Everyone else would get nice Ellie, sweet Ellie, the Ellie everyone knew and liked. Adam would get crabby Ellie, tired Ellie, the Ellie with the bitter, broken heart.
While Braden detained Joss after a small skirmish about her dress (my brother was such an alpha-male idiot sometimes) Adam led me up to a private booth across from the bar. I slid in one side and was surprised when Adam sat down quite close to me.
“Careful,” I warned him dryly, “I think you’re breaking your one meter distance rule with me. ”
He curled his lip, unimpressed. “Don’t start. Not tonight. ”
“Not any night. ”
His eyes flashed. “You know why I don’t date, Ellie? So I don’t have to put up with this shit. It’s like being in a fucking relationship without the benefits. ”
Hurt, I gave him the dirtiest look I could muster. “No, it’s like being in a friendship you broke. ”
Having successfully spread my hurt to him, I felt awful, and feeling awful made me even angrier at him. I didn’t want to care that I hurt his feelings.
Adam was about to respond when movement drew our heads up and we saw Joss trying to escape our argument. He gave her a look that told her to plant her bottom down beside us and save him from me.
I was almost as relieved as he was when she sat down on my other side.
“Braden’s having drinks sent over,” she said, her eyes taking in all the guests. “I didn’t realize he had other friends appearing tonight. I thought it was just us and random people. ”
“No,” I replied absentmindedly, my bad mood causing the rope bridge between my brain and mouth to snap. “Some of his exes as well as his previous friends-with-benefits girls love clubbing. He invited them and a few of his guy friends. ”
It wasn’t until Adam snapped, “Ellie, what are you playing at?” and I turned to see him gazing pointedly at Joss that I followed his gaze and saw Joss had frozen at my careless comment.
Mortified, I hurried to assure her apologetically, “Oh crap, Joss, I didn’t mean anything. I mean, those girls don’t mean anything…”
“Let’s get drunk,” she announced overly cheerily and I felt unbelievably guilty for making her feel uncomfortable and uncertain of Braden.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let’s just wait for Braden,” Adam insisted.
However, Braden spent an awful long time flirting and chatting with guests and the tension at our table grew so thick we all sought to escape it. Joss and I headed for the dance floor, and I kept her company for a while until I headed to the bar to get some water. As I approached I caught sight of Adam and felt that oh so familiar burn in my throat. He was wearing a black shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, with black dress trousers. It was simple, it was hot. He always looked hot. And tonight he looked hot as he leaned into a girl who was sitting on a stool at the other end of the bar. She had her head tilted back while Adam braced one hand on the bar and leaned in to whisper in her ear. She laughed and he lifted his face so they were almost close enough to kiss. Whatever he murmured to her made her laugh soften to a flirtatious smile and I felt that burn in my throat transform into a lump of tears.
As if he sensed my ga
ze Adam’s head lifted and our eyes met. I’d never found it easy to hide my emotions when I was feeling something particularly deeply and I hurried to look away before he caught it.
“What can I get you?” One of the bartenders finally approached me.
“Bottle of water,” I replied, my voice hoarse with pain and he had to lean in for me to repeat the order. Just as I handed him money for the water, I felt a hand on my lower back and his cologne hit me seconds before his mouth brushed my ear.
“Els,” Adam said quietly, his voice thick with emotion.
I didn’t know how to respond. My eyes fixed downward on the bottle as I tried to control myself, knowing that every day I was getting closer and closer to forcing our situation into some kind of resolution by putting the truth out there.
“Sweetheart, look at me. ”
I did as he asked, searching his face for answers I knew he wasn’t ready to give me, answers he may never be ready to give me.
He lifted his hand from my back and brushed his knuckles tenderly along my jaw, his eyes following their movement. “The prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured.
The words stung because they signaled another round on this merry-go-round of mixed signals. I reared back from his touch, grimacing. “Don’t. ”
He dropped his hands. “Ellie—”
I gestured to the girl at the other end of the bar who was now throwing invisible daggers my way. “Did you say that to her?”
“El—”
A surge of shocked murmurs and shouts interrupted him and we both turned to look over his shoulder to see Braden rearing back from hitting… “Gavin,” I gasped.
Adam immediately took off to be by his friend’s side and I followed, my heart racing for Braden. Gavin had been his and Adam’s friend at school, but he’d grown up into a prize arsehole. Braden, for some reason, felt loyalty to him and kept him around. That was until five years ago when he’d slept with Analise and betrayed Braden.
Now he was in his nightclub?
“That is Gavin. ” Braden threw Joss a disgusted look. “The friend who fucked Analise.