The crowd was a thick, solid wall of bodies now, and I was making my way slowly through it on sore feet to make an escape when my phone buzzed. I looked at the display. It was Nick.
I tried not to feel excited. I really did. But when I couldn’t hear him over the pounding music, I had a moment of panic until my phone buzzed again with a text.Where are you?
I didn’t know why he was asking. Did he care? He was probably at a party himself somewhere, like he was every night. Maybe even with some girl he wasn’t saying no to.Cintano’s,I wrote.
What are you doing there?
That made me mad. He didn’t have to know I was teetering on the brink of existential despair, so I wroteYou told me to find someone to fuck me. And you won’t do it. So here I am.
He didn’t answer that. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he was too busy with what’s-her-name (I already pictured someone better-looking than me in my head) to use his thumb anymore. Too bad.
People bumped in to me, and someone stepped on my foot. I wasn’t cut out for this; I had to face it. The fight went out of me as I looked at the long distance from me to the faraway exit.Confession,I typed to Nick almost without thinking.It isn’t going very well.
I’ll be right there,he wrote back.Don’t move.
My stomach flipped. In that split second, I forgot about my shitty situation and our fake relationship and our almost-fight, becauseNick was coming to get me.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t get out of here on my own; I could. But right now, in the middle of this crowd, I was so lonely I wanted nothing more than to see a familiar face.Hisface.
I didn’t know exactly where he’d find me, so I spent twenty more minutes making my way through the crowd toward the door. My hair was sticking to my neck and my bra was digging into my ribs under the wrap dress. I had just made it to the thinning crowd near the door—and had gulped down a precious breath of fresh air—when I did, indeed, see a familiar face. Just not the one I wanted.
Gina was wearing a red dress that hung off her perfect frame like a tunic, barely covering her ass. Her hair was long and glorious down her back, and her legs went for miles before ending in three-inch heels. She was with two other women, and she was rifling through her tiny clutch for something. Then she looked up and saw me.
I didn’t know what to do. I was sort of frozen. What I really wanted was to turn and run away, but that would look bad. I could put my chin up and look snobby, maybe, but even I knew my face wasn’t very convincing that way. So I just settled for standing there, once again like a loser, while she came toward me.
“Where is he?” she said. Her perfectly made-up eyes were staring at me like lasers, her nicely glossed lips terrifying in their pouty beauty.
Nick? Did she mean Nick? Why was she asking about him? “He’s coming,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Sure he is. Because you’re totally dating, right?” She looked me up and down, her perfect tongue touching the corner of her mouth. “He’d never date a girl like you. You’re not his type. That’s why you’re at this bar alone. Trying to pick up, huh?”
Jesus. “Butt out,” I told her, narrowing my eyes. “Why areyouhere? Where’s Josh?”
“I’m on a girls’ night out. And I know exactly where Josh is,” Gina said, putting a slight emphasis on my ex-boyfriend’s name. “Josh is not your problem, honey. Nick is.”
“What does that even mean?” I was angry and helpless at the same time, and I didn’t know why. It was just the sight of her, when the last time—the only time—I’d seen her, she’d been half-naked after fucking my boyfriend.
“Josh told me about you,” Gina said. “Little Miss Mommy’s Girl. Practically picking out rings. You think Nick is going to fall for that?” She tutted. “He’ll use you and dump you, if he even bothers. You’re a total fucking bore, and you need to stop eating so much cheesecake. And I’m supposed to believe this little lie that he’s fucking you?”
My mouth opened, and the words came out automatically, like a bitch reflex. “He keeps his condoms in the top right drawer of his bathroom vanity,” I said. “We used three of them last night.”
Gina paused, her glossed lips parted as she stared at me.
“He likes blow jobs,” I said. “A lot.” This was an educated guess, because Nick. Also, every guy liked blow jobs a lot. “He likes it best when I swallow.” Again, this was Nick—another educated guess. “Also, fuck you. Can I go now?”
She still looked at me, as if assessing whether I was lying, and suddenly I was so close to saying it:Josh is cheating on you.It was the truth, and I knew it, and she didn’t. She wasn’t so different from me. I could say those words and hurt her right now. I could ruin her snooty girls’ night out with her snooty friends in her tiny red dress. I could tell her about Alison and Valentine’s Day and all the things I knew.
And I didn’t. It was partly because we were standing in a bar, with people walking by, and I had a complete revulsion for having this conversation here. But it also came from a second reason: I wasn’t mean. I wanted to be. Right now, I wished I was. But I wasn’t.
Gina’s gaze flicked to something past my shoulder, and she licked the corner of her mouth again. It was probably a nervous tic of hers that men found unbearably sexy.
Someone came up behind me, and I smelled leather and laundry soap as a male chest pressed to my back. Nick’s familiar hand came around my waist from behind, and instead of simply grabbing me, he played it just right: he slid his hand over my belly, his palm warm through the fabric of my dress, taking in my contours as he took his time, ending by cupping his fingers over my hipbone. At the same time he tugged me back so he was pressed flush against me, his hand angling me so my ass was pressed snugly against his hips. All of this right in front of Gina’s surprised expression.
And just like that, my body woke up, my blood singing, every nerve ending alive. I didn’t even have to look at him—just his hand, big and sculpted, pressing against my hip and the fabric of my dress, his arm clad in black leather, the two familiar bracelets on his wrist. I’d seen a hundred men tonight, and I’d met half a dozen, and the thought of a single one of them putting a hand on me like this made my stomach turn. And when this one man touched me, everything went nuts.
He dipped his head so his lips brushed the side of my neck. “You ready to go, babe?” he said in that awesome low voice of his, making my pussy throb with the vibration of it.
I put my hand over his. “Yes,” I said.