“No thanks. I have enough on my plate as it is.”
Her answering humph said she doubted it. “I understand Alexandria.
Emory
and your
job
must keep you dreadfully busy
.
” The emphasis she placed on the words
Emory
and
job
dripped with disdain, reasserting exactly how important she thought both of them were. According to my grandmother I should have been spending my days attending Yale and flitting between one social event and another.
“Don’t forget,” she primly added, “the White Party we host every spring in memory of your mother is next weekend. I expect you to be in attendance.”
I knew all too well what next Saturday meant. Even though I hated my grandmother’s events and usually used any excuse I could think of to get out of them, I would obligingly go to that one. It was my grandmother’s special, albeit shallow, way of grieving her daughter. We’d both grieved my mother since the day she’d died. It was the one thing we had in common.
“I know Grandmother,” I said gentling the tone in which I spoke to her. “I won’t forget and I will be there. Is there anything you need me to do?”
She paused, breathing into the phone as if surprised by my answer. “Yes,” she said gentling her tone as well. “Try to look happy this year.”
She said
look
not
be.
We both knew one was a far easier feat to accomplish than the other.
We said goodbye and hung up. I laid in my bed for a little while longer. Recalling soft lips and sapphire eyes, letting the warming emotions they made bloom inside me beat back the iciness that the mention of my mother had caused.
I finally got out of bed when I smelled food. I ventured into the kitchen to see Whitney making maple fresh toast on butter croissant rolls at the stove.
“Hey!” She exclaimed when she saw me.
“I was hoping you’d come out of there soon. It was lonely without you here.”
“Yeah right,” I laughed. You probably wasn’t here much either. “You’ve been spending an awful lot of time with your track friend. Kellen right?”
She blushed, actually blushed at my mention of him. My eyes widened in astonishment. “Oh my God, you like him. You
like, like
him.”
Her mocha skin turned a nearly impossible shade of pink.
“Hell has well and truly frozen over. Is it getting serious?”
She shrugged her shoulders casually. “I don’t know. Maybe? It’s really too early to tell,” she said sheepishly.
And not only had hell frozen over, pigs were apparently flying too. Whitney was never sheepish about anything. I didn’t even think her brain knew how to think the word. Bold, brazen and assertive were more fitting descriptors for her.
“Good for you,” I said genuinely happy for my best friend. Then a slow, mischievous smile spread across my face. “Ooooh,” I swooned in a sing-song voice that made me sound all of twelve years old. “Whitney has a boyfriend! Whitney has a boyfriend!”
A piece of the pineapple she’d been cutting up flew at my face. I dodged it and it hit the wall behind me.
“That wasn’t very nice.”
She leveled me with a stare. “Neither is teasing me.”
I put my hands on my hips unapologetically. “Think of it as payback. For Chase. You told him I was out on a date with Ben last night and where to find me.”
Her eyes went innocently wide. “What? He said it was urgent.”
“Uh huh. Traitor.”
She sat two plates of french toast and freshly, cut pineapple down on the bar. I sat in the seat beside her.
“So speaking of last night what happened when he showed up? Did he see red with jealousy? Did he try to pummel Ben? Did he throw you over his shoulder and cart you off then take you somewhere to make passionate love to you and claim you as his?”
I rolled my eyes as I drowned my french toast in syrup. “You read too many romance novels.”
“Whatever. Don’t knock my ish. Now, spill what happened?”
“Not what you imagined would but way more too.” I gave her the abbreviated version and it still took the entire time we ate to get through last night’s events.
“Whoa.” She looked shell shocked by the time I finished. “That was some night.” Then the surprise wore off and her lips contorted into a pout. “I swear it is not fair. You get to have all the fun.”
“I promise we can trade places. Be my guest.”
Her lips quirked up into a teasing smile. “I might take you up on that offer. Then I could sample
your
hot new boyfriend too.”
I choked on the pineapple I’d just swallowed. “Chase is not my boyfriend,” I sputtered. “We don’t even know each other like that.”
“And yet you nearly killed him, waited in a hospital for three plus hours for him to come out of surgery, then spent the rest of the night staking out fallen angels and making out with him. But, yeah I got it, he is not your boyfriend.”
“He’s not,” I said defensively. I repeated the words to myself for good measure.
She popped a pineapple chunk in her mouth. “So what are you going to wear for you non-date with your non-boyfriend tonight?”
“It’s not a date and he’s not my boyfriend. It is reconnaissance and I don’t know I figured I’d just grab something from your closet. You have all kinds of clubish clothes.”
“No chick. Club clothes yes. BDSM clothes no. If you are going to Fusion pretending to be a patron then you need to dress to part. I’m freaky, but I’m not kinky.”
I did not at all like the wheels I saw turning behind her eyes or the way they lit up.
“We need to go shopping to get you something to wear.”
“No we don’t.”
“Oh yes, yes we do.”
Numerous protests and an hour later, we exited the train station at the Lenox Mall stop. Whitney dragged me across the mall and into DarkHeart, the upscale lingeries slash BDSM costume shop.
“What about this?” She held up two scraps of leather material I assumed were supposed to make up an outfit. But the
skirt
would barely cover a person’s ass and the top was a thin leather band across the boobs that had chain-like tassels coming from the nipple area.
“Hell no!” I shouted at her in a whispered voice.
“You’re no fun.” She pulled another
outfit
off the rack and held it up for my inspection. “How about this?”
“That’s…better.” The leather mini skirt was still way too short but the bottom of my cheeks wouldn’t hang out of it. However, if I bent over all bets were off. Nipple decorations didn’t accentuate the top and I actually sort of liked it. It was a steel boned corset that was strapless and also leather. It laced up the back like a traditional corset, but metal closures also ran down the front of it, giving it a modern whips-and-chains type feel. It was admittedly cool looking. Plus, I’ve always wanted to wear a corset but had never worked up the nerve to buy one or wear one in public. I was never presented with the occasion to either.
“Awesome!” Whitney exclaimed taking me not immediately refusing to wear it as a green light to take it to the register. She swiped a red, lacy thong up on her way.
I opened my mouth to tell her not to bother, then shut it. In the event that I forgot I couldn’t bend over and flashed Chase my backside, I at least wanted it to be a nicer view than what any of the pairs of underwear I currently owned would provide.
I handed the saleswoman my credit card and she handed me a shiny silver bag with DarkHeart scrawled across it in gothic letters. Great. Could the bag have been more conspicuous/. “I should make you carry this,” I muttered to Whitney as we exited the store.
We stopped by the bookstore and grabbed slices of cookie cakes after we left. I thought we were headed out of the mall when Whitney grabbed my hand before we reached the door the train station lay past and made a beeline for a shoe store. She stopped in front of a pair of black leather boots that were made to stop just above the knees. The heel was spiked and six inches in length. She picked the boot up and handed it to the saleswoman requesting it in a size seven and telling her to take them to the counter.
“I am not wearing those tonight. Between the outfit and the shoes I’ll look like I should be standing on a corner.”
“No, you won’t. You have enough class and the killer legs to pull it off. You’ll fit right in and look hot doing so. Chase won’t be able to take his eyes off you.”
“You say that like it’ll be a good thing.”
“It will. And you know it. I see the way you force yourself not to smile and your eyes not to light up whenever we talk about him. You like him. Admit it.”
“He’s cool,” I said casually. “I don’t
like, like
him though.”
“Uh huh. Keep telling yourself that chick.”
The saleswoman returned to let us know the shoes waited for us at the register.
“So are we getting the shoes or not?”
I sighed then fished my credit card out of my back pocket. “Why the hell not? YOLO right.”
“That’s my girl,” Whitney grinned at me.
Whitney was applying the finishing touches to my hair and make-up when the doorbell rang. It made my heart skip a beat and the palms of my hand suddenly feel sweaty. I went to wipe them on my pants only to remember that I wasn’t wearing any. I wiped them on the fabric cushion of the chair I sat in instead.
Whitney took step back from me to admire her work. “Stand up,” she instructed.
I did so on shaky feet. It would take considerable concentration not to trip and fall flat on my face in the ridiculously high heeled boots. She whistled a high pitched tune. “Damn Alex! If I was a dude, I‘d be all over that. I’d definitely want to do you.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly. That’s exactly the kind of attention I was looking for. I faced the mirror and my eyes tried to leap from their sockets. I blinked, certain the mirror was playing tricks on me and was showing me some person other than myself. Whitney was right. I did look good. I looked better than good. I looked amazing. The leather mini that stopped mid-thigh coupled with the corset and the boots and the smoky effect Whitney had artfully painted around my eyes produced one hell of a collective effect.
The doorbell rang again.
“Get your butt out there and answer the door. There’s a fine guy on the other side of it that needs to see you made up in all your leather-clad glory.” She gave my a gentle push towards my bedroom door. My feet had suddenly forgotten how simple it was to walk. They couldn’t remember how to put one foot in front of the other and it had nothing to do with the spiked heels I wore. “Go,” she urged me forward.
My feet started following my brain’s commands again. We walked out of the bedroom together but she turned a sharp right and headed for her room down the hall.
“Where are you going?” I hissed out in alarm.
She grinned at me innocently. “To my room. It’s been a long day. Have fun on your non-date with your non-boyfriend.”
I watched her disappear down the hall and into her room. I could not believe she’d abandoned me like that, leaving me to answer the door by myself. The point of having a best friend was so she would always be there to provide back up when you needed her to. Mine, however seemed to have forgotten that fact, having just thrown me to the wolves.
The bell rang for the third time. I had to answer it. I couldn’t leave him standing out there forever. And we had work to do tonight. Information to unearth. I walked to the door and turned the lock to the left. I closed my hand around the knob and took a deep breath before opening it.
Chase’s jaw literally gaped wide open when I did. He quickly recovered, smoothing his face over. No trace of his shock remained but his eyes both darkened and ignited in intensity.
“I would kiss you. I planned on kissing you as soon as you opened the door, but that’s a bad idea now.”
“Oh,” I said a little deflated.
“If I do,” he continued over me, “then I will do a lot more too and we will never make it to the club.”
“Oh,” I said breathlessly this time.
Seriously? I had more words in my vocabulary than that. I just couldn’t think of any at the moment. He wore leather pants, the kind a hardcore biker would wear, with combat boots and a leather motorcycle jacket that had a reaper patch on one arm. He was shirtless beneath it. His broad, muscled chest, smooth and flat hardened abs, and the happy trail that originated below his navel and disappeared below his belt line were all on full display. I pictured myself salivating or drooling like a mental patient while looking at him in my head. Thank God I wasn’t actually doing so.
“Are you ready to go or would you prefer to stand there and stare at me for the rest of the night?” His lips quirked up in a smile. “I’m not complaining if that’s your choice. I’d be more than happy to stand here and stare at you all night too. It’ll be the best night of my life.”
I felt my face grow warm at having been caught. But damn could he blame me? No one in their right mind wouldn’t have to take a minute to appreciate the sheer male beauty of him.
“Haha. Very funny,” I drawled making light of the situation. I grabbed my keys off the hook by the door. “I’m ready.” I held the keys out to him. “Do you mind holding these? I clearly don’t have a place to put them.”
His eyes traveled the length of my body, lingering on all the right curves. “Clearly,” he drawled back.
I tugged at my too short skirt as we walked to the elevator. I mentally reminded myself not to bend over.
“Can you use your phone to request an Uber? I left mine at home because, again, I don’t have a place to store it and didn’t want to have to hold it all night.”
We stepped into the elevator side by side. “No need to. I’ve got transportation covered.”
I waved my hand down my outfit. “I am not straddling a bike in this.”