Stupid Love (Stumbling into Love 1)

We took our beers with us to the dance floor and began to move together. I was distracted half the time. Elijah got under my skin something fierce. One of two things happened every time I glanced his way, which was embarrassingly often. He was either looking at me and would quickly turn away as if I didn’t have eyes in my head to notice, or he’d be staring at Danny all lovey and obsessive, which made me sick to my stomach. What was it with love that made people lose their minds?

The more this happened, the more convinced I became that Elijah and ILWMBF were the same person. Midtown wasn’t that big. It wasn’t as if this was the first time the two of us had seen each other out. All those other times, we completely ignored each other without making strange eyes at each other every two seconds while pretending we weren’t doing exactly what we were doing.

“Well, hello there.” A hot guy began dancing between Will and me, the perfect distraction I needed right then.

“Hey yourself.” I put my hands on his waist and tried to forget about Elijah and ILWMBF.

It was better that way.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Elijah

Okay…so this was supposed to be fun, but really wasn’t.

It was bad enough that Danny had asked if Garrett could come and hang out with us tonight. What I had wanted to say was, Fuck no, with a side of, Are you crazy? But I was also curious about him and had no good reason to say no other than I want you, which I clearly wasn’t going to say.

So I said yes instead.

And hated every second of this night.

Garrett was gorgeous—dark hair, mysterious eyes, and a perfect body—because of course he was. And so far, he seemed like an all right guy even though he was screwing the man I loved, but whatever.

Still, he definitely didn’t seem as interested in Danny as Danny was in him.

All that didn’t make for a fun night, but then, because karma hated me, Shaw showed up.

And he was watching me.

And all I could think was, He knows. He’s figured it out.

And, I also couldn’t stop watching him. Every time I attempted to, my eyes would inexplicably get drawn back to him, which was really annoying. I needed to figure out this weirdness with him.

Shaw was dancing with his friend Will, with a twink between them. It was so typical Shaw that I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Not that there was anything wrong with dancing, twink included or not, but everything Shaw did annoyed me. It always had, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.

Our eyes caught as he rubbed his hands down the guy’s body, and then the motherfucker winked at me. I flipped him off, then quickly looked at Danny to check if he saw.

He didn’t.

Garrett had his arms around him, and they were running their hands up and down each other’s backs, rubbing their bodies together, dancing close, and all I could do was stare. I’d seen Danny dance with hundreds of guys in my lifetime, and while it bothered me often over the past year, it had never felt like this. This heavy ache in my bones.

I massaged a hand over my chest as if that would somehow soothe the pain there. My eyes darted down just before a pair of shoes showed up in front of mine. Without looking, I knew it was Shaw.

“Hey, you. I wanted to thank you again for dinner the other night.”

Excuse me, what? was on the tip of my tongue, but I managed to bite it back while heat flooded my cheeks and our eyes met. He knew. This had to mean he knew. Had he been aware the whole time? Had he been laughing at me while playing games with me? But none of that felt right, even though I couldn’t say why.

“The ramen is really great there,” Shaw added, cocking a brow, a reminder that I needed to speak.

“Um…yeah? I mean, I agree. It’s good, and no problem,” finally pushed past my lips while I was trying to figure out what in the hell was going on.

“Oh, hey. I’m Shaw, Eli’s neighbor.” He held his hand out for Danny, who frowned. Also, Shaw had never called me Eli in my life.

“We’ve met,” Danny replied, shaking his hand. Shaw definitely knew they’d met. He was trying to be a dick. He went to Garrett next, who smirked at him. Ugh. Now he wanted to screw Shaw too. Was nothing sacred to this guy? He was going to take everything from me.

Oh fuck. Not that Shaw was mine, and I definitely didn’t want him to be mine. Nope.

“Hey, how’s it going?” Garrett asked.

“Good.” Shaw grinned a cocky grin that said he knew he was hot and being checked out. There was nothing I wanted more than to call him on it, but I made myself hold back. Shaw added, “I was hoping to get a dance with this guy,” and pointed to me.