Page 4 of Trust Fund Baby

For half a second, I considered dipping, slipping out the door before she could see me. But I wouldn’t abandon my friend when he was about to make a move on a girl he liked. It wouldn’t be fair to drop him because my past has just strolled in, sporting Doc Martens and a black dress, revealing curves I never remembered her having.

From the bar, I watched as James confidently walked over to the table. My gaze quickly shifted away from him, finding Roxie instead.

All the features I remembered from childhood had changed. Her face was less rounded. Her hair was shorter, no longer down her back and wild like it used to be. But somewhere underneath all those changes, I knew she was still Roxie. Still the girl that used to sneak onto my sailboat late at night, the one I thought I’d ask to be my girlfriend before everything blew up.

The memory hit like a sucker punch.

A party in the Hamptons, the summer before college.

I’d planned that night to ask her if she ever thought we could be more than friends. Princeton wasn’t so far from NYU. We could make the distance work. But then I saw her with someone else. Some guy in a varsity jacket, kissing her like she was his.

We’d never been official. We had only exchanged a few drunken kisses after our nights together extended too late. But it hadn’t mattered. I knew how I felt about her, and I’d assumed she felt the same. When I saw her kissing Mr. Varsity, I realized I was wrong.

And now, all these years later, here she was, still having the same effect on me. The bright blue of her eyes was reminiscent of the ocean waves that used to be an escape for both of us. A single look at her still sent my pulse racing.

I took my bourbon from the bartender, the amber liquid swirling as I chose to discreetly follow James, making it appear as though this evening was routine.

James and Hallie were in the middle of a verbal sparring match when I walked over to the table. With the intoxicating scent of a perfume I used to love wafting toward me and the strong potential for a confrontation just a breath away, I wasn’t sure how good of a wingman I’d be for James tonight.

“Excuse me, everyone,” I murmured, casually settling into the last empty seat, my arm instinctively draped over the back of Roxie’s chair. Her shoulder stiffened beneath my touch. I kept my grin easy. “Figured I’d join the party since my friend here so rudely ditched me at the bar.”

A forced smile quickly hid the flicker of apprehension that flashed across Roxie’s face.

For a second, I wondered if she’d call me out, if she’d tell everyone that we already knew each other. But she didn’t.

As if it were the first time, I offered her my hand and said, “Sebastian Whittaker.” Her eyes showed a hint of uncertainty, but she still took my hand gently. Familiar and foreign all at once. A decade of distance vanished in the space between that touch, as if nothing and everything had changed. The sounds of the packed room grew distant and muted, as if it were just her and me.

“Roxie King.”

The sound of her voice was exactly as I remembered it. Soft. Steady.

“Well, now it’s a party,” I grinned and winked, the scent of leather filling my nostrils as I produced a sleeve of Cuban cigars.

I regretted the words as soon as they came out of my mouth. I’d slipped into the familiar persona that had established me as New York’s most notorious playboy, to divert my attention from the nerves in my stomach, the bourbon a suit of armor against the world.

James kept volleying with Hallie, but my focus stayed locked on Roxie. Watching her reactions, measuring them against the version of her I kept in my head.

I tried to keep my composure and continue pretending we didn’t know each other. But the moment she tossed her hair over her shoulder, the plan went out the window, and that same jasmine and spice instantly whisked me back to when I was a sixteen-year-old boy, introducing the most beautiful girl to society at her debutante ball.

“You still wear Chanel No. 5.”

Her shoulders stiffened. A slow, hesitant exhale escaped her lips, as if she was debating whether my comment was worth acknowledging.

Her date, I assumed that’s who this guy was anyway, was oblivious to what was unfolding between me and Roxie, his eyes glued to his phone.

I shifted slightly, letting my fingers brush her shoulder again as I asked, voice quiet so only the two of us would hear, “So, Roxie … what do you do now?”

She squinted at me, as though trying to see through my intentions.

“I sell art,” she said simply.

I had refrained from looking her up on the internet over the years. Only allowing myself the bits and pieces I’d heard through the grapevine.

“Whereabouts?” I asked, my thumb barely grazing the edge of her sleeve now. I was playing with fire, but that was always the thing with Roxie King. She was an inferno I would have once gladly let consume me.

“Upper East Side.” Her voice was still reserved, but she hadn’t cut me off, which was a win. She looked at her date, still focused on his phone, and then at Hallie, whose face was flushing more with each exchange between her and James. Nobody was paying us any mind.

“Did you land in that neighborhood we talked about back then? The one you always said you saw yourself getting bagels in the morning before work or stopping in at some bar for a drink after?”