“Tragic for you.”
“Catastrophic,” she says dramatically.
I remember walking out of VIP, already half-annoyed at the noise, at the women rubbing their tits on me, at the idiots recording everything. I wanted air and space.
Then I saw her.
“So, big scary man appears,” she narrates, eyes on mine. “You’re walking toward us and I’m like, you know what? If I’m going to lie, I might as well lie big. So I grab your arm andsay—”
“There you are, babe. Took you long enough,” I finish for her.
I remember every detail. I remember the feel of her hand on my forearm, how she looked up at me like she’d die if I didn’t play along. That flicker in her eyes that said please, even while her mouth smiled.
“And you,” she points at me, “look down at your arm like I’ve just tried to stab you. I thought you were going to peel my fingers off and hand them back.”
“I was deciding if I should,” I admit. “You grabbed me without warning.”
I saw his body angled toward her—the crowding, the entitlement. I didn’t need to hear him to know what kind of man he was.
And I wanted him gone.
“That night at the club… I don’t think I’d ever felt that many things at once up until that point.”
She exhales slowly, eyes on the ocean. “And when you invited me upstairs,” she continues, “it felt like my brain split in half. One side was like, absolutely not, you’re not going to be one of the girls orbiting his bottle service. The other side was like, say yes, say yes, say yes!”
She lets out a self-conscious laugh.
“I was pretty surprised you said no,” I lie. I was disappointed. I thought I would never see her again after, and I remember talking myself out of asking her again, maybe even saying please—just so I could get more time with her.
“Would’ve been easier if you’d just said yes, batted your lashes, and let me forget your name by morning.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” She rolls her eyes with a smile.
“You didn’t.”
She looks at me, her soft skin painted golden by the setting sun. Her blonde hair has already soaked up some of the humid sea breeze and curled slightly. She looks so, so beautiful.
“So,” she says, licking chocolate off her thumb, “what did you think the first time you saw me?”
“I thought,” I say slowly, “you were going to be a problem.”
“And?” She grins, tipsy and smug.
“And I was right.”
“You regret it?” Hersmile widens.
I take my time answering, letting my gaze drag down her body and back up, letting her feel all of it.
“Not even a little,” I say. “I just wish I’d known that night I’d end up here. On a beach,” I say, “half drunk, listening to you retell the story of how we met while I’m trying to decide if I want to fuck you on the sand or wait until we get back to the house.”
Color blooms high on her cheeks.
“Wow,” she mutters. “Subtle.”
“I’ve been subtle all afternoon,” I say. “You’ve been talking and smiling and eating strawberries and I’ve been hard for three hours trying to be a gentleman. I think I’ve hit my quota.”
Her eyes drop, just once, to my lap.
