by LJ Evans
Claire bought them a round which she never did unless she wanted something, but PJ thought it was just an apology for the twins until Claire wouldn’t meet her eyes.
PJ squinted at her and said, “Spill it.”
Claire tossed back her shot before saying, “I’m moving in with my aunt.”
“What?”
Haley and Mina slammed their shots too and then thumped the glasses down on the table. PJ didn’t touch hers. She didn’t know what to feel. Anger or just one more round of disappointment.
“I’m sorry, Peej. But law school is going to be really expensive. And my aunt says I can room with her for free while I finish up.”
“So that’s the real reason you aren’t moving to New York with us?” Haley asked.
PJ was still trying to catch up. If Claire moved in with her aunt, PJ would have to move too because there was no way she could afford an apartment on her own. Not unless it was a rundown studio in some sketchy neighborhood.
PJ finally downed her shot.
“Don’t be mad,” Claire pleaded.
“How can I be mad at you?” PJ said, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice. “You know what you want and are going after it. There’s nothing wrong with that. It just means I’m stuck moving back in with Justice and Liv.”
“You can still move with us to New York,” Mina said with a hopeful smile.
PJ shook her head.
“Nah. I can barely afford things here, I might as well not spend the little savings I have without a reason.”
Haley and Mina nodded in reluctant acceptance and then shimmied off to the dance floor.
“We good?” Claire asked.
PJ hugged her. “We’re good, but I think you owe me another round.”
Claire laughed and went to get more drinks.
When the three girls came back to their table in the corner, it was with men in tow. This was normal when the girls went out. They attracted guys faster than she could blink.
Soon their booth was surrounded by good-looking men in their twenties. Some they knew. Some they didn’t. As usual, the other girls were the main attraction because PJ put off a vibe that said, “Don’t even bother trying.” But that night, one of the guys—Daniel or Dennis or Dummy, whatever—had decided he was going to try to flirt with her even though she kept putting him down. It was harmless, but he kept at it. Bu when the D-boy threw his arm around her shoulders, she froze.
She was just about to flick his fingers off in a practiced move when suddenly there was a hand on the back of her neck, and the D-boy’s arm was being twisted back. He yelped in surprise more than pain.
“This one’s mine,” a deep voice said from behind her.
She didn’t have to turn. She’d known it was Seth the moment he’d touched her. The moment that energy coursed from his fingertips to her neck. As her body absorbed his touch, her brain toggled between ticked off and pleased at his statement of ownership. She didn’t belong to anyone. Yet, God help her, it felt so good to be wanted on that level.
Claire’s eyes went as big as walnuts. Mina and Haley’s mouths dropped open and the table suddenly went quiet.
“Get the fuck off me,” the D-boy said, trying to shake Seth’s grip. He sounded like a child.
“Seth. Let go,” PJ said, worried that he was going to break an arm or start a fight. She turned so that she was looking into his eyes.
She pushed at him. “Let’s go dance.” She pushed again. This time Seth let go of the guy’s arm. The D-boy turned, fists up, looking like a ten-year-old facing a giant. It made her want to laugh except that Seth’s eyes were still storming, and she knew that if he landed a punch, it would be a deadly one.
The guy’s friends took one look at Seth and held their friend back. “Let it go, Daniel.”
PJ took the opportunity to drag Seth toward the dance floor. Once they were far enough away, Seth wrapped one arm around her waist and the other went to the back of her head, drawing her face to his, kissing her like hell. Kissing her like he was doing that instead of punching some kid to smithereens.
She let him kiss her like that, with passion and anger, until she felt it slipping away. Then she kissed him back, biting his bottom lip and drawing it into her mouth. He groaned. And she smiled.
The song was a slow one, so she eased her lips away and moved his hands so that they circled her while she snuggled up as close to him as she could get, swaying to the music. When she felt him relax fully, hands engulfing her tiny frame, she risked looking up into his eyes.
“What was all that?”
“He was touching you.” The fierceness in his voice continued to tear her into two halves. The feminist, independent part of herself fighting with the side that wanted to be possessed.
“God, Seth. Lots of people touch me, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“It did to him.”
“Even if it did, even if he’d tried something, I could have handled it.” At the time, she believed that. She believed with all her heart that she had the strength and the moves to get free of whatever some stupid guy tried.
Seth didn’t say anything. But as his fury ebbed away, he took her in for the first time, and his lips twitched a grin.
“You’re beautiful when you’re pissed at me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now you’re just being a kiss-ass.”
“I can do that later,” he purred in her ear, causing her breath to hitch and her body to respond with tremors of anticipation. “But it still won’t change the truth. You are the most lovely creature in this place. You are la belleza.”
His words thrilled her to the bone, and she didn’t know how she was ever going to recover from this gorgeous man thinking she was lovely. It was going to hurt if it went away.
Even in high school, when there’d been a line of boys, none of them had been there because they thought she was beautiful. Instead, as she’d brutally overheard her second boyfriend say, it was because she put out. And that certainly hadn’t made her feel beautiful. In the end, it had made her feel slutty and emptier than before.
Her therapist from back then hated when she used any variation of that word: slut. She repeatedly told PJ that having sexual urges and having several partners didn’t make someone a slut. That having sex was a natural, beautiful part of life. That it was only when a person used sex as a weapon against themselves or others that it became twisted into something else, and even then the word slut had nothing to do with it.
PJ wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to convince her heart of that, even though she knew in her head it was the truth. It was the reason she’d kept all the guys away. So she wouldn’t tempt them or herself. So she wouldn’t have to battle what her heart and her mind were saying about her.
Seth sensed the shift in her. “Bella?”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
But it was. She wondered once more if her unhappiness with her life right now was leading her down the same path she’d gone on back then. It was obvious that Seth wasn’t going to share her, and he’d said he didn’t want her to leave his life. But how did she feel about him? Maybe he wasn’t using her, but maybe she was using him in the way she’d used the boys before. How could she be sure she wasn’t?
The boys at the table had shoved off by the time the song ended, so PJ drew Seth back to the booth, anxious to get her mind away from her own thoughts.
Her friends smiled as they approached, and for a half a second, PJ wondered what Seth’s reaction to these dazzling women would be. But when they got to the table, he didn’t even register them. He pulled PJ down on his lap in the booth. It was as if he still couldn’t let her go after having to take her away from another guy.
“Seth, this is Haley, Mina, and Claire. Everyone, Seth.”
Claire took him in from head to toe with her normal wide-eyed gaze. Haley and Mina smiled their sexy smiles. Seth just nodded.
The waitress, Maggie,
approached. She and Claire worked a lot of the same shifts together. She was a big flirt and so it was no surprise when she ignored PJ while talking directly to Seth.
“What can I get ya?” Maggie asked.
This was what had happened all week when they’d gone out. Seth was stunning and attracted females, not unlike Claire and the girls attracted guys.
“Coke,” Seth grunted.
“Jack and Coke?” Maggie smiled flirtatiously.
“Did I say Jack and Coke?” Seth snapped.
“We’ll have another round, Mags,” Claire said.
“Just Coke for Seth,” PJ said at the same time.
Maggie smiled and shimmied away. PJ turned to see if Seth was watching Maggie, but when she turned, he was staring at her. His hands tightened around her waist, and his thumb rubbed the inside of her thigh.
Her insides flipped.
“So, Seth. PJ says you live on the beach?” Haley said with a little note of envy.
He gave her a curt nod. His fingers were running higher and higher up the inside of PJ’s thigh, making it difficult to concentrate on the conversation.
“Do you have any famous neighbors?”
“Knock it off, Haley,” Claire chimed in.
“What?” Haley said innocently.
“God, not everyone has a famous neighbor. You act like this is your first time in L.A.,” Claire retorted with exasperation.
“The majority of people’s breaks come from knowing the right person. The more people you know, the better chances you have.” Haley pouted her perfectly colored lips.
“He has an obnoxious teenage girl living nearby, does that count?” PJ asked, trying to sound calm while inside she was shaking with desire.
“Is she famous?” Mina chimed in.
“Oh. My. God. I have to dance.” Claire jumped out of the booth and pulled on PJ’s hands. “Come on, Butterfly.”
“You want to come?” PJ looked down at Seth, trembling from his hands as much as the lack of his hands on her.
He shook his head with a barely imperceptible look toward his groin. It made her smile as she realized he couldn’t stand up now if he wanted to.
She let Claire pull her back onto the dance floor. As she danced, PJ kept an eye on the table. She could see Mina and Haley trying to engage Seth in conversation, and she could see Seth being as rude as before.
He watched her instead. It made her self-conscious. She knew she was blushing all over her body. In places she hadn’t known she could turn colors. Claire noticed.
“God. You have it bad.”
PJ grinned. “I know.”
“First you don’t go crazy on him for calling you his piece of property and now you’re blushing as if he just got you naked on the dance floor.”
PJ didn’t respond.
Seth spread his long legs out, crossing his arms over his muscled chest, as his hooded eyes watched her. She felt his eyes raking over every inch of her. Her body reacted as if it was his fingers and not his eyes that were caressing her. She wasn’t sure how she kept moving.
“I’m a little worried about you. You’ve known this guy less than a week,” Claire said.
“Sometimes I worry about me too. But I also know that I’ve never felt this way with anyone. Ever.”
That was the truth she had to focus on. She was worried about why she was with him and why he was with her, but at the end of the day, she felt something with him that she’d never felt before. That would have to be enough for now. She’d have to learn to trust her own heart again.
When song ended, Claire wrapped her arm through PJ’s as they stared at the table. “Honey, in that case, all I can say is ride that until it breaks.”
Which made PJ laugh and slap at her.
As they made their way back to the table, her phone in her back pocket chirped and vibrated.
NO CALLER: The monster you left at the table is going to toss you aside when he’s through just like the others. Don’t let him. Send him packing.
Her stomach fell again, this time for a completely different reason. She scanned the room for eyes on her, but she didn’t see anyone watching. It gave her the willies. Was he still here or had he left? Had he followed her here? Her mind drifted momentarily to the D-boy, but she didn’t know him. She’d never met him before tonight, had she?
No Caller acted like he knew her past. Her secrets. The ones she couldn’t tell Seth about because if he reacted like he had tonight over a guy flirting with her, how would he react if he knew all the sordid details of those awful years? Her secret little box in her mind slammed shut.
Her mood was different when they got back to the table. Another round had been brought, but she didn’t touch it. The girls danced more, dragging her with them, but she wasn’t into any of it anymore. When more men followed them back to the table, she was full of nerves and Seth was full of impatience.
“Are you done here?” It was said as a question, but PJ could hear the demand in it as well. She wanted to say no just to prove a point. But she was done, and his hands running down her bare arms made her think about what he’d do to her when they got back to his house, so she nodded instead.
“We’re gonna take off,” she said breathlessly to Claire and the twins.
“What?” Mina said with a slur. “No. We only have a few more weeks together. Then we’ll be across the country and you’ll be stuck with Justice and the baby. You have to stay. It’s not even eleven o’clock.”
“What’s this?” Seth asked curtly.
PJ waved him off.
“You’re already plastered. In another twenty minutes, you’ll be ready for bed yourself.”
One of the guys snickered. PJ glared at him. Mina hit him on his over-defined pecs. “Fine, but after we graduate, and before we move, you have to promise us an all-nighter.”
Seth’s hand on PJ’s waist tightened. He didn’t like it. PJ could tell, but it was her life and her friends that were moving away, not his. She wouldn’t let her friendships be defined by him.
“Fine, fine.” She leaned over the table and gave them all a quick hug.
“Nighty night, Seth and PJ.” Claire winked at them. “Don’t sleep too much.”
“God, you're awful.” PJ squeezed her friend’s hand, and then let Seth pull her through the bar.
PJ couldn’t help but stare at the sea of faces as she went. But no one caught her eye with a knowing look. She tried to shake away the creeps and the stuffiness of the club as the fresh air hit them.
She made her way to Claire’s car, retrieving her bag with the extra key she’d had for as long as Claire and her had been friends. Then she let Seth lead her to his Porsche.
He hadn’t said much since they’d danced on the dance floor. Then again, Seth never spoke a lot. She glanced over at him as he drove. He seemed far away, and she needed to think about Seth and not No Caller, so she prodded him back from wherever he’d gone.
“Where are you?” she asked.
He looked at her with serious eyes. “Do you go there often?”
“Not as much as we used to. Claire works there and gets us free drinks.”
But PJ wondered if she’d ever feel comfortable there again with unseen eyes watching her.
She could tell Seth didn’t like it either because his jaw tightened and his hands clenched the steering wheel.
“Seth. I’m not interested in those other guys. If I were, I wouldn’t be here with you,” she said, hoping she could reassure one of them.
He looked at her with eyes full of unexpressed feelings. He was quietly fuming, but she couldn’t tell if it was at her or the guys or himself. She shook her head and the curls suddenly were annoying. She pulled her hair up into a bun, wrapping the hair tie she’d had on her wrist around it.
Seth looked like he wanted to tear it back out, but he didn’t. Instead, he asked, “Why are you moving in with Justice?”
That finally took her mind fro
m an unwanted text with a bang of dissatisfaction. She looked out the window. “I told you. After graduation, Mina and Haley are moving to New York.”
“But why does that mean you’re moving?”
“Claire’s moving in with her aunt so that she can afford law school.” PJ continued her stare into the darkness, giving a small shrug that she saw reflected back at her in the glass.
“And?”
“Well, I can’t afford to live on my own.” Her cheeks flamed. She was graduating and hadn’t found a job because she’d thought she’d be going to grad school, and now that was out the window. The feeling of failure sunk into her gut.
In the window reflection, she saw Seth glance at her as if he was taking in not only her words but the emotion behind them.
“You don’t need to live on your own.”
“It’s just such a hassle finding new roommates. It’s easier this way.” Defeat seeped into her voice. As much as she knew Liv and Justice would be thrilled to have her, she didn’t want to invade on their new family unit.
“I meant you should move in with me.”
She turned to him in shock before laughing drily. “That’s not even funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“It’s ridiculous. We hardly know each other.”
He pulled into his garage and turned to her.
“I think we know each other pretty well.” He pulled out the hairband that she’d just put in, tangling his hand in her hair, resting it at her neck. She could hardly breathe, let alone think, when he was looking at her like that, but she knew what he was asking was crazy.
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
She pulled away and opened the door. He was at her side in a flash, taking her bag from her hand. They went in through the garage door. There were no lights on in the house, but the moon was out, and it reflected on the ocean and shone in through his picture windows. It was beautiful.
He dropped her bag, pulling her to him. His arms tightened as he looked down with eyes that, even in the darkness, shimmered like tidepools on a summer day.