Chasing Perfect (Someday#4)

by Melanie Shawn

  “So, has your family belonged to this club for a long time?”

  She looked at me a little strangely but then smiled and laughed. “Right. That’s true. You would have no reason to know this. You’re not from around here. But, yes. Our great-great-grandfather was one of the founders of this country club, and someone from my family has been on the board ever since. That’s why Avery and I were kind of obligated to make an appearance tonight. And it’s also why this sort of thing is boring to us. We’ve done it so many times. But it’s so much more fun with you and Hunter here with us!”

  I smiled. Her enthusiasm was infectious, I had to admit. She had a natural warmth that made me feel right at home, even though I wasn’t.

  Just then, her attention was caught by a woman who was gesturing subtly across the ballroom. Acacia sighed, but a smile was still plastered across her face. The woman would have no way of knowing that Acacia was unhappy about being summoned. No one would have—not if they were any farther away than the few inches I was standing from her.

  Through her pasted-on smile, she said, “Honey, I hate to do this to you, leave you standin’ here all alone. But that’s another board member, an important one. I have to go kiss the ring. Do you mind? Will you be okay here by yourself for just a few minutes?”

  “Of course, of course! You go do what you need to do and don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll be right back.”

  I did a little wave as she crossed the ballroom, and then I turned my attention to the rest of the crowd milling around. I could easily fill my time by people-watching. I wasn’t going to be bored at all without the company of Acacia. There were too many amazing things and people to look at.

  However, I never got to do that, because the instant Acacia was out of earshot, a very well-put-together—and, I must admit, beautiful—girl sidled up to me with a snarky grin on her face. I prickled. I didn’t recognize her, but I recognized her type. She was a “mean girl.”

  Having no money and an alcoholic mother makes you the target of plenty of “mean girl” taunting in elementary school and beyond, so I knew from experience that I was going to hate whatever interaction was coming next. I steeled myself for what I was sure would be pointed barbs.

  “Well, aren’t you just the prettiest little thing.”

  Okay. Well, maybe “pointed barbs” were different in the South. I had been sure by the look on the girl’s face that that sort of thing had been coming.

  “I can certainly see why Avery chose you as his flavor of the week. You look like you have some sweet treats underneath that clearly rented dress.”

  Okay, so they did just do it differently in the South. It was a little less direct. They softened you up first and then drove the knife in for the kill rather than just coming at you, machete swinging.

  “I’m Sandy,” I said placidly. The key to getting under a mean girl’s skin? You never let her see you sweat.

  “Ah, Sandy. That such a cute name. Like, from Grease, right?”

  I nodded. I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction.

  “Oh, well, that’s adorable. I mean, I was just named after my great-great aunt. In important families, that’s kind of an obligation. You’re generally named after a relative. But if I could’ve been named after someone from…you know…a movie… Well, that would’ve been nice, too.” She said the word movie as if it were whorehouse.

  I didn’t respond, which caused her to rush in and fill the silence.

  “So, are you from around here? Because, if you were from around here and you were anybody at all, I would know who you are. And I don’t. So you must be, I don’t know…a tourist? But that couldn’t possibly be, could it? Avery would never lower himself that far. Right?”

  The girl overplayed her incredulity to a comic extent, attempting to make the words more insulting. What she didn’t realize was that none of the things she was saying were, to me, even remotely insulting to begin with. Maybe I had to come from the kind of circles she did to understand why visiting from another state (the horror!) was such a shameful thing. But yeah. It did absolutely nothing for me.

  “I’m from California,” I said simply.

  “Oh, that makes sense! I mean, just so you know, there’s no possible way that Avery would ever settle down with someone from California. But still. It must be nice to be from somewhere so, I don’t know—infamous.”

  I remembered a scene from the movie Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts had been in a similar situation. High-society bitches were interrogating her about her relationship with Richard Gere in a very sickly-sweet and passive-aggressive way. She had handled it pretty nicely, so I thought I would try her response on for size.

  “Well, settling down’s not even in the cards. I’m just using him for sex.”

  Unfortunately, this girl was much less easily shocked than Julia’s nemeses had been. She just smiled condescendingly and said, “Well, that’s probably for the best. Because I’m sure that’s what he’s doing, too.”

  With that parting shot and an overly solicitous smile, she waved her fingers at me and was gone.

  *

  Hunter

  I walked back into the ballroom after sharing a cigar with Avery and saw a girl looking very triumphant as she left Sandy standing alone by the punch bowl. I hurried over to her. No one else would’ve recognized that she was feeling dejected, but I knew her well enough to see the signs.

  First, there was the way her shoulders were slightly slouched. Then, the way her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was putting on a good show. Almost anyone would’ve been fooled. But I wasn’t almost anyone.

  “Hey. What was that girl saying to you?”

  She drew her eyebrows together. “What do you mean? What makes you think she was saying anything?”

  “Come on. Who are you talking to here? I recognized that tight expression on your face. The same one you got in elementary school when you wanted to punch out Janice Kepplinger for the way she talked crap about your mom.”

  Her face softened slightly. “Yeah, I remember that. That little bitch did deserve a good sock in the jaw.”

  “Damn straight she did. And I have a feeling that girl does, too. What was she saying to you?”

  Overprotectiveness bled through in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. This was my Sandy, and I’d always felt the overwhelming need to protect her, whether it was from bullies at school or the ultimate bully at home—her mom. Whatever the threat to her physical or emotional well-being, nothing could stop me from putting myself in between that threat and her.

  “Oh, you know, the usual,” she said, using a half-joking tone. But hurt flashed just underneath the surface.

  “What usual?”

  “Oh, just implying—in her ever-so-polite Southern way—that I’m a pity case. That Avery is way too good to be here with me. That I should consider myself lucky that I got one night at the ball, because at midnight, I turn into a pumpkin. Or, I don’t know, however that goes. I’m not sure. But you get the idea.”

  “For someone who always wanted to be a princess, you’re not very up on your fairytales.”

  “I’ve always been more attracted to modern-day fairytales. Like Hank and Kendra. Or Kanye and Kim.”

  “Those are reality show people, right? Aren’t they, like, broken up or something?”

  Sandy look shocked. “Bite your tongue! Kendra and Hank are still together…I think.”

  I chuckled. “Sorry, sorry.”

  She smiled a little. The teasing banter had gotten her out of her head, at least partway, which had been the point. Now, she would be open enough to hear a little truth when I laid it on her.

  “You know,” I said gently, “those types of girls only say stuff like that because they’re jealous.”

  She laughed, but it wasn’t from amusement. There was no lighthearted pleasure behind it. It was a brutal, heartbroken sound.

  “Boy, are you going to be a great adult. You can spo
ut a cliché with the best of ’em. I don’t know why people always say that. When someone makes fun of you, they always say it’s because the person’s jealous. It’s never true. It might be because the person’s an asshole, sure. But it’s rarely ever because they’re jealous.”

  “Well, it’s true in this case.” Impulsively, I grabbed her hand.

  She turned her head in surprise and looked right into my eyes.

  Maintaining the eye contact, I said sincerely, “You know you’re the most beautiful girl here, by far. You do know that, right?”

  She didn’t say anything. The world felt like it stopped spinning around us. We were in a bubble that only had enough space for this population of two. I wasn’t aware of anything but Sandy’s eyes and the warm comfort of her hand in mine. The intensity, the connection, the energy traveling between us was palpable. I was sure that people across the room could feel it. Hell, I was sure people across the world could feel it.

  “Sandy! There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

  Avery’s upbeat voice shattered the spell that’d been cast over Sandy and me.

  Damn, Avery or should I say cock blocker.

  She snatched her hand from mine and turned to Avery, her breathing a little rapid and her cheeks a little flushed. Good. I was glad that I had an effect on her, no matter how annoying it was to watch her look at Avery when he spoke and know that she was there with him, not me.

  “Avery! Hi!” Her voice was a little too high as well.

  I couldn’t help smirking to myself.

  Either Avery didn’t notice the tension between Sandy and me or he was a really good actor.

  He held out his hand to Sandy. “May I have this dance?”

  “Absolutely!” She put her hand in his and let him sweep her onto the dance floor without a backward glance at me.

  The fact that she didn’t even look at me as she walked away was either really good or really bad, I reasoned. One possibility was that she didn’t care about me at all and had forgotten our conversation as soon as Avery had shown up (really bad). The alternative was that she’d been so affected by it that she had to make a point of pretending she hadn’t even noticed I was there as she’d walked away with Avery (really good).

  She floated across the dance floor with him, smiling and laughing, radiant in her blue ball gown, looking like nothing so much as a real-life princess. Shit, she really was Cinderella. And the problem was that Avery was Prince Charming. He was handsome and smart, and he had money—everything a girl could want.

  If only I had all of that, I thought bitterly. Then I would be the one floating her around the dance floor right now. I would be her Prince Charming. There’s nothing in the world I’d rather be than that.

  Chapter 21

  Sandy

  “More coffee, madam?”

  I nodded at the waiter to top off my delicate china coffee cup. I’d never been called “madam” before, and I could get used to that. In fact, I could get used to everything I’d experienced that night—with the exception of the bitchy society girl.

  Avery was on my right side, Hunter on my left. It was a very surreal feeling, spending the entire dinner sitting directly between the two guys my emotions and logic were warring with each other over. My head told me that Avery was the obvious choice for me. He was cultured, charming, and handsome, and he ran in the right circles—everything I had always known I wanted.

  But then my heart whispered, “But is he everything you always knew you wanted? Or always thought you wanted?”

  My brain was very much in the Choose Avery camp, and my heart (the traitor!) was unequivocally Team Hunter. It almost made me wish there was a third option those two disagreeable organs could settle on once and for all.

  I took a sip of my coffee. It was delicious, rich, and smooth, just like everything about this place. This life.

  It was true. All of this fancy splendor was living up to what I’d always imagined it would be. But, by the same token, I couldn’t say that it made me even a fraction as happy or fulfilled as I’d been while hanging out with Hunter and doing the simplest of things these past few days. Was it possible that sitting on a couch with him, joking around, and watching a movie were actually better than sitting on the Concorde with someone else, jetting off to Paris? Could that even be possible?

  “Well, I was thinking.”

  Acacia’s voice interrupted my reverie, for which I was grateful. I needed to get out of my head. It was proving to be a dangerous place to be.

  “We should all go out on the boat tomorrow. It’ll be so fun! I’ll text a bunch of the gang tonight as well. We’ll make a big party of it. Does that sound good?”

  “Awesome!” I exclaimed, jumping in before I even glanced at Hunter to see what he thought about it.

  Dammit, I needed the distraction of an activity, and a boat trip sounded like an amazing one. If he didn’t want to go, he could stay at the hotel—but I was going!

  Hunter pulled his phone out and started punching buttons.

  “What are you doing?” asked Acacia. “Are you putting it in your calendar? Because it’s just tomorrow. Hopefully you’d be able to remember for that long.”

  Her joke made him smile. Yep, there was that pang of jealousy again. It was almost a familiar friend at this point.

  “I’m just setting my alarm. I’ve been drinking so much tonight that I don’t know if I’ll remember to do it later.”

  Acacia leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Now, that’s good thinking! I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

  The jealousy that cramped my stomach that time was much more than a pang, and it definitely didn’t feel like an old friend. In fact, it felt much more like a punch in the gut from my worst enemy.

  Chapter 22

  Hunter

  Sandy and I stumbled through the door of our hotel room. I hadn’t noticed her drinking as much during the evening as I’d been, but now, her unsteadiness on her feet and the slurring of her words, gave it away.

  She was every bit as wasted as I was.

  I wondered fleetingly if it was possible that her overindulgence in alcohol had been rooted in the same thing mine was: absolute torture at seeing, up close and personal, the other person on a date with a gorgeous, charming partner. I couldn’t speak for her, but it had been like nails on a chalkboard every time I had seen her laughing at something Avery had said or leaning in close while they danced. Fucking awful.

  Was there a chance, even a small chance, that she felt the same?

  It almost seemed like too much to hope for, but there it was. I was hoping. And there was only one way to find out: ask. Luckily, I had just enough liquid courage in me to make that seem like a good idea.

  She flopped down on the bed, still fully dressed in her gown and fancy shoes, and threw her arms above her head. She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Nothing’s ever felt so good as how this pillow under my head feels right now.”

  Everything in me wanted to challenge that record and quick, but I opted for conversation instead. “So, I guess I wasn’t the only one taking full advantage of the open bar tonight, huh?”

  She opened one eye and squinted at me, barely lifting her head from the pillow. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fact that you got more than a little tipsy tonight, and so did I. And I’m wondering if there’s a reason for that. Or, more specifically, the same reason for that.”

  She closed her eye again and laid her head back on the pillow. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “I’m making perfect sense, and I think you know it.”

  “Nope.” She could be stubborn when she decided that denial was going to be her default operating status.

  “I think it was just as tough for you to see me with Acacia tonight as it was for me to see you with Avery. That’s what I think. I want to know what you think.”

  In response, she made a big show of snoring—an outsized, comedic level of snoring worthy of the old-f
ashioned, broad comedies Brandy liked to watch.

  I laughed. “Fine, fine. I get it. You don’t want to talk about it. You want to sleep. I’ll drop it.”

  She acted out an exaggerated ritual of waking up—fluttering her eyelids, sitting up on the edge of the bed, stretching her arms over her head, and yawning loudly. Then, in a far-too-innocent voice to ever be real, she said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I must’ve dozed off for a moment there. Did you say something? Because I didn’t hear anything you might’ve said. I was sleeping.”

  I shook my head at her performance. Sandy’s motto had always been: why just say something in a straightforward way if you can perform it and get the point across as well as entertain? Sometimes it was frustrating when I just wanted to have a normal conversation with her, but it was certainly never boring.

  I stood up. I was willing to let it drop, but the alcohol in my system was still making me bold. “Have it your way. We don’t need to talk. But if you’re that tired, you definitely need to go to sleep. And you can’t go to sleep in that dress. Here. Let me help you.”

  Something flashed deep in her eyes. She seemed to be internally fighting with herself, torn between interest and reticence. I knew which one I was rooting for to win, but she needed to make that decision for herself. I stood still and quiet, waiting for her to make the next move. The ball was in her court.

  Finally, she lifted her chin and a small smile appeared on her face. She’d clearly made her decision, and judging by that smile, it’d come down on my side. My dick hardened in anticipation.

  She stood slowly and then spun around one hundred eighty degrees just as deliberately. She looked provocatively over her shoulder at me. “Unzip me,” she whispered.

  Fuck. If my cock got any harder, it was going to break free of my pants and I’d have to surrender the deposit I put down on this rental. To say that was a small price to pay would be an understatement.

  I walked over to her, my steps even and measured, my fingers itching to touch her soft skin. When I finally reached her, though, I opted to show restraint. Rather than grabbing her up in my arms, crushing her to me, and attacking her with a passionate kiss like my body was screaming at me to do, I grasped her zipper in between my trembling fingers and inched it down.