“I know.” The words are whispered.
“Do you?”
“Tell Blue I don’t want to see his fucking face. Nowhere near here. Make him understand. I mean it, Dove.”
I hang the phone up. I stand there in the moonlight for a long time, just breathing.
* * *
Gwenna
December 31, 2011
I march straight to the bar, order two Jäger Bombs, down them in quick succession, and on a whim, decide to get Mr. Friendly at my table a fish bowl. The bartender hands it over, gentle as if he was handling a baby, and I clutch the cold bowl to my chest. As I whirl around, I bump into something solid.
“Oops!”
A guy. My heavy-lidded eyes peruse him, processing, after a second, a striking face, with kind eyes, princely lips, and model-gorgeous features. “You’re like…a wall. A nice wall.”
He chuckles softly.
He’s got sad eyes, my drunk mind thinks, but the thought is lost as my gaze reaches his hair. Curly hair… Mmm. My sluggish pulse surges.
“Are you a model?” I ask, blinking as I do, because I’m slightly dizzy.
He gives me the funniest little smile that starts out kind of smirky and turns into a gorgeous grin—with dimples!
“No—I’m not a model. Are you?”
“Yes.”
His face gentles, looking curious and, I think, charmed. “Yeah?”
“A model and a singer,” I say proudly.
He gives me a thoughtful-looking smile, as if he thinks I’m cute and is pondering the model-singer part of the equation. Heat roars through me, and I realize I can feel my heartbeat in between my legs.
Because he’s beautiful. And he seems nice. Someone I should stay away from on a night like this.
I turn slightly to head back to my table, forgetting, in my drunken state, that he’s still right in front of me. Beer sloshes over my arms.
“Shit!”
His big hands steady the fish bowl. “You need a hand?”
I groan and push my right sleeve up, baring the tiny snowflake tat I got on the inside of my forearm last Christmas, with some of my modeling money.
“Sigh.”
“Did you just say ‘sigh’?”
I look up into his nice, sad blue eyes, which just now seem to be dancing with amusement. He tilts his head back as he chuckles.
“I text too much,” I say.
I have no idea if he understands what I’m trying to say—too many times typing “sigh” has got m
e saying that aloud rather than sighing—and I find I’m too drunk to guess.