Light Me Up

THEO

Well this was turninginto a shitshow of a night. I cringed at Amy, overly flirtatious, hanging around my neck like a monkey. Any other night, I would have been bursting with some sort of masculine pride. Showing off the sexy little thing as we mingled before taking her home to my place for a good time.

But tonight I felt sick from it. My first thought was that I shouldn’t have brought Amy here at all. Why not though? Just because Sara and I had kissed? We both knew it was a slip-up. She had no interest in me. So why did it feel like it made me a dick?

The only reason I did bring Amy was because I’d asked her to go as my date over a week ago. It didn’t really sit right with me to uninvite her when I didn’t have a good reason. But seeing Sara’s face drop when I walked in with her was the ultimate reason. And I might have been confused as fuck over it, but knowing I might have caused Sara even an ounce of real pain, made my skin crawl.

“Hey, you mind grabbing me another beer?” I asked Amy, trying to get her to disengage from me. I momentarily felt bad for sending her on an errand but she seemed happy to do it as a friend of hers was heading inside anyway. I stood on the deck and observed the party.

The lights I’d helped Sam string up looked nice. They illuminated his large yard in a yellow glow, warm and inviting. The town normally showed up for each other, and tonight was no exception. Gus and his wife Cheryl held court at one of the fire bowls set up around the lawn. Her hands were waving wildly as she told a story to the others gathered around, her husband looking on fondly. I wondered what it would be like to be married for over forty years like them. Would it really feel so stifling like I always assumed?

Gus sure looked happy.

A group toasting to something on my left caught my attention, but when I turned to look, my stomach dropped out of my damn body. Sara, perfection in her silky blue dress, was walking onto the deck behind some behemoth of a guy and when they settled against the far railing, dude checked her out in a way that made clear, he did not have friendship on his mind.

Who was this fucker? I’d never seen him before, and I would have remembered, he was the size of a damn giraffe. There were some people milling about, concealing me while I did my recon. They didn’t look familiar with each other but their interactions were definitely flirty. It shouldn’t have bothered me. Sara wasn’t mine. We didn’t even like each other. She refused to call us friends. Plus, I was here with another woman, Ashlyn. Amy. Dammit.

But I was man enough to admit it did bother me. It bothered me a whole damn lot, especially when the giraffe took his massive hand and used it to touch Sara’s dress strap. An image of that guy slipping the strap off her shoulder to strip her bare flashed into my mind and I saw red. My chest tightened and a streak of hot lightning flashed through it as I forced myself to not go over there and rip his hand off his body.

Sara looked up at me. I didn’t hide my displeasure, but only because I couldn’t get a grip on myself. This jolt of rage—and possessiveness—was not letting up. I vaguely noticed Amy was back and clinging to me again. She whispered something, about getting out of here? I didn’t know and didn’t much care.

Because at that point, I couldn’t rip my eyes away from Sara, couldn’t stop the rumble in my throat as I watched that guy sling his long arm around her and lead her back inside the house. Were they leaving together? I wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Look, thanks for coming with me tonight, but if you wanna get out of here, I can call you an Uber,” I said to Amy without taking my eyes off the target.

“What? You don’t even want to fuck me?”

“No.”

“You have a reputation. The only reason I came tonight was so I could…come tonight. What the hell?”

I looked at her then. “Guess my reputation isn’t all that accurate anymore. I’m sorry, it’s just not gonna happen.”

She looked at me with disgust and then shook her head.

“Whatever. See you around.”

“Probably not. Do you need a ride?”

“No,” she huffed, and left down the stairs to join some of her friends around one of the fire bowls in the back. I took a long swig of the new beer Amy had brought me, set it down on a nearby table, and made my way into the house after them.

Due to the open concept, I got a good look at them over by the drink station. And due to the large number of guests milling about the place, I was able to get close enough to hear their conversation without Sara seeing me. Not that I was spying, per se. Just, trying to be inconspicuous until the time was right.

I almost blew that plan when I got a view of Giraffe putting his big hand on the small of her back, drifting dangerously low to that perfect ass. I was definitely gonna rip that hand off. But Sara seemed to be able to handle herself, no surprise really. She shifted away with a little playful shimmy. Obvious, but not angry. Giraffe raised his hands in surrender but smiled and looked even more enamored. I had to hand it to her, she knew how to work a man.

Ellie and her new boyfriend, another asshole I didn’t like—though for an entirely different reason—and the foursome engaged in conversation. I smiled and nodded to friends and townsfolk as I walked in a careful loop, pretending to just mingle, but my ears strained to hear what Sara was saying.

“…cups,” was all I got, but when I looked over again, I noticed her excuse herself from the group and head down the back hall I knew led to the garage. I waited to make sure no one followed her, but they were busy chatting and mixing a new pitcher of margaritas.

Sam’s garage was more like a warehouse of tools and storage. He had a proper workshop out back, but he used this for the surplus. As such, it was stacked with shelves arranged in rows. I found her in the back, facing the shelf along the wall. She had a package of plastic cups in her hand but was standing still, her other arm wrapped around her midsection. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a stylish mess of curls, but that meant her entire neck, shoulders, and a good part of her back was exposed in that dress. And goddamn, she was too good for any man here, myself included.

The bright blue of her dress contrasted her gorgeous light brown skin that she must have put special cream on, because it shimmered even in the dim light of the garage. I thought about how soft she would feel in my hands, how much I wanted to run my tongue along her shoulder and up her neck. She sighed and turned.

“Oh!” Dropping the bag of cups, she jumped. I rushed forward.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Hand on her heart, she took a few deep breaths and rolled her eyes at me.

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.” No point in lying.

“Why?”

The air shifted. I stepped closer. Too close, maybe.

“You know why.”

“No, I really don’t.”