I shift on my feet, nervously.
Heath and the guy standing next to him raise their eyebrows at me and wince. Suddenly I feel stuck in an uncomfortably awkward situation. Nobody says anything else to me, and it seems quite blatant that I’m not welcome in whatever conversation they were having or going to have.
The silence between us starts feeling suffocating. I’m nauseated by the thought of having to walk away and sit at the bar alone. Why did Nate ask me to come hang out with him if he didn’t want me around? I look up at him through my lashes. They’re the fake ones that Julia uses and I feel like caterpillars are resting on my eyelids.
Nate’s acting like we don’t even know each other, like we didn’t share a passionate kiss in a packed stadium and he didn’t tell me he should have stayed with me instead of run after Julia.
He pounds back both his drinks and shrugs. “It’ll all work out.” He spins around on his stool, turning his back to me and starts a low conversation to an older woman from marketing sitting on the other side of him. Heath joins in, agreeing with something that she answered with.
My stomach lurches and my skin feels hot and sweaty. I feel stupid. I’m standing behind them, staring at their backs like they all forgot I was here. Or worse—maybe they’re ignoring me on purpose. The bar seems instantly smaller and more crowded. I feel like everyone is watching me, but that’s silly because no one is looking at me—no one sees me at all.
I back away and bump into someone, immediately apologizing.
The woman I hit into looks at me with pure hatred in her eyes. “Watch where you’re going, you stupid bitch.” Her words are harsh and slurred together. I freeze from her anger. Half of me wants to explode at her and stand up for myself, and the other half wants to just shrink away and dissolve into nothing.
The woman stumbles away. I want to leave, but there’s nowhere else to go but home, alone. I look back over my shoulder to where Nate is sitting. He’s smiling now and his hands are gesturing excitedly about something.
I spin around, hot with humiliation. And there in the back of the bar, sitting in the middle of a group of people, I spot Dex, watching me.
His expression is completely blank, but his eyes—his eyes stare into mine like they’re trying to shout something at me that I’m just not hearing.
After a moment, he tilts his head and smiles.
He scoots his chair over and pulls an empty one over to the table right next to him.
My cheeks burn and the nauseating roll of my stomach seems to settle down.
He rolls his eyes and waves me over.
For a second, my feet don’t move. Everything I wanted for the last couple of months is sitting behind me. Ahead of me is everything I never wanted. My mistake. My nemesis. The thorn in my side.
His eyes widen in mock irritation and his hands jerk quicker, pointing down to the empty seat next to him. I smile to myself. Dex is harmless. He’s my Netflix and really chill friend.
I shuffle through the throngs of people and squeeze into the chair he grabbed for me. “Hey,” I say when my bottom hits the cool wood.
“Hey yourself. You okay? That looked awful.”
I settle myself on the chair and look up into his eyes, not sure what part he thought looked bad, me bumping into a foul-mouthed drunk woman or Nate utterly cold-shouldering me.
Both experiences sucked to me.
Back here, the bar is darker and flickers with thousands of tiny strings of lights that hang from the ceiling and drape across the walls.
“I’m fine.” I say this because I am. I’m not even thinking about Nate anymore.
Dex leans in closer and his smile crooks and turns up at one end. “I know you are,” he says, nudging his shoulder softly into mine.
Dex makes sure everyone sitting around us says hello to me. He even introduces me to some of the faces I don’t know. The faces blur together after he orders me one drink and then another, and I find myself relaxing back into the chair enjoying talking with everyone.
I also keep finding myself getting distracted by him. The deep rasp of his throaty laughs. The way a lock of his dark hair falls across his forehead every time he smiles down at me. How he makes sure I’m involved in every conservation.
Our chairs are so close I can feel the heat radiating off his body and pulsing into mine.
And suddenly, it’s Dex I want to touch. It’s his collar I want to straighten and his shirt I want to wrinkle,not unwrinkle. I want to run my fingers along the angles of his jaw, and brush them down his throat and chest. I want to taste his mouth, his skin. I think about what he said in the elevator and I’d be lying if I say I don’t think about what we did every day since as well.
I swallow the knot in my throat as he shifts closer to me. His leg brushes against mine and it stays there, burning its heat into my skin. I know I should move away and, God, I know I need to, but I don’t want to. God forgive me, this is Dex Vanstone, but I can’t find the want to move away from him, just the unfortunate desire to claw myself closer.
I look at him from the corner of my eye. His perfect straight nose—the curve of his lips, and the way they lift into a smile when he glances back at me. No, he’s all out staring back at me and my heart races.
