"What's with the scarf?" Bea, a friend who was really not a friend at all, asked as I walked up and air kissed two of the other girls who were actual friend-friends. Bea was thin to the point of concern, making me wonder since adolescence if her "vacations" she took every year or so were actually vacations at all or trips to eating disorder clinics. She had a crop of short dark hair that worked with her pixie-face and huge gray eyes. To put it mildly, bones sticking out aside, Bea was freaking gorgeous. She was gorgeous and rich and she really liked the things that came with being gorgeous and rich, like gorgeous and rich boyfriends that she constantly cheated on with 'downtown strange' as she called them. Meaning, guys she met at Chaz's, fucked in bathrooms or cars, and never thought of again.
She was a real peach, let me tell you.
"Oh, just something different I'm trying out. Hey Rome," I said, quickly trying to turn my attention away from her. "I didn't know you were coming."
I didn't know because for the past couple of days, I had been really hit or miss about answering his texts. It was something he was too cool of a guy to comment on, but the flash of hurt on his face said it hadn't gone unnoticed. I sidled into his side and rested my chin on his shoulder for a second.
"Sorry I suck. I've been crazy at work this week." My stomach twisted painfully at the lie and I tried hard to ignore it.
His arm went around my waist, hand settling into my hipbone and squeezing. "No worries. Got some stuff going on at work too."
"Maybe we can get together and dish. Not tomorrow though," I said, curling my lip and he laughed, dropping his arm as I moved a step away, somehow feeling less comfortable with being too touchy-feely with Roman after all the comments Paine had made about him and me. It had honestly never crossed my mind before that what I had been doing was inappropriate at all, because it was nothing out of character for me. I was touchy-feely with friends. But I had also never even stopped to consider that maybe Roman didn't see it the way I did.
"Your dad isn't that bad," Rome said, giving me a head shake.
"My company had a better last quarter than his did. The numbers just came in."
"Alcohol!" Rome called out. "Get this poor woman some alcohol!"
I threw my head back and laughed, the movement making my throat hurt, but it felt good to feel good for a minute. Things had been crazy for weeks. I had been so determined to get answers, to figure out the truth, that I had only really been half-living, half-involved in everything around me. Right then, standing in Chaz's in my ridiculous outfit, with three good friends and one not-good, but familiar friend, I felt present. I felt present and okay for a change.
When I reached out for the very blue-looking drink in a stem glass the waitress brought over, I felt my smile falter and fall slightly as I made perfect eye contact with a very unamused looking Paine. My hand closed around the stem of the glass and the waitress moved away, seemingly unconcerned that I hadn't thanked her. But then again, the bar was packed. The bar was packed and I somehow made immediate eye-contact with someone I had been trying not to think about for the past several days. I say trying because, well, there were times when he would pop up. Like... in bed at night. And... in the shower.
See, that one session the night he was in my house seemed to unlock a long-buried need for constant sexual satisfaction. And because that session involved me thinking about Paine, anytime I got the urge to spend some time with my vibrator, his image immediately popped into my head.
It was a problem.
It was especially a problem because the second our eyes locked, I felt a flush overtake my entire body. I felt my sex clench and my breasts get heavy. I felt every shift of the fabric of my dress on my suddenly hypersensitive skin. I felt the sense memory of his lips press into mine.
To put it simply, our eyes locked and I was turned on.
I was starting to feel like some kind of freaking nymphomaniac. It was unsettling.
But not quite as unsettling as the way Paine's eyes looked me over, lingering a minute on my legs which sent a thrill through my body. I liked my legs. They were a testament to the weekly hot yoga sessions and three-times weekly cardio sessions at the gym that kept them looking like they did. They lingered again at my chest, but more briefly, then at my scarf. It was then that his brows drew together like he was confused. Which was understandable. He had sisters and word was that he got around, so he knew women didn't wear freaking scarves with dresses, but whatever. For all he knew, it was the hot new thing in Milan. But by the time his eyes got back to my face, they looked tight and angry.