slowly wrap my fingers around the heavy stick and lift it up as if it was some delicate piece of paper. I can tell by the way Julio's eyebrow slightly goes up that he knows I avoided contact for a reason.

Whatever.

To the hell with him anyways.

Popping my butt out like they do in all those movies, I bring my right elbow out and try to make the pool stick straight. Okay, maybe going off what I saw on movies wasn't a good idea, but it was the best I had.

I lean further down, sure I was flashing Julio some of my cleavage, I narrow my eyes and aim the end of my stick at the first color I see. I stay like that for a few seconds, waiting for Julio to move the triangle, and when he doesn't I look up.

I find him leaning against the table on the opposite side, hip propped up, humor etched on every inch of his face. Straightening out and losing my focus, I give him a look. When he doesn't answer my question, I decide to speak first.

"Okay Mr. I know everything. What the hell is so funny?"

He turns and leans his elbows against the edge of the table. He looks up at me from in between his long, black eyelashes and standing like that, he gives me a few view of the snake on his arm stretching around a lean bicep.

"Nothing. I was just wondering how you were going to make a hit without the cue-ball."

I have no idea what a cue-ball is, so I decided to do that whole leap of faith thing again. "Of course I know what a cue-ball is." I try to keep my voice confident, every word betraying that I do this kind of thing all the time. Sadly, Julio was the kind of guy who could see through a lie easily.

"Okay, then hit it." without saying anything else, he reaches over and snatches the triangle thing that held the balls off the table. I redo the whole butt and elbow thing and when I'm in the same position, I take in a breath.

I look at the balls and my need to know nature come though. I count fifteen balls. Seven solid colors, seven strips. One eight ball. I look from the solid seven to the striped twelve.

Seriously, all of them could have been the damn cue-ball.

Taking in another breath and fighting to keep myself from looking up and seeing Julios satisfied smile, I brace myself and decided to just hit a ball. I'm about to do just that when something white catches my eye. In front of the one, the ball sits. To be honest, I'm surprised I missed it.

That has to be the cue-ball.

Smiling, I re-angle my stick, pull back , and aim. I feel my stick run right into the green material in front of the white ball and I grunt a little. The minute it does, I hear dark laughter from above me and when I push my hair out of my face I find Julio with his arms crossed, laughing up a pretty loud storm.

I would have hit him over the head with my stick but I realized I never heard Julio laugh so openly before. Sure, he's hinted at laughs. Secret little sounds under his breath, but never have I heard such a deep, true laugh come from him.

For some reason, it makes me smile.

Maybe he realizes what he's doing or he knew I was smiling, but he stops laughing and unfolds his arms. Before I can tell what's going on, he advances on me.

"Uh, Julio?" I ask, backing up a little. It wasn't that I was scared of him, but who knows what kind of payback he would do to me for smiling at his laugh.

When he takes another step forward, I taking one back, he stops. He looks at me oddly and that's when he realizes that I was backing away from him.

His eyebrows go up. "Is there a dance lesson going on or somethin'?" I shake my head and give him a suspicious look.

"If there is, I have no idea. What I do know is whatever you have up your sleeves won't end well for me." He shakes his head, making that messy, uneven hair move. The song seems to get higher in volume and some group to our left starts to laugh in low, gruff voices.

Distracted by the laughing, Julio quickly comes up, trapping me between him and the wall. My heart beats fast and I watch, mesmerized, as he leans forward and splays his hands on the wall behind me, his arms on either side of my head.

I was locked in place.

Him there.

Hot.

Real.

Sexy as hell.

Again, the smell of something spicy and rich hits my nose and I end up taking in a deep, shaking breath. He comes forward and looks up at me with that half smile.

"I Heard a rumor." He whispers and I look from his lips, to his nose, to those dark eyes.

"And what was that?" I say in a low voice, not trusting my words. He comes forward a little and I feel his arm graze my shoulder and electricity shoots down my arm and ignites this fire in my stomach.

"That you have a tattoo." Shocked, I watch as his smile gets bigger at my reaction. I have no idea how he knew I had a tattoo but I had a sinking feeling that Aiden had told him a few things about me. I'm sure he got all his information from Mia herself.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He clicks his tongue a little and comes closer. With his mouth close to my ear, he says in a soft voice.

"Just watch chica, one day I will see that tattoo and be able to know where it's at without even trying." I know what he was hinting at and it made my mouth dry. The idea of Julio ever getting that close to me, seeing parts of me I only let a few guy's see, scared me.

It also excited me.

"That is if you can find it." My mother always told me that playing with fire was a bad idea. But, if Julio thought teasing me was the way to anything, he better get his facts straight. I might not be wild, or rebellious, or throw little hints out like Julio does all the time, but if he wanted to play I was willing to go all the way.

He opens his mouth, I'm sure to throw something equally thrilling back, but instead we get interrupted by someone clearing their throat. I look over Julios shoulder and see some guy around our age standing against the pool table, a smile tugging at his pierced lip.

He has tattoos running up and down his arms, way more than Julio, and his right ear is full of piercings of every size and shape.

His hair is shaved close to his scalp and I'm sure if I saw him in some dark alley I would avoid even stepping in his shadow.

Julio turns away from me and looks at the new guy. Just when I think Julio might not know the guy, Julio smiles a little and nods his head in resignation. "Hola Rico. qué pasa?" I took enough of Spanish class my freshman year to know he asked the guy what's up or something like that.

The guy, Rico, laughs and lifts his chin toward me. "Estoy seguro de que su fecha no puede hablar Mexican." I have no idea what he was saying, and thankfully, he decides to repeat in English. "I'm sure your date can't speak Mexican. Right, amigo? Care to introduce me?!"

I can tell that Rico either didn't care to learn English or he liked to stay within his language. His accent was more deep and was harder for me to understand than Julios. You could tell he took pride in where he came from and probably wouldn't be found hanging with someone like me.

Julio shakes his head again and his eyes snake to mine for a minute and back to Rico. "This is Kelsey. If you even look at her the wrong way, you can shove that amigo up your ass. " Rico laughs good heartily and shoves his thumb behind his shoulder .

"Don't worry, I can take a hint. My friends notice you two, ah, playing a game of pool and wanted to know if you were up for a game."

"Kelsey doesn't gamble."

"Kelsey can speak for herself." I state and Julio turns toward me and narrows his eyes a little. I give him a look, letting him know that if he ever decided to speak for me again I would rip his dick off and shove it down his throat. He brings his hands up in defense, palms facing me.

"Okay, even I can take a hint." A little annoyed that Julio thinks he knows me, I push past him and look over the pool table at Rico.

"What's the stakes." I look at him, eyes never once leaving his, and I watch as a slow smile crawls over his face. He looks over my shoulder at Julio and whistles though his teeth.

"You got a feisty one my brotha."

"I know." If I wasn't waiting to hear what he said, I would have never of heard Julio mutter those words. Rico, now back to the question I asked earlier, looks me up and down.

While his eyes scan my body I take a moment to calm myself. I wanted to play the game, right? So here I was trying my hardest not to slap that look off his face.

Though, when I feel Julio tense behind me, I can't help but smile slightly.

Was he jealous?!

Rico brings his hand up and rubs his chin. "I would bet that if we win, I would take you home for the night, but Julio made it clear no one would be touching you without a fight."

He takes in a breath and rubs his hands together. "How bout' 100$?"

"150 and if you win Julio will buy you all a round of drinks." Payback for earlier. Rico lets out a hard, loud laugh and nods his head.

"You drive a hard bargain mamacita."

I bring my hand out and wait for him to meet it in the middle. "Deal or not?" Rico takes a firm hold of my hand and looks behind me at Julio. "Get ready amigo, because I am about to kick your culo."

I watch as he lets go of my hand and struts to his group of boys. Swallowing, I turn around and find Julio leaning against the wall, one legged kicked up, his hands in his pockets.

He's looking at me a little thoughtfully, a look on him that kind of fits well. "What?" I ask, licking my lips. He watches the motion and his eyes travel from my lips and back to my face.

"I have this thing were I tend to underestimate you. I should really stop doing that."

I don't have time to say anything as Rico and five guys make their way to the pool table. Three go and get pool sticks and Rico folds his arms and looks at Julio and me.

"Okay, here's the plan. There is eight of us total so that means four on my team, four on yours. Two will go first from each team and the winners will play the next two. If it comes to a tie, meaning my team wins one game and yours the other, then the two teams that won go head to head in a match. Whoever wins that one, gets the money and a round of drinks. Deal?"

It takes me a minute to go over his words and when I finally get what he is saying, I look at Julio and nod my head. Julio grabs both of our sticks that was on the table and passes one to me.

"You have got a deal."

"And oh," Rico says, grabbing a pool stick from on of his guys and aiming it at Julio. "I get to chose your other two team mates."

His smile was pure evil

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Shit!"

The profanity leaks from Rico's mouth like venom as Julio closes one eye and takes his last shot, making the 8 ball, the only ball on the table, go into the pocket.

The minute it hits the net, I cheer and throw my stick in the air in triumph. Julio looks over his shoulder at me and smiles a half smile before straightening out and looking over at Rico. Who, might I add, was fuming.

"If what just happened did indeed happen, then that means we are at a tie my man. "

Rico pushes one of his teammates out of the way and tells another to put the balls back in a triangle.

Mine and Julio's other teammates, the guy's Rico chose, pretty much forfeited the game and let their pals win. Which meant, when me and Julio took the stage, we had to win.

I knew what was a stake and I tried my hardest, I really did. Julio tried giving me a few pointers but after only sinking two balls and pretty much missing the others, I thought making this deal was the stupidest thing ever.

Turns out though that Julio kicked major, well, ass.

Now staring at the possibility of actually winning, I twirl my stick in my hand and look over at Julio. He looks away from Rico, as if sensing my eyes on him, and turns toward me.

I smile and Julio looks at it with wistful eyes. "I would play a million pool games if I could see that smile everytime angel."

"Is that a compliment?"

"No," He says, his voice in his throat. "That's a fucking promise."

I stare at him, wondering what this meant. What any of this meant. Tonight has seriously been one of the best nights of my life and it brings me back to the ball a long time ago.

I remember standing with Mia and some dark stranger in a mask asked me to dance. When I tried to decline, Mia pushed her way in and soon I was heading toward the dance floor.

Turns out my dark stranger was in front of me at this moment.

That night was something special, the way we danced by so many people yet it felt like we were the only two there.

His dark eyes would stare at me through the mask and I had to keep looking away before I did something stupid. He held me, even though he didn't know me, like some delicate flower he wanted to get to know.

When our dance got cut short, I was disappointed. Though, reality hit me short after and I knew I was never going to see him again and I didn't want to.

Boys were trouble.

But, I did see him again. Julio has been almost everywhere lately and I realized I liked him there.

Nick, he was the kind of friend I would go to if I needed someone to help me with homework or to discuss a project. Julio was someone I went to when I wanted to do something daring and hot.

Gradually, Julio was someone I was starting to care about. That was all I could give him though. It was all I was willing to put up.

"You ready?!" I'm pulled out of my thoughts by Rico looking to our side and pulling the triangle up from the newly arranged balls.

I get a firm grip on my stick, and after flipping a coin to decide who went first, Rico's partner, some guy named Emilio, got ready to hit the Cue-ball.

Julio stands next to me, leaning against his stick a little and watching the pool table with intent eyes.

We watch, Julio pays attention, and I just wait till it's my turn to go. I still have no idea how to play and the only way I know we won the last game or where to shot, is because Julio tells me beforehand.

To be honest, I wish I knew what the hell was going on. That way I didn't need Julio there to guide me along and maybe I could actually make a few shots I could be proud of.

Minutes go by, and before I even know what's happening, It's my turn to shoot. I look at the table and I see where my best position would be. I see a solid to the far right, the white ball next to it and and close to the pocket, so I decide to try that.

I have no idea if that was the best shot or not, so I just lean over and bring my stick up. Rico's team gets quite and I even notice one of our teammates on his side.

Fair game my ass.

I take in a breath, about to make the shot, when I feel something skim across my finger. I stop, about to straighten out, when I feel someone press against my back firmly. I would've freaked out if I didn't catch the familiar scent of spiciness.

My heart picking up, I feel Julio bring a hand to my elbow and slowly run it down my arm till it reached my hand holding the stick. I feel him come closer, his thighs rubbing against mine, and he brings his head down.

"That shot won't work." He says softly. With the hand that was holding my stick, his fingers lower and he threads them through mine, his softly covering my own.

"Also," He breathes out, his breath making goosebumps form down my back and up my arms. "You are standing all wrong." I feel him bring his open hand and lay it on my hip lightly.

I can feel his warm hand through the material of my dress and I hold my breath as he brings my hip back and up some. His whole body was running the length of mine and as much as I needed to get away, I did the opposite.

Relaxing against his body, I feel as he slowly moves his hand up my hip, over my stomach, down my arm, and to my other hand. It was the slowest, and softest, thing I have ever seen him do.

He moves my other hand, straightens my elbow, and brings his lips back to my ear. "And that," He says, his hot breath moving my hair off my shoulder. " Is what I call a killer shot angel. I want you to hit the white ball a little to the left, if you do just that, it will sink two of our balls. "

When I feel him move away from me, taking his warmth with him, I take in a shaky breath and make the shot.

Both balls go in.

I look at the table, then to Julio, then back to the table. "Oh my god," I state, in a manner of shock. " I just made a fucking hit!" My excitement takes over me and I turn to my right and I before I know it, I wrap my arms around Julio's neck in a hug.

Laughing, Julio brings his hands down and wraps them around my waist, lifting me up a little. "You know angel," He says lightly, "I never heard you curse before."

"I don't even care." I say, feeling his arms around me tighten the smallest of bits. and even though, an hour later and 150$ lost to a game, I would remember that hug. Him holding me tightly and me basking in the pure touch of him.

And I knew from that moment, that I, Kelsey Mays, was doing the one thing I swore I would never do.

I was falling for Julio Hernandez..