We get dressed in silence, but we keep darting each other little playful glances as we do. Looking at Leah now, my heart keeps skipping beats as I realize how much I like her. She isn’t like the others, she’s more. I know her, I’ve known her for years, there’s something deep between her. I guess I just never realized how chemical our connection was before. It’s off the scale, it’s magnetizing me, I really do want to know more.
“Shall we get another drink when we get downstairs?” I ask Leah, not ready to give up her company just yet.
“Oh…” She looks shocked. I don’t blame her. Much as I know Leah, she knows me too, and that includes my reputation. “Yes, that’s awesome. I would love to get a drink with you.”
She stands in her underwear, cocking her head to one side with the prettiest smile that I’ve ever seen playing on her lips. It takes everything that I have not to wrap my arms around her and to throw her onto the bed again. If anything about this situation was different, I would do just that. But we have other people to think about.
I break the eye contact
and continue to get dressed, all the while smirking to myself with glee. This feels good, this sensation is awesome, I don’t want it to end. Of course, that’s scary, but I’ll get to that later.
Once we’re dressed, Leah peeks her head out the door, and she nods for me to follow her. As we walk out into public again, we giggle like crazy teenagers… which I suppose we are. It’s almost as if we’re surrounded by a heady lust that must be obvious to absolutely everyone. As we walk down the stairs, I can see that nothing has really changed, the room still looks exactly the same, even if everything has changed for me and Leah.
“I think I’ll go and make my presence known to Mandi,” Leah leans and whispers to me, sharing a taboo secret. “Not that she looks concerned about where I am, but I better go and check in.”
“Sure. You do that, I’ll go and get us drinks.” I want to squeeze her hand. I want to lean in and kiss her again. It’s killing me that I can’t. I feel trapped in a cage. “I’ll come and find you afterwards, okay?”
She gives me that heart stopping smile again before nodding. “Alright. See you in a moment.”
As she walks off, I can’t keep my hands off her butt. I’ve had a bit of a glance at it now, I know how that body of hers looks naked, and it’s incredible. Maybe she doesn’t look like a porn star, but I prefer that. She has a natural gorgeous stunning look that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get out of my head again.
Right, time to go and get drinks, I tell myself. Then I can hang out with her again.
I haven’t had much time to actually talk with Leah for years, I guess the older we’ve gotten the more I’ve pulled myself away from her. Mostly because Brandon is my friend not her, and because she’s younger than us, maybe because I’ve been more interested in other women than her. But now, she’s all of my mind. She’s everything. I’ve noticed Leah before, but now I’m really seeing her and I like what I see. My heart swells at the thought of her, my chest is warm, everything about Leah is making me feel good about myself.
I hum a tune to myself as I walk towards the drink table, I feel like I’m flying high. I don’t even want to drink booze, I feel like I’m high on life, this is awesome. I am almost skipping with glee as I go.
“Zane!” Brandon’s voice makes my blood run cold. The sound of him reminds me that all isn’t as wonderful and carefree as I would like it to be. “Hey, Zane, I’ve been looking for you, where have you been?”
I turn my body slowly and force a fake smile onto my face. “Hey, I’ve just been about. All okay?”
“I thought I just saw you with my sister?” Shit, he’s giving me an inquisitive look.
“Oh, yeah, I was just… I talked to her for a minute, just to ask her if she’s okay.”
My shoulders hunch up around my ears, tension stiffens my spine, I expect the worst… but thankfully I don’t get it. Instead, Brandon peers over my shoulder as if he’s distracted by something else entirely.
“I just want to let you know that Rosa is here and she’s on the war path.”
“Oh… fuck.” Everything sinks, I feel really weird. Losing myself in the magic of Leah has caused me to forget about all the other issues that I have going on in my life. And that’s all of them… but knowing that Rosa is here again it all comes flooding back. “Is she acting crazy? Is she looking for me?”
“You know that she is.” Brandon pats me on the back in a sympathetic gesture. “Sorry, buddy. Try and stop her from trashing up my house. My mom will absolutely lose her shit if she does.”
I know slowly, wishing that I had the power to make that happen. The more I learn about Rosa, the more I realize that she’s a force to be reckoned with. All I want to do is get a drink and hang out with Leah, but first off, I’m going to have to deal with this situation before it gets out of hand. I don’t want to make it worse.
“Right, okay. I guess I will go and find her then.” I roll my eyes. “Try and sort her out, wish me luck.”
I walk nervously through the crowds, trying to spot the hurricane, the storm that’s about to roll through everything and destroy it all. I don’t spot her at first which only amps up my anxiety because I know that she’s here, ready to leap on me and take me down at any given moment. Like a predator hunting its prey. I’m like a scared little field mouse creeping through the grass, trying to find the eagle before it gets at me.
“Zane!” Oh shit, there she is, yelling at me. And boy, she sounds pissed. I get the horrible sensation that I’m about to have the best night of my life transformed into the worst. “Zane Morris, come here and talk to me. You have a lot of explaining to do. Don’t you even think about turning away from me.”
Oh, how little you know… I think to myself, but of course I don’t say that aloud.
“Sure, Rosa,” I say without turning around to see her. “Whatever you want.”
Chapter Nine – Leah
“Oh, I’m so sorry that I’ve left you for so long!” Mandi apologizes with red, flushed cheeks as she giggles girlishly. “It’s just Jon has been keeping hold of me all night long. I don’t know what to do with myself.”