“That’s right.”
I’ve never seen his face so serious, and I can’t help myself when laughter bubbles up my throat until I taste it on the tip of my tongue and it’s suddenly spilling out, loud and uncontrolled. The fractured sound fills the small space and grates on my ears like rocks tumbling around in a polisher. I’ve never liked my laugh, and that thought is what sobers me enough to get myself composed again.
When I hazard a glance over at Tieran, he has a soft smile on his face.
“What?”
“Do that again,” he says.
“Do what?”
He leans a little closer, and the air is sucked out of the car—the universe, and my head goes a little light. “Laugh—smile. London just lit up for a few seconds in the wake of that smile.”
My breath catches a little as he inches a little closer. My eyes dart down to his mouth, full and forbidden, and I panic, because I don’t know how to stop this. It feels like a meteor coming at me full tilt, spinning and spinning, ready to rain down destruction on everything I am.
Our mouths are inches away now, and I can smell the spearmint tea on his breath.
Stop this, Jade,the angel on my shoulder demands. I lean forward just barely, enough to give a signal.
His hand sneaks up under my chin, knuckles tilting my face up to meet his and?—
A riot of laughter sounds outside the car, scaring me out of my skin and making me jump away and out of his hold.
“I, uh…I have to go. Thank you for the ride.”
I hop out of the car without letting him reply, run upstairs to my flat, and walk straight into my kitchen, where I pour myself a glass of water I drink in one long gulp.
Too close—that was too close to compromising everything. And the scariest part was, I couldn’t find it in me to care.
“Whose house are we going to?”
Aanya has managed to successfully peel me away from my laptop and piles of paperwork in favor of going out. She came busting through my door an hour ago, ignored me where I was working on the couch, and beelined straight to my closet, emerging five minutes later with the black beaded mini dress and strappy heels I’m now wearing as we get off the tube at Liverpool Street.
Aanya takes the steps out of the station at a pace I can’t keep up with in my heels, and I’m pretty sure she’s doing it to evade my question. Above ground, glass skyscrapers rise around us like lumbering giants. Towering business centers like The Gherkin are intermixed amongst the Victorian-style buildings that London is famous for.
“Is it a music friend?” We cut a path down a side street, getting into an area of the neighborhood where the vibe becomes more industrial grunge, and the scenery changes to trendy restaurants and clubs.
“I guess you could say they work in entertainment…” Her voice trails off as we come up on a row of three story Georgian homes just off the high street. Music pulses a few doors down, growing louder as we close in. Aanya leads the way up to the main door into the building, stops at the first flat on the left, and lets us inside.
We’re walking down the narrow entryway, unable to see anyone, but the sound of chatter intermingled with the thumping bass of the hip hop song that’s playing over the speaker is unmistakable. Apprehension settles low in my gut as I pick out one voice over all the rest, its familiar resonance itching something in my brain, begging to be scratched with no chance for relief.
No.It can’t be. Not after I’ve successfully avoided him for the last week after the near kiss we had.
Going into the open room off the hallway, I realize I wasn’t imagining anything but instead I’ve been duped by a very guilty lookingfriend.
“Aanya Bhandari, what did you do?” I hiss.
“Don’t kill me.” She holds out her hands in a supplicate gesture.
“Oh, I’m definitely considering it. The Thames isn’t far from here; you’re small, it would probably be pretty easy to dump your body.”
“I love it when you’re secretly funny, even if it’s in threat to my life.”
“Explain to me why I’m at a party with my entire rugby team right now?”
She knows I’ve been trying to avoid something like this happening—that I am trying to keep everything above board. One could argue a crochet class would be a breach of my own rules, but that’sdifferent,I rationalize. I wasn’t inside one of the player’s homes, wearing a very inappropriate dress with skimpy straps, a low back, and a slit playing high on my thigh.
“Because I wanted you to come, and you wouldn’t have if I told you where it was,” she pouts. I cross my arms, looking toward the door. “I know youwantto be here, and you should be allowed to live your life. You’re young and sexy, and you deserve to have an entire rugby team worshiping at your feet,” she pauses. “Well, all except one.”
