She never keeps things from me. What’s going on?
Could Maral have…a secret boyfriend?
The room spins a little. I steady myself with a hand against a nearby pillar.
Is it possible? She tells me about all her dating escapades, but could she be seeing someone seriously and keeping me in the dark? Obviously yay for her if she’s with someone who makes her smile like that. Literally nothing in this world—not even ten TV shows—would mean more to me than Maral being happy.
But why wouldn’t she tell me?
I force myself to inhale and exhale slowly three times. My heart rate obeys the command to calm down, and I dance my way over to her, leaning slightly behind her so I can sneak a peek at her screen—but it’s black now. She tucks it into her pocket and turns to me, the smile still plastered across her face.
She’s so radiant that tears prick my eyes.
“Boyid mernem,” I say, earnestness dripping from my buzzed voice.
Her brow furrows in question, but then she responds in kind, “Yes ko boyid mernem.” She pulls me into a tight hug. “I knew it. Iknewthis book was going to take the world by storm. There’s nothing you can’t do.”
A tear breaches the dam of my eyelashes, tumbling down my cheek. I whisk it away. “You know—” I exhale. “You’re the most important person in the world to me. You know that, right?”
When I pull back, her expression is wary. Caught?
“I know,” she hedges.
“And you can tell me anything.”
She shifts from one foot to the other. Her eyes won’t meet mine when she says, “Then you should know…your singing is way off-key.”
“That’s not news.” I’ve never been able to carry a tune.
“Okay. Ryan hasn’t stopped ogling you the entire night.”
It takes every ounce of effort that exists within my body not to turn to see if she’s right. She’s a sneaky devil, turning the tables on me. “Speaking of…guys.”Smooth segue, Ana.“Anybody on your radar these days?” I ask, feigning innocence as I peruse the dance floor.
She shakes her head wistfully. “We can’t all have dreamy publicists drooling after us.”
I huff a laugh. “I don’t know if that’s how I’d characterize it.”
“That’s exactly how I’d characterize it.”
Not meaning to—totally unwittingly, I swear—I catch a glimpse of Ryan. Not drooling, exactly, but there’s something definitely akin to salivation in his expression. His irises are dark, his mouth set in a firm line. A mouth whose skills I’ve become pleasantly familiar with…
Want spreads through me like a gnarled root.
“Damn. I don’t even want to know what he’s imagining doing to you tonight,” she says. “You better hydrate.”
If I could last, I’d fuck you as hard as I want to, make you scream from it.
I order a water and down half the glass. When I turn back, Mar’s off dancing again, yelling along about working hard till she owns it. I wonder briefly if her pushing me so hard toward Ryan is intended as a distraction from whatever it is she’s trying to hide. But her joy is so infectious that I decide to let it go for now and join in, linking our fingers and twirling her into a dip.
We sing and dance and drink and eat into the evening, and I daresay this little hotel bar on an unassuming street is the hoppingest place in town.
I stick to water for the remainder of the evening and my buzz wears off considerably with food in my belly. Which is a good thing, because I do not want Ryan turning down my advances for a reason as stupid as integrity. I want the least gentlemanly version of Ryan that exists tonight.
When the bar starts to quiet down, Shanthi packs it in, and Maral jumps up from the table alongside her—QueenWingwoman in action. She hands me back my phone, telling me with a wink that she’s silenced my notifications. We agree to meet in the lobby tomorrow, which I read as her covert way of saying she won’t come to my room for our usual morning routine, since I’ll likely be occupied.
As soon as the elevator doors close behind them, I slide my hand under the table and onto Ryan’s knee. “Damn,” I say. “There goes my fantasy.”
“Fantasy,” he says, intrigued. “Do tell.”
