“Later, then?”He gives me a cheeky grin, then quickly shakes it off.“All jokes aside, I want you to know I respectyour feelings on the matter.If it’s what you want, we’ll keep our relationship strictly professional and friendly.But I have this feeling...Is that actually what you want?”he says, his mouth dangerously close to that little place just behind my ear as he leans even farther in, handing me a shot from a large tray in the middle of the table.
I don’t think I can do this.Be this close to him.Hide how much I want him in this moment—andanymoment, for that matter.
“I’ve had enough.Have to keep my wits about me,” I say, pushing the shot glass away, starting to feel like I’m in dangerous territory.Drunk, flirtatious, and entirely sweet Matt is doing nothing to help hide the memory of what happened on the street a few nights ago.
“I’m sorry,” he says, entirely serious.“Please stay.”
“Probably best I go.I don’t do karaoke anymore.”
“Well, that’s too bad, because I actually already chose us a song,” he says, pulling an awkward face.
I snap my head around to look at him, his eyes a little glazed, a smile on his face.
“I hope you did not,” I say.
“I certainly did.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Matt,” I reply, trying to laugh despite the mortification.“Cancel it.Just let Archie do ‘Addicted to Love’ and let’s all get out of here.”
He shrugs, a smug look on his pretty face.
“I mean it.Cancel it,” I say, hauling myself up.I wander through the club searching for Keyla, elbowing my way past throngs of drunk twentysomethings.I spot McLaren in the opposite corner to us, but no Keyla.Damn it.
My stomach knots as I push into the quiet of the bathroom.
I stare at myself hard in the mirror.It is now clear to me how deluded I was back then, because this Matt?The one out there?He wants me.I can feel it in every intense glance.In every touch of his hand on my arm.
Still, I don’t trust it.What if I’m just some plaything?What if he only fancies me because I’m what’s in front of him at this vulnerable point in his life?What if it doesn’t mean something to him in the way it does to me?And yet, as I think it, I’m not sure I believe it.
“What have you gotten yourself into, Chloe?”I say to my reflection, and then I sigh, heavily, just as another woman emerges from the adjacent stall.
“Men, right?”she says, pulling out an eyeliner.
“Keyla!”I say, spinning around, pulling her in for a hug.“I looked everywhere.”
“I saw you,” she says, pulling back, laughing.“Was waiting for the right moment to slip across the aisle and party with the competition.”
“I think I’m going home,” I say, grimacing.
“Matt?”
“Matt.”I don’t say any more, but instead study myself in the mirror, looking for the answer in the purple shadows beneath my eyes.I’m exhausted.I cannot lose myself to Matt and whateverthisis.I can’t.I have to protect my fledgling career first and foremost.
“I saw it the other night,” she says, turning to me, the music thrumming through the bathroom walls.“The way you two looked at each other.”
“I gave it all away, didn’t I?”I say pitifully.
“The way he looks atyou, Chloe.”She bites her lip as though she doesn’t want to elaborate.Then she sighs.“Honestly, it’s like he has real feelings for you.”
“Oh god.”I glance around the room and lower my voice.“I wish we could talk properly,” is all I can squeeze out.“I’m really struggling.”
“You wanna split?”she asks.“Give me, like, an hour?”
I nod.“Maybe.I might be gone before then with the way this night is headed.”
Keyla slumps against the wall.“I just worry for you, Chloe,” she says.“I want you to be happy, and maybe Matt is the person who can do that.It would just looksobad.Maybe when you’ve proved yourself, in time...but now?”
“It’s impossible,” I say, my voice almost a whisper.
