“So, what do you say about being featured?” Faith asked, her foot under the table, sliding up the leg of his dress pants.
“Tyson won’t go for it,” he said, his gaze still on Gracie as she exited the restaurant. He resisted the urge to call it a night and go after her, to make sure she was okay. She certainly didn’t seem to be having a great evening so far.
“I’m sure I can convince him . . .”
Walker’s cell phone chimed with a text message from his sister on the table in front of him and ignoring Faith’s annoyance at the interruption, he read,
Have you seen Gracie today? I’ve tried calling her but I keep getting her voice mail and I don’t want to say happy birthday by voice mail or text, so can you ask her to call me?
He sighed. Her birthday? She’d been stood up and had pasta dumped over her on her birthday?
Across from him, Faith was talking, but he wasn’t listening. Reaching for his wallet, he removed his credit card and flagged the waiter.
“We’re leaving?” Faith asked. “We haven’t even eaten yet.”
“I’m sorry. I need to get out of here.”
She stood quickly. “Great. We can go to my place . . .”
He shook his head. “Sorry, Faith. Not tonight.” That delay tactic was getting old, but he had no desire to go to her place that evening. Or any evening, despite Tyson’s claims she was the good luck charm he needed to win his fight.
She pouted, as she reached across under the table and slid her hand up his thigh. “You know, Walker, I’m not going to keep offering myself to you. A girl can only take so much rejection,” she said, her hand reaching his groin, and sliding further to cup his balls through his dress pants.
To say it had no effect would be a lie, but his thoughts were only on Gracie. He pushed his chair back, allowing her hand to fall, and stood. “I know. You are being very patient with me. There’s just something I have to do tonight.”
And it wasn’t her.
***
Gracie slammed the apartment door behind her twenty minutes later. Frustrated tears gathered in her eyes as she stared at the damage to her expensive suit and blouse. Removing her heels revealed a spaghetti noodle dangling over the side, and she picked up a shoe and threw it across the room.
It hit the wall and the heel snapped.
Damn it! She was so done with this day.
Happy birthday my ass, she thought as she went to her bedroom and removed the suit and blouse, noticing a dark red stain on the lace of her white bra. She sighed as she removed it and reached for a pair of yoga shorts and a tank top from her drawer.
Opening her purse, she plugged in her cell phone on her night table, noticing three missed calls.
Erik had actually tried twice more to reach her? That didn’t sound like him.
And it wasn’t.
The other two were from Kylie. But no voice mail messages were left. She sighed, sitting on the edge of her bed. She knew why her friend was calling, but all she wanted was to forget it was her birthday and climb into bed and let the day end. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone—definitely not Erik, and especially not Kylie, who would no doubt drill her for all of the details of her birthday dinner with Erik she’d bragged about when they’d spoken the week before.
Ha. What a joke. Her only surprise that evening was a plate of spaghetti on her lap.
The sound of the apartment door opening made her jump up and close her bedroom door. She didn’t want to talk to Walker either, not after the humiliating display in the restaurant. His standing up for her had made her even more mortified, though it had touched her. Erik would never have made a scene.
The two men were so completely different. How on earth had she gone from loving one to being in a relationship with the other?
Then a thought struck her. Oh please God, do not let Faith be with him.
Wouldn’t that be the icing on the nonexistent cake? Her twenty-seventh birthday would go down in history as the night she was stood up by her boyfriend, was covered in food that she’d been so hungry she’d been tempted to eat off of her lap, and had fallen asleep to the sounds of her teenage crush having sex with another woman on her couch.
But as she listened at the door, she didn’t hear voices. Just the sound of the fridge opening, then several drawers in the kitchen, and finally the sound of clanging silverware.
Then silence.
A loud knock on the door a minute later made her jump and squeal in fright.
“Gracie, you okay?” Walker called through the door.
“Yes, I’m fine.” She rubbed her forehead. What was he doing home anyway? “Just going to bed.”
“Can I come in for a second?”
In her bedroom? No way. She opened the door quickly and stepped out. “What—”
“Surprise. Happy bir . . .” His voice trailed as his gaze, behind the tub of rocky road ice cream with a candle and two spoons stuck in the top, reached her chest.
He looked more surprised than she did, and she quickly folded her arms across her body. “What’s this?” Had he known the whole time it was her birthday?
“Sorry, I didn’t actually know today was your birthday, otherwise I would have gotten you something better than ice cream. Kylie texted.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’d totally forgotten what day it was myself,” she said, desperate to sound nonchalant.
He’d bought her ice cream, with a candle in it. He’d left Faith to bring her ice cream. Not a kind she could actually eat, being allergic to nuts, but it was the thought that made her melt.
“Well, what do you say? Chick flick and birthday ice cream with an old friend?”
Old friend. Was he a friend? Technically, Kylie was her friend. And technically, she’d been in a fantasy-romance cloud with him for twelve years, which made friend seem like an understatement.
“Gracie, the ice cream’s melting . . .”
She blinked. “Oh, sorry. Sure, although . . . I can’t eat it,” she said, reaching behind her bedroom door for a sweatshirt and pulling it on over her head as she followed him to the living room.
“Please tell me you’re not one of those women who has a perfect body but thinks she’s fat. ’Cause I just left one of those and I can’t handle another one tonight,” he said, teasing, holding the ice cream out toward her to blow out her candle.
Perfect body? He thought she had a perfect body?
“Gracie, the ice cream’s going to be a milkshake soon.”
Right. “I’m actually allergic to nuts.”
His face fell. “Oh shit. I had no idea, sorry, Gracie.” He turned, looking for a place to set the ice cream. “How allergic? I mean, should I bring this outside?”
She laughed. “Not that allergic. Unless I consume one, I’ll be okay.” She hesitated. “But wash your hands, just in case, okay?” The last thing she needed was swollen lips and tongue, resulting in the need to use her EpiPen on the birthday from hell.
As he washed his hands in the sink, he said, “I’ll go get something else. A real cake maybe . . .”
She stopped him by placing a hand on his arm. “No, Walker. It’s okay, really.”
He turned back. “It’s no problem.”
Her gaze met his and she quickly averted hers to the flickering flame and wax dripping down the side of the candle into the ice cream in the sink. “This was really nice of you, thank you.”
“You can’t eat the ice cream, but make your wish anyway,” he said, picking it back up.
She would make a wish, damn it. And she’d see once and for all if wishing for something actually worked. “I wish—”
“No, not out loud. It won’t come true.”
“I think if I don’t say this one out loud, it may never come true,” she whispered.
Their gazes met and held, and her mouth went dry as her palms sweat. “I wish . . .”
A knock on the apartment door made them both jump.
“Erik?” Walker asked, his annoyan
ce evident.
Damn. Or thank God? She wasn’t sure. “I’m not sure. Probably.” She shrugged as she went to the door and peered through the peephole. She nodded. “Yep.” She hesitated. “Should I answer it?”
He rested against the counter and stared at her, his eyes searching for a trace of the moment that had transpired between them. “Unless you can think of a good reason not to.”
A second later, she opened the door.
***
Walker blew out the candle still flickering in the ice cream in the sink. Of course Erik finally showed up.
And probably with more than a three-dollar tub of ice cream Walker had barely been able to afford, not having cashed his first paycheck from ShadowDancers yet. The dinner with Faith had wiped the remaining credit from his card, but he’d wanted to do something for Gracie. An overwhelming urge to make her smile had been the only thought driving his actions.
As Erik entered, Walker leaned against the counter and folded his arms, feeling awkward as he observed the scene in front of him.
“I’ve been trying to call you,” Erik told her, before noticing him standing there. “Hey, Walker,” he said, looking back and forth between the two.
“I just got home and had to charge my cell phone,” Grace said.
“Oh . . .” He still stared at Walker, and Walker’s steely gaze didn’t falter. “Well, get dressed. I have a surprise for you waiting outside,” he said, taking her shoulders and steering her toward her bedroom.
“Actually, Erik, I’m exhausted. It’s been a long day. Can we hang out here?” she asked. “Or go to your place?” she asked after a quick glance toward him.
“No way. It’s your birthday,” Erik said.
It would be over in two hours. The guy had practically missed it.
“That’s okay.”
Taking her hand, he led her to the window. Drawing back the curtains, he gestured outside.
“You rented a limo?” she asked.
Oh come on. He waited for Gracie to tell him where he could shove his limo after leaving her alone at dinner and waiting until now to show up. Surely, an elaborate gesture such as renting a limo couldn’t erase the fact he’d disappointed her, and couldn’t make everything better.
Instead, she nodded. “Okay. I’ll be ready in a minute,” she said, sending him the briefest of looks as she passed.
Obviously his ice cream couldn’t compete with a limo. He’d been a moron to think it could. But for a split second before Erik had arrived, there had been a moment between them. Gracie had been about to make a wish, and he was fairly certain, by the look in her eyes, he’d known what that wish was. Now she was leaving. With Erik. The moment was gone.
Entering the kitchen, Erik opened the fridge and took out a bottle of water as he waited. Glancing into the sink behind Walker, he nodded to the ice cream. “Was that for Grace?”
“It was,” Walker mumbled.
“She’s allergic to nuts.”
“So I learned,” he said, wanting to punch something. He hated that Erik had known that about her and he didn’t. It seemed Erik knew a lot more about Gracie than he did.
***
“I can’t believe you did this,” Grace said tightly, trying to look at the turn of events as a positive thing, but it was a struggle. Erik was trying to make things up to her for not being at the restaurant that evening. But she knew it would take more than the black stretch limo in front of her building to make things better.
Hell, two minutes before he’d arrived, she’d been feeling so low, confused, and vulnerable, she’d almost confessed her undying feelings for Walker. It was for that reason that she hadn’t put up more of a fight with Erik inside her apartment. She didn’t want to further embarrass herself with a girlie tantrum in front of Walker, but her boyfriend was far from off the hook.
“You only turn twenty-six once, right?” Erik said, taking her hand as they approached, and the limo driver got out to open the back door.
Was that how old he thought she was?
A big part of her wished she was still inside, curled up under a blanket on her couch, watching chick flicks and eating ice cream with Walker, but she pushed it away. Being with Erik was where she belonged. It made sense. It was the right thing.
When the back door opened, she stopped walking.
Inside the limo was Carlos Alward and two ring girls she recognized from the organization. She turned to Erik. “What is this?”
“I had dinner with Carlos and he asked me to tour him around Vegas tonight, show him a good time.” He rubbed her shoulders. “I thought we could combine the two.”
She clenched her jaw as she looked away. “I thought it would be just the two of us.” Hadn’t he been the one who’d suggested this birthday celebration? Hadn’t he been the one who had a question to ask her?
“It will be . . . later. We need to make sure Carlos feels good about his contract decision and the move here. It’s important for the organization.”
Important for the organization. Of course. That was the only thing that mattered to Erik. Well, if he wanted to spend his night catering to the whims of a fighter, he could be her guest. She wasn’t interested. “Enjoy your night. I’m not going.” She moved away from the limo.
“Grace.” He gestured to the driver to close the door. “Grace!” he called as she got farther away.
She stopped and turned.
“What’s the problem?”
“If you don’t know, then that’s a problem in itself, Erik.” She folded her arms across her chest in her tight, black, below-the-knee dress. Twenty minutes getting ready for nothing.
“Grace, you know I can’t do this right now. I have to go.”
She nodded. “Go.”
“You’re upset.”
Wow, the man was a genius. “I’m sure I’ll get over it.”
He took a step toward her and kissed her cheek. “That’s my girl. I’ll make it up to you, okay?”
She looked away.
“I will,” he insisted.
She nodded. “Okay.”
He kissed her forehead before disappearing inside the back of the limo. She stood in her driveway and watched the car drive away. The saying “All dressed up and nowhere to go” had applied to her far too often this evening. How was she supposed to go back inside and face Walker now?
She wouldn’t. This wasn’t the first birthday she was forced to spend alone, and damn if she wasn’t about to let the night get the best of her. Tossing her purse strap over her shoulder, she started walking toward the lights of the Las Vegas strip.
Chapter 7
“Wow, this VIP list keeps growing,” Maria said as she hung up the phone behind the bar at ShadowDancers the next morning.
Fighting the hangover of a lifetime, Grace directed the deliverymen on where to set up the displays and tables for the meet and greet that evening at the bar. “That’s good. Busy is good.” The busier she stayed the better as well. It forced her to push through the nausea she felt and the throbbing, massive headache threatening to cause her head to explode any second.
She’d wound up at a tapas bar off of the strip and had consumed countless margaritas, until the general consensus among the loners sitting at the bar was that despite Erik’s shortcomings, he was the better man for her. She couldn’t believe the night before she’d been about to admit her feelings for Walker. Thank God Erik had shown up when he had before she’d made a mistake.
And it would have been a mistake. It was the result of feeling sorry for herself on her birthday. Walker had been there, that was all. Lately, he was always there—when she was sick, when she was lonely. She shook her head. It was easy for him to be there. He lived with her. And they were friends. To read any more into his actions was setting herself up for disappointment and heartache. And to risk her relationship on it. What had she been thinking?
“Where can we set up?” one of Lisa’s body painters asked, coming up to her.
She checked her watch. “Yo
u guys are here already?” The signage the models were supposed to be blending into for the camouflage paint hadn’t even been set up yet.
“The painting will take about six hours,” the guy said, adjusting his makeup bag on his shoulder.
The door opened again and three tall, thin models entered.
“Okay, just give me a few minutes, and I’ll have things set up for you,” she said, donning her assembly hat. She opened the trade show booth crates and pulled out the rolled posters and stands. The rest of her team weren’t arriving for a few more hours. She was on her own.
She didn’t mind. It reminded her of her days when she was first starting out, working for the PR firm around the clock and doing anything and everything that needed to be done for events.
“Need some help?” Walker asked, coming up behind her.
“Maria can spare you?” Grace asked. These stands were a two-man or one-desperate-assistant construct. His extra set of hands would be appreciated.
“Yeah, the bar is stocked for tonight, so I’m really not being productive right now anyway. What can I do?” He rolled the sleeves of his black, tight-fitting dress shirt, and she tried to ignore his bulging forearms as she pointed.
“Grab that end and secure the sticks into the base,” she said, holding her side as he secured his.
When hers was firmly in place, she nodded. “Good, thank you. Now we just need to secure the posters.” This was where her taller frame had always come in handy. The shorter PR girls could never reach the top of the stand to secure the hangings, but she had no problem.
Her prideful smile faded. Great consolation prize, Gracie. Other women got to be cute and tiny and ask the hot men at the trade shows for assistance. She got to do the thankless work herself.
She hung one end, and handed the poster to Walker.
He secured his end and laughed. “I figured you’d have other people doing this setup. Aren’t you the boss?” he asked.
“Well, the body painters need to start painting the models, so this needs to get done and, well, I do what needs to get done.”
“Do you like your job?” he asked as he hung the next one by himself, his large wingspan making the awkward job look easy.
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