by Mimi Strong
“He shouldn’t be too intense, though. He should back off sometimes and give her space.”
“Or what? She’ll wail about needing to be alone, then immediately rush into the bed of another guy?”
Mitchell waved his hand between us to interrupt. “Guys, chill. You’re causing a scene.”
I shook my head. “We can’t be friends. Maybe in the distant future, but not yet.”
Dalton sighed, then gave me a contrite look. “We tried. I guess it just wasn’t in the stars.”
People around us were staring, so we quickly got up and made our way to the exit. Dalton had picked up the bill while I was in the washroom, and we both thanked him for lunch.
He put on some sunglasses before reaching for the door handle. He turned to me, his eyes hidden behind the mirrored lenses. “Hey, if you want to get some publicity for your underwear line, look cozy next to me when we step out of here.”
“Right. Of course.” He’d extended his hand toward me, and I took it. We walked out of the restaurant, hand-in-hand, for the benefit of the awaiting paparazzi.
Mitchell trailed along a few feet behind, largely ignored.
Dalton dropped my hand and wrapped his arm around my shoulders—for publicity, of course. And then he held my door open at the car. He twirled me, pressing me against the car frame, and he kissed me. Just one very deliberate kiss, right on the lips. For publicity, of course.
I got in the car, my head spinning from the kiss. It was as though he’d had a venom on his lips, and it was numbing my whole body.
Dalton and Mitchell talked some more about movies on the way back to Mitchell’s place, but I didn’t say a word. I just sat there. Numb. I got out at Mitchell’s and thanked Dalton again for lunch.
As he drove away in his not-too-flashy BMW, Mitchell said, “I have to write about this on my blog. Please don’t judge me, but I stole the napkin he used to wipe his mouth.”
“Too late. I’m judging you.”
“Can I smell your lips? Do they smell like Dalton Deangelo?” He laughed. “Wait, no. You kiss me and transfer some of his kiss to my lips.”
“You are so weird. Maybe that’s why I love you.”
He linked his arm with mine. “Come on in. We only have about eight hours to figure out what we’re wearing to go clubbing tonight.”
“Clubbing again?”
“It’s Friday. Duh.”
He did have a point.
Some time later.
I woke up.
It was dark.
Oh, because my eyes were shut.
OW! Opening my eyes was a bad idea.
Something brushed up against me, beside me. I was on my back, somewhere soft.
Something—an arm—flopped over my chest. A human arm. Not my own.
I cracked open my eyelids. The arm was covered in dark hair, so it wasn’t Mitchell’s blond arm, and it wasn’t the drag queen Luscious Hilda Mae Sparkles’ arm, because he/she used Veet to remove everything, and I do mean everything. (We had kind of a nice girl moment getting ready to go out clubbing Friday night, and Luscious showed me this great after-care product for preventing in-growns.)
“Good morning, sunshine,” said the man I was apparently in bed with.
I silently vowed to never drink again, and rolled over to face the end result of a series of questionable decisions, including taking whatever Luscious handed me the night before at the first club. She said it was like a No-Doz, but it was more like a Red Bull crossed with a hand grenade.
At least I still had my clothes on, which meant I probably hadn’t done anything regrettable with…
Keith Raven.
“You look surprised,” he whispered.
“This is just how my face looks in the morning.”
CHAPTER 19
Keith chuckled. “I bet you don’t remember anything you said to me last night.”
“When I drink, I lie. Did I tell you I speak three languages? That’s a lie. You can’t believe anything I say when I’m drinking.”
“What is the Closet of Regret?”
“Um… it’s this second closet I have in my room back home. Someone who lived there before me carved out some walled-off space and put a door on it.” I licked my lips. “Talking is hard work. Anyway, I put some of my regrettable purchases in there.”
“Like your cuckoo clock.”
“Um, yes. Keith, I’m sorry I bored your ass off last night with stories about my online shopping problems.”
“You weren’t boring at all. We had a good talk. Really good. You said that you regret all the things you never did, and you regret not being more fun, and you’d like to stick your old self in the Closet of Regret and come out as someone new.”
“Oh. Well, it’s really more of a cupboard. I’m not sure if I’d fit.”
“I think it was more of a metaphor, and you agreed that you dismissed the idea of going to Italy with me too easily.”
I sat up quickly, then I lost about five seconds to time travel before the blood got up to my brain.
“Hey, I’m mad at you,” I said.
“Because I came and picked you up last night when you’d had too much excitement, but your friends wanted to keep partying? Are you mad that I hauled myself out of bed, didn’t even get dressed, and drove straight to you in the dead of night, even though you called me bad names on the phone?”
I swallowed hard. “What did I call you?”
He grinned. “You called me girlfriend-fucker, and you called me cheese-fucker. The second one made me laugh so hard, I had to come get you.” He stopped grinning and got a serious look. “Mostly I came because you sounded scared.”
I gasped as I remembered being scared and disoriented. “I got lost and I couldn’t find Mitchell and his roommate. Oh no, they’re probably worried about me.”
“Don’t worry. I found them before we found you, standing in the shadows behind the DJ booth, your eyes bugging out.”
A cry caught in my throat as I remembered how relieved I’d been to see Keith’s friendly face. I was so grateful, I didn’t even make fun of his flannel pajama pants.
Memories flitted back.
We came back to his apartment, I tried to get into those pajama pants, but he insisted we talk for a bit instead.
And now here we were, both in the same clothes as the night before. I stayed sitting up, staring down at him.
“Thank you for being my hero last night,” I said. “Sorry I act like such a jackass sometimes. I tend to shoot first and ask questions later.” I traced the wrinkles on the duvet cover with my finger, unable to meet his eyes for the next question. “So, are you back together with your ex? Is she going with you to Italy?”
He snorted. “We’re not back together. Oh, she’d like that. You know, the reason I was gone so late Thursday night was she took my van keys, and my phone, and threw them down the hill in her backyard. I had to beg her for a flashlight, and then it took forever to find everything.”
“Hmm. I may be hungover, but I’m not an idiot. It’s fine if you slept with her, just have the decency to tell me.”
He sat up and retrieved his phone from the top of the dresser, where it was charging. The screen was cracked, dark bits of dirt within the crack lines.
“Landed on a rock,” he said.
“Your screen looks like how I feel.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Cracked and dirty?”
“Used and abused.” I swung my legs off the edge of the bed and prepared myself to stand.
“I’ll take good care of you. I have an excellent hangover cure.”
I rubbed the bandaged spot inside my hip. “Sounds awesome. Do you also have a tattoo remover? Apparently I got a tattoo two nights ago, and get this: I’m too fucking pathetic to pull off the wrap and see what it is.”
“Probably an I Love Keith Raven tattoo. Very popular with LA girls.”
“I hope so, because I can think of worse things.”
“Me, too.”
/> I twisted my arm behind my back and pulled down the zipper of the dress, which was another borrowed one, and pretty cute: green with white dots, with shoulder panels of black lace. After wriggling out of the dress, I flopped back on the bed and pointed to the edge of the tape, sticking out of the waistband of my underwear.
“You look first,” I said. “Break it to me gently.”
He hovered over me, rubbing his hands gleefully, like a mad scientist, then peeled down the tape.
“Oh, that’s sweet,” he said, followed by, “Hmm. Weird. I don’t get it.”
I curled up to sitting, sucking my stomach in with the aid of both hands so I could see the little tattoo. It was dark blue, with a tiny squiggle shape—a bird—and then the words Doves Cry.
“Huh,” I said.
“Okay, you have to tell me what it means.”
“Fuck if I know. Maybe I was playing a game of Tattooist’s Choice.” I twisted my spine so I could look at the tattoo from another angle. “Actually, I really like this. Doves Cry. It’s like… everybody cries. And that’s okay.”
“Doves don’t really cry, though, do they? Don’t they coo? Coo, coo.”
“Coo, coo to you, too.” I pondered the puzzle of my new tat for a few seconds. Was it a reference to the cuckoo clock in my Closet of Regret? No, that was reaching too far.
Keith jumped off the bed and returned with a whole First Aid kit. “You need to better care of your tattoo,” he said.
“I need to take better care of my entire person.”
He squeezed out some clear gel and tenderly applied it to my skin. Mmm, that felt nice. He pulled out a giant bandage, like the kind you might use on a skinned knee, and applied it over my new ink. Then he kissed the top of my leg. “All better.” He kissed my leg again, then sat up and moved toward my lips.
I stopped him by putting my hand up between us. “Sorry, I need to either brush my teeth or throw them away. I care about you too much to let you kiss me right now.”
He tried to convince me that it didn’t matter, but I squirmed away from him and ran to the bathroom, where I locked myself in, along with my purse.
I started tidying up, but got distracted. I was eager to show Keith how grateful I was for his heroic rescue the previous night, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to check my messages.
According to my outbox, I’d sent him my location the night before using the GPS function. That made sense, as I was in no state to remember the name of the club, which had something to do with either seafood, or astronomy, or possibly both. Saturn Prawn? Dolphin Galaxy? Planet Oyster? Ew, no.
I snorted as I found some photos I’d also sent Keith’s way—all pictures of either my cleavage on its own, or my cleavage along with a top-down view of my face in a goofy expression.
But I hadn’t just sent those pictures to Keith. I’d also forwarded them to Shayla, and to Adrian.
Oh, and there was a picture response from Adrian.
The picture from him was a little blurry, and looked like a distant image of… some people? Some guy with a shaved head?
Eep!
I dropped the phone on the bath mat.
That was definitely a penis.
Adrian had sent me a dick pic?
Oh, no, that was NOT the appropriate response to a little bit of cleavage. Unless…
The next picture sort of excused Adrian’s, because it was my own nipple, being squeezed between my fingers. Now, most nipples are not that easily identifiable, and my own are certainly no exception, but Luscious Hilda Mae Sparkles did my nails for our night out, and those were my rainbow-painted nails.
What I did next was exactly what any modern girl in this situation would do. I forwarded the dick pic to my best friend, Shayla. Oh, I hesitated for half a second, wondering if there was any sort of dick-pic-sender-recipient privilege, but neither of us were lawyers, so I went ahead and sent that bald-man-from-a-distance straight to Shayla’s magical wiener-viewing screen. I figured any dude sending a photo of his man-privates to a girl has to know that girl’s one to six best friends will also get a gander.
After my phone-business was done, I got showered and scrubbed up.
I took another peek at the tattoo after I got dressed in some stretch jeans and one of my favorite T-shirts, navy blue with silver rivets and sparkles.
Doves Cry.
The letter O had a squiggle on it, so the tattoo could be read as Daves Cry. Daves Cry? I didn’t know anyone named Dave, and even if I did, the bird over top would make no sense.
Regardless of what it meant, it was a pretty fucking rad tattoo. I took a picture of it, still red and puffy under the ink, but didn’t send it to anyone.
“Don’t you look adorable,” Keith said as I came out to the living room.
“You, too.” I gave him a hug and kissed his stubbly cheek. “You look super-fine in those flannel pajama bottoms. Has anyone ever told you that you could be a model?”
He struck a pose, stretching his shirtless torso to make his ab muscles ripple. “Scusi, che ore sono?“
“What?”
“That was my bad Italian. I think I asked you for the time.”
I batted my eyelashes. “I always have the time for you, baby.” Three more blinks. “Wait. Does this mean you’re going to Italy?”
He grinned.
“No way!” I went in for the high five, and he grabbed me in a bear hug, picked me up, and swung me around. I squealed like a little girl.
He put me down, then he picked me up and swung me around again. And then a third time, and he would have kept going for a fourth if I hadn’t been wailing, “Put me down before you stretch out my new tattoooooo!”
Keith looked down at me, his lovely brown eyes wide open. “Stretch out your tattoo?”
I rubbed the spot while giving him a serious face. “Yeah, you’ll crack it or something.”
“You could just say you don’t like being swung around.” He hooked his finger in one of the belt loops of my jeans and tugged me toward him. “You could also say you’re terrified I might ask you to come to Italy with me.”
I rubbed his biceps, which seemed bigger now. “Look at you, all pumped up.”
“Grrrr.” He posed, flexing everything, including the sinewy muscles on the sides of his neck. “I haven’t worked out in over a week.” His face grew red as he kept flexing and posing. “Hey, let’s go to the gym after we have some lunch.”
I laughed and pushed past him into the kitchen, where coffee awaited, next to powdered chocolate for my mocha.
“I’m serious,” he said. “Come and work out with me. You’ll burn off that hangover and feel awesome in no time.”
“Not gonna happen. I like to walk, because it gets me where I’m going. I like to carry around boxes of books, because it’s my job. I don’t do Stairmaster, and I don’t do torture devices.”
“My gym is great, though.”
I finished preparing my mocha and took it over to the sofa, since somebody’s skanky ex-girlfriend took the chairs, and I felt a little too woozy for the kitchen stools. I could feel Keith’s gaze on me as I took a seat, so I sat carefully without any groans, though the tops of my thighs were sore from booty-shaking the night before.
Keith continued, “They’ve got complimentary towels.”
I reached for a magazine from the lower level of the coffee table, finding only Men’s Fitness and one lone copy of Vogue, with Keith’s ex-girlfriend’s name on it.
“Tabitha’s last name is Fartz?”
“Oh, that was kind of an inside joke. That’s not really her last name.”
I sipped my mocha, flipping through the magazine. “I have a difficult time hating someone with such an awesome fake last name.”
Keith walked into the bedroom and called out from inside the room, “Your loss if you won’t go to the gym with me. I have to go, though. After a week, it’s not even optional. I’ve worked too hard to get this body how I like it, to let it all slip away.”
With a
grin, I called back, “I feel exactly the same way!”
He poked his head out of the bedroom. “Do you? Really?”
I kept flipping through the magazine full of skinny models until finally I tossed it away in disgust. “This is why I could never be in a real relationship with you.”
He hung his head in a show of contrition. “Honestly, the gym is boring. I thought having you come along would be fun.”
“You were trying to cajole me into going with you? You weren’t fat-shaming me?”
“I want to spend every minute with you before you leave town.” He held his hands up. “Busted! I’m clingy. Just call me Mr. Clingy or one of those other colorful names you enjoy so much.”
I snatched up a copy of Men’s Fitness and started flipping through. “Cheese-fucker.”
“You can read a magazine at the juice bar. They make the most unbelievable smoothies.”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “I can’t work out in jeans!”
“You do have shorts and runners, though. You shouldn’t have unpacked your bag and spread everything out on one side of the room if you didn’t want me to know you packed workout clothes.”
I got up and stomped into the bedroom. “Keith Raven, you are the fucking worst, but I did make a New Year’s resolution to go to the gym at least once this year, so I guess today’s your lucky day.”
“How do you feel about a session with a personal trainer?”
“How do you feel about a flying double-punch to the asshole?”
“So, just a standard workout, then.”
We arrived at the gym (despite my suggestions we find a drive-through donut place instead), and Keith was an absolute sweetheart. First, he introduced me to the girl at the front counter as his “peachy love interest,” which made me smile. Then, he took me to the stretching mats, where we took off our shoes and did some stretches. We did that one where you sit facing each other with your legs stretched out, then hold arms and help the other person lean forward. He kept making really sexy eye contact with me the whole time.
“People are staring at us,” I whispered. “They all think you’re my personal trainer and I’m some pervy rich girl who’s paying to grope your hot body.”