“Sorry about that,” he said, shifting over a bit when I came up beside him to set her drink in front of her. As it always was with his fan club, she barely spared me a glance. He looked over to me briefly, but I completely avoided his eye contact. “I’m sure we didn’t have that much fun. $5.25,” he added, nudging her drink a little closer toward her.
She slipped a card out of her purse, tapping it over the card reader. “That’s not what Olivia told me. She said you guys had a lot of fun.”
“Mm. My memory’s all fuzzy again,” he said. “Sorry.”
It was obvious, to me at least, that he wanted her to stop talking about it and leave. He didn’t usually care about hurrying his admirers off, but I supposed it was a little different when she was forcing him to verbally acknowledge some girl he’d fucked, right there where I could clearly hear him.
If he thought I’d get upset at him, he was wrong. I couldn’t be pissed about anything he’d done. We’d both hooked up with plenty of other people, and it wasn’t like we were committed or exclusive or anything even now. He could go soak in a hot tub and spend the night with every big-boobed girl in the world for all I cared. Trying to look like I wasn’t incredibly invested in their conversation, I started wiping down the counter.
“Well…” She reached out for the receipt before picking up her latte. “If it wasn’t that memorable, then maybe you’d have a better time with me.”
My stomach clenched a bit at the pause before his response. He politely turned people down in front of me all the time, but for some reason now I couldn’t help but feel paranoid he would only do it because I wasright there.Or… What if he didn’t turn her down at all? After all, I’d been ignoring him all fucking day, even though he’d only tried to be nice to me.
Would he consider the fact that he could probably hook up with this girl and she’d benormalabout it andnotcall and wake him up in the middle of the night andnotignore him the next day out of sheer embarrassment? If he did, then it wasn’t like I could say anything or tell him off. It’d be my fault, anyway.
“Ah, that’s sweet, but…” He paused, tilting his head like he was considering how to word his answer. “I’m kind of… Well, I’m not, uh… There’s someone else I’m into right now,” he finallysaid, and the knot in my stomach loosened up. Fuck. I hadn’t actually known how much it would bother me if he’d acted like I didn’t exist.
“Aw,” she cooed out the word, like she found his loyalty adorable. “She’s so lucky.”
“He,” he corrected her, and her eyebrows quirked up.
“That’s kind of hot,” she commented, grinning. She pulled a pen out of her purse before scribbling something down on the back of her receipt and sliding it to him. “That’s my insta handle. Let me know if you change your mind.”
“Will do,” he said. I kept my eyes locked downward until I heard the cheery little bell of the door opening as she left. When I looked up to him, he was already looking at me, somewhat apologetically.
“That was before I met you, just so you know,” he said quickly. When my eyes darted down to the receipt she’d left with her contact info on it, he snatched it up, crumpling it and throwing it in the trash.
“It’s fine,” I responded. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” he said simply. The relief I felt at his casual dismissal of her interest was sweet, and then immediately prickled me all over. I wasn’t supposed to care about that. But I did. I couldn’t change it. Fuck.
We sped through the familiar process of closing up, barely talking outside of the necessary comments on syrup and milk levels. My nerves bristled the whole time, as my mind raced with the awareness that I’d actually beenworriedthat he’d lose interest in me for someone else. I couldn’t recall having that feeling with any other guy. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want it. But I also didn’t want…
I knew I couldn’t give him enough of anything to make it worth his time, but even knowing that… I didn’t want him to stop trying. I wanted his attention. I liked that he put me first,that he’d come to me in the middle of the night without a second thought, just because I’d sounded lonely. I liked that making me come once hadn’t been enough for him either time we’d hooked up and that he seemed to care more about my satisfaction than anything else. I liked being checked up on, and pursued, and adored.
I’d never been a guy’s first priority before. Never. The realization smacked me like a brick wall, intensifying my anxiety. And maybe it was my fault, because I’d always kept an intentional amount of distance between us. But it didn’t change the fact that I’d never experienced these feelings. But because I’d never felt this way, I’d also never felt so afraid of losing everything.
But who was I kidding? Even if he was temporarilycut off, Caelyx was a fucking billionaire. With a B. He liked me a lot, even I wasn’t dumb enough to dispute that fact, but who knew how he would feel once he was welcomed back into his glitzy, glittering world of sports cars and country clubs and exclusive designer-laden events? I was probably a fun distraction for him now, while he was forced to exist in this dull and humble college era, but things between us couldn’t actually go beyond that.
I didn’t even know if I wanted them to go beyond that. I couldn’t imagine being with anyone in a real, long term capacity, let alone someone with a background like his.
I didn’t know what the fuck I wanted.
When I couldn’t stand it anymore, and words had swelled and swelled and swelled in my brain until my body couldn’t contain them anymore, I finally took a deep breath and prepared to explain myself.
“Caelyx, about today-”
“Did you set this back here for me, Cupcake?” He piped up, sticking his head through the door between the front of the house and the tiny kitchen. He held out the Dubai chocolate cakepop I’d snagged when we’d first arrived, the very last one in the display case. I’d done it somewhat automatically, without even thinking about it, only because he’d liked the other one so much. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “Were you saying something?”
“No,” I said, chickening out immediately. “I mean, yes, I saved that one for you. You, um… You said you like it, so…”
The corner of his mouth perked up into the signature grin of his, and he gave a little nod. “Yeah, it’s quickly becoming my favorite flavor. You all done with everything up there?” He questioned. “Because I’m done back here.”
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “I’m done.”
I couldn’t do it. What would I even say? Sorry for being so fucking weird and making you come out last night and then using you as a pillow? Sorry for being weird about it today? Sorry that you can’t kiss me even though I can tell you really,reallywant to but I’m afraid if I let you then I’ll be even more fucked up when you go back to your regularly scheduled programming of rich boy life? I wasn’t sure I could choke any of that out even if I was held at gunpoint.
“Then, I guess we can head out,” he said, jerking his chin toward the front door as he flipped the row of light switches down, plunging us into darkness.
