“I already told you, you’re not my friend.”
Blaze narrowed his eyes like he wanted to understand what I was saying better.
“I can’t resist you, damn it, don’t you get it?” I moaned, slamming my hand on the door.
“That’s it? You want to satisfy a whim with me?”
His voice seemed broken with emotion. I couldn’t bear this side of him. It made him vulnerable and made me feel weak. If there was one thing I was convinced of, it was that there was a chemistry too strong to control between me and Blaze. It was impossible to ignore, and I was terrified that the more I tried to hide it, the more the situation would blow up in my face. Everyone would find out. They’d call me a liar because I’d been pretending.
“If that doesn’t work for you, don’t come looking for me anymore,” I told him. I stopped breathing when I met his eyes. I needed to get out of there. Now. “Fuck you, Blaze.”
I left.
None of my friends were inside Tropical anymore, so I left to get some air.
“Where the fuck did you go? We wanted to head out!” Marvin was waving his arms around next to the black Mustang.
“Youwanted to leave,” clarified James, sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Thanks for waiting for me.”
When I got into the passenger seat, James gave me a tired and anything-but-cheerful look.
I only wanted one thing—to spend the night talking to him.
But Marvin’s cousin joined us, and it wasn’t hard to figure out what was going to happen next.
They say to keep your friends close and enemies closer. And James seemed to follow that to the letter because we always ended up at Club Zero, a nightclub managed by criminals turned millionaires from drugs, racing, illegal boxing, and gambling. Marvin loved that place because it was a strip club, where girls waited on people half naked.
William couldn’t live without going there, especially when there were races or poker games, while James did every aforementioned activity.
“Are you competing?”
“Not tonight.”
Marvin’s cousin was clingier than ever. We’d barely found seats before she climbed in James’s lap and put her arms around his neck. James looked at her, irritated, which made me laugh because I knew how much it bothered him to be chased like that by someone he barely knew.
“So is it true what they say about you?” I heard her whisper.
“What are they saying?” he asked, curling his lips into a mischievous smirk.
“That you’re a god in bed.”
“Um, I don’t know. You’d have to find out.” He caressed her bare thigh as he threw his head back every time she tried to kiss him. But this game of making her chase him ended fast; soon after, he opened his mouth and stuck his tongue down the girl’s throat.
I had to turn around.
“Let’s go,” I heard him say over the blaring music.
“Great, go test her theory in real time,” I muttered, irritated.
I chugged the drink that James left and then looked around. What a shithole.
“You’re not gonna fucking say anything?” I asked Marvin, who didn’t even know where he was after smoking a joint.
“What should I say?” he snapped, sprawled on the couch.
“James is gonna turn your cousin inside out like a glove.”
