“You two together?” A smile lights Qwest’s sharp eyes.
“On and off since high school,” Parker says.
Mostly off, but no need to split hairs right now.
“No way.” Qwest’s mouth hangs open a little. “I had no idea.”
Neither did I.
“I actually escorted Bristol to her debutante ball.” Parker tucks his chin into the crook of my neck. “That’s how it started.”
In my eighteen-year-old mind, sex in that coat check was such an adventure. Little did I know that would be the high point. I spent the next four months trying my damnedest to shake Parker and have been shaking ever since. That tick in Grip’s jaw tells me he remembers the story I told him about screwing my escort, but until now, he never knew the guy.
“You were a debutante?” Qwest laughs, looking at me through the lens of my family’s wealth and pedigree. “Wow.”
“In another life, and at my mother’s insistence.” I put a little distance between my ass and Parker’s dick, because apparently, trips down memory lane arouse him.
“We better go.” Grip grabs Qwest’s hand and turns to leave abruptly without saying goodbye.
Qwest waves over her shoulder and stutter steps to keep up with Grip’s swift, long-legged stride away from us.
I should feel good that this is working even better than I planned. Qwest is with Grip. Grip saw me with Parker. All is going according to plan, but it feels so wrong. I watch Grip and Qwest slip through a side exit, hand in hand, and wonder, too late, if maybe I’ve made a big mistake. Actually seeing him with another woman—someone he could really fall for—saws at my insides. He was right, up on that roof. It hurts me to see him with someone else, every time. I know I could have him, but not on my terms. Probably not forever. Probably not to myself. It’s ironic. People think I’m heartless. That I don’t care enough. That isn’t it. This ache, this wound bleeding on the inside of me, it tells the truth of how I really feel.
And I’m sick and damn tired of feeling. I want to forget that Grip is probably falling for Qwest tonight. Probably sleeping with her tonight. I want to be numb. I want the best vodka martini money can buy, even if I do have to fly to Vegas with Parker to get it.
“Hey.” I turn to Parker, determined to feel less by the end of this night. “What about that drink you promised me?”
Grip
“YOU DON’T LIKE stand-up comedy?”
Qwest’s question pulls me out of my own head, where thoughts of Bristol with that punk ass Parker have tortured me ever since we left the club. So Parker’s the coat check guy. And the man her mother has wanted her to marry since the cradle.
“What?” I frown and force myself to focus. “No, I love Chappelle. I can’t believe we caught a show.”
Dave Chappelle has been doing surprise shows in the city, and we were lucky to catch one tonight.
“Do you not like steak?” Qwest points her fork at the medium rare meat on my plate, nearly untouched.
“Love it.” I take a bite. “This is delicious.”
I survey the private dining room of the restaurant still open solely to accommodate us at this late hour. We’re the only customers here. Qwest’s security guard stands just outside the door.
“So do you not like me?” Qwest injects humor, but her eyes beg the question.
I feel like shit. She went to a lot of trouble to make tonight fun, exactly what I would have chosen. I’ve been half here the whole time. The other half of me can’t stop wondering where Parker took Bristol on the “flight” he mentioned. I need to make more of an effort.
“You know I like you, Qwest.” I toss my linen napkin on the table. “I’m sorry I’ve been so . . .”
I search my tired mind for the right word.
“Preoccupied?” Qwest finds it for me.
“Yeah. It’s rude, and you’re great. It isn’t you.”
I lob a smile across the table before lifting my water for a sip.
“Would you like to fuck me, Grip?”
I almost spew my water. I grab the napkin to dab at the corners of my mouth.
“It’s a yes or no question,” she continues unfazed.
“Um, maybe it isn’t.” I would laugh if this wasn’t so awkward. “I’m attracted to you, yeah. Of course.”
“I know that.” She walks over, slides between the table and me, and straddles my hips. “But what do you want to do about it?”
Her wrists link at the back of my neck. I run my hands up and down her back. She’s slim and tight and supple beneath her silk dress. She’d let me take her right on this table where her guard could hear her scream when she comes.
“Is there someone else?” Voice dropped, she runs a hand over my closely cropped hair.
“Yeah.” I release a breath, my voice low and husky, too. I shake my head. “No.”
“That’s also a yes or no question.” She slips her hand into the collar of my shirt and runs a long nail over my shoulder.
“I don’t know.” I try to focus on the conversation even as her touches distract me. “I’m just realizing that she may not feel the same way.”
“Then she’s a fool.” Qwest rocks her hips into me, the heat between her legs like a furnace on my dick.
I gently push her back to put some distance between us.
“Qwest, I like you.” I look her right in the eyes. I learned my lesson with Tessa. I’m not that dude who leads girls on anymore. “I respect you and think you’re amazing. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. I’m afraid that’s what would happen. We got business together. We’re friends. Maybe we shouldn’t mess with that.”
“Let me worry about it.” She scoots forward again. “I’m going into this with my eyes wide open.”
She leans into me and sucks my earlobe into her mouth.
Fuck. It’s been too long since I had some.
My dick rises to the occasion, and she pulls back with a satisfied chuckle.
“So what do you say?” She opens her lips over my jaw, mumbling against my neck. “We doing this or what?”
“Um . . .” My underserved libido and my anger over Bristol riding off into the sunset with that punk ass urge me to say yes.
Gripe? Motherfucker, you know my name.
“You have a few days off.” Qwest slides her hands over my back under my shirt, lightly raking the skin with her fingernails. “Fly back with me to New York tomorrow night and I’ll screw myself into your system.”
A million, no more, guys would kill to have Qwest and her ass in their lap right now. I know this. It isn’t her. I’m just so tired of being with anyone who isn’t Bristol. In all these years, I haven’t figured out how to move past what started between us. I know it was only a week. And we were young. And I mishandled the situation with Tessa. I get all that, but it wasn’t just a few kisses on spring break. It’s the friendship we’ve built since then. It’s her passion about my writing, about my work. Her commitment to her brother. Her knife-sharp sense of humor. The soft, sweet side only a handful of people get to see. It’s the way she tastes. The texture of her skin. Her hair. Her laugh. The conversations I can have with her and no one else. Everyone who thinks we’re not right for each other doesn’t know her, doesn’t know me, or doesn’t know how good we are together.
I want Bristol. Not anyone else.
And that’s a problem, because for the first time, I have to consider the possibility that she doesn’t, not even deep down where I thought she did, want me.
Bristol
THERE’S A MAN in my bed.
I barely know my name. I’m not sure who’s leading the free world or what year it is, but I do know there is a man in my bed. I at least know that is unusual. I don’t do sleepovers.
At least sober Bristol doesn’t do sleepovers. Apparently, after one . . . or two . . . or eight vodka martinis, drunk Bristol does sleepovers.
The guy is naked. I do know that. Man parts poke between my butt cheeks.
My naked butt cheeks.
Dammit, I’m naked. He’s naked. In my bed. At my house. The likelihood that we didn’t have sex diminishes with every detail I absorb through my pickled senses. My thong and bra, a man’s pants, suit jacket and shirt leave a sinful trail across the hardwood floor of my bedroom. To the left, a man’s expensive watch rests on my mirrored nightstand. Under the duvet cover, which I’ll probably burn later, a muscled forearm reaches across my hip, and a hand flattens against my stomach. He pushes my hair aside and trails kisses down my neck.