by Mj Fields
My throat tightens around a lump and my eyes fill with tears.
“Ladies’. Room.”
“You can’t be left alone, Natasha, you’re fucked up.”
Knowing there is no sense in trying to string together a sentence, I tell him one word, “Friends.”
“Friends, Natasha? Your friend poured water over me, telling me to take a cold fucking shower.”
I bite my top lip to stop myself from laughing.
“Shit’s not funny. If Celine wasn’t who she is, she’d have kicked her ass,” he snaps.
“Sorry.” I take in a deep breath and turn around, using the sink to steady myself. “She thinks,” I motion between us.
He runs his hand through his hair, and I notice he’s trimmed his beard.
Then I remember he’s supposed to be on his way back to the US.
“Why are you still here?”
“Because I’m gonna make sure your ass gets back to your dorm without further incident.”
I brush past him, taking each step carefully. “Go find your Celine.”
He holds the door shut as I try to open it. “She’s a friend.”
He’d already said he didn’t have friends and now he’s saying the opposite. “I was under the impression you didn’t have those.”
He frowns.
“Well then, go find her, and Oliver?” I look back at him. “Try not to give her whiplash.”
When he’s caught off guard, I am able to open the door and slide out.
The pub is packed, and now loud music fills the establishment… or maybe it did before and I just didn’t notice. I see Shana, Harry, and Charlie dancing to some whimsical folk sounding song and even though I’ve never danced, I’m one hundred percent sure I cannot possibly look any more foolish than they do.
“Natasha.” I look behind me and see Oliver calling my name at the same time Shana calls to me.
I hold my hands palm up and shrug at him, then join my friends.
Dancing in circles, arms linked, spinning, laughing and I’m having fun, just like a normal college girl should. Harry hands me another drink and I take it pretending to curtsey. “Thank you, kind sir.”
“Of course, me lady,” he bows and we both laugh.
I look up to see if Oliver has rejoined his friend, Celine. I hope he has. I hope he can enjoy himself the way I plan to enjoy myself tonight. We both deserve it.
I see him leaning against the bar next to the beautiful woman, but his arms are crossed over his chest and he’s staring at me, his lips in a straight line.
I frown wishing he could just… lighten up.
I give him two thumbs up and a smile, he rolls his eyes and Shana grabs my hand, turning me to face her.
“Ignore the ex.” Then she laughs. “No matter how sexy he is.”
He’s not my ex, I think as I force myself back in the moment
When the song changes to a slow one I immediately look for the quickest path to the table, when Harry grabs my wrist. “Not so fast, tiny dancer.”
“If you like your feet unharmed, you may want to rethink your–”
“She’s taken.”
Oliver.
Shana points her finger at him as she hands me a shot. “You’ve moved on.”
“You need to mind your business,” Oliver snaps at her.
I take the gasoline in the tiny cup and toss it back before I turn and scold him, “Really?”
Then I lift my glass that Harry gave me and drink the entire contents as Oliver tosses his own drink back, sets it on the table beside us, then takes my empty and does the same.
His hands then grip my hips, stopping me from moving as he looks over my head at my friends and scowls.
When the song begins, I look up at him, his eyes still looking over my head, he begins to move. I wrap my hands around his wrists and he looks down and quips, “They go on my shoulders and it helps if you move a little.”
I don’t move.
“Look, you may want to play along with your little game, or they’re going to suspect that we’re-.”
I interrupt, “They suspected when they saw you with Celine.”
His lips turn up slightly in the corner.
“If you like her, Oliver–”
“I like her fine, but that’s not the point here is it?”
“The point is, I already told them we broke up, which I wouldn’t have had to do had Autumn not felt the need to hide my… my… my virtue.” Amusement dances in his eyes and to that I roll mine and continue, “So this is senseless-eses.”
“Is it senseless-eses?”
I push on his chest and roll my eyes, his lip twitches up in the corner just for a moment and the moment passes all too quickly as his hand covers mine and drags it up from his chest to place it on his shoulder.
His eyes no longer look at me, they look over me again as he moves us in a way that others will assume lovers do.
“It’s not necessary.”
“Your virtue won’t be preserved if you continue frequenting places like The Cock and The Spread Eagle.”
I laugh out loud and he sighs. “Natasha, it may seem amusing now, going out, drinking, dancing and being foolish, however, you are bringing all you imagined to life and doing it with a company built on the basis of class and elegance.” He grips my hips a little tighter. “I’m sure you don’t want the new face of de la Porte to taint the company’s image.”
The words tainted, and face, make me sick to my stomach immediately and I step back.
He pulls me back against him, my palms lay flat on his chest.
“You know what I mean.”
“I know exactly.” I bite my upper lip.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Oliver
I sure as fuck didn’t mean to make her feel self-conscious, but I did. And when she covered her stomach and her pretty pale skin turned the color of her eyes, I knew what was coming next.
When she threw up all over me, she began to cry, and when I picked her up and carried her out of the bar, she didn’t stop, not even when we’d crossed the road.
She didn’t stop crying and whispering apologies, and it shook me to my soul.
She’s not Grace.
I set her on the ground, peel off my goddamned sweater and throw it in the trash outside my hotel.
Luckily, I have a tee shirt underneath it so when we walk into the five-star lobby, not many people look at us that oddly. She wouldn’t be able to handle that, not right now.
I kept her under my arm and turned in so the vomit on her didn’t show, and yes, I did catch a few looks as I boarded the elevator car with a crying girl. Not sure if it was the tears or the smell.
Once inside my room, she immediately pulls away from me and runs to the bathroom, drinks from the faucet, and starts throwing up again. Luckily, this time, it wasn’t on me, it was in the sink.
As I hold her hair away from her face while she throws up, I tell her, “You may be thirsty, but it’ll just put more in your stomach, so don’t drink.”
I draw her a bath when she sits on the marble floor silently sobbing.
I don’t say a word when she rejects ten calls in a row from her cell, but the next time, I take it from her and tell her little tequila pushing friend, that she’s fine and would be with me this evening.
And I don’t wait for her to reply, I hang up.
“I can’t do this, Oliver,” she cries.
I pull her up. “You threw up because you’re drunk, Natasha, not because you’re incapable. You think you’re incapable because you’re drunk. You catching the commonality? Drunk Natasha isn’t happy Natasha.”
I pull her dress up over her head and she melts into the wall behind her like a limp and lifeless noodle. I focus on her face, not the fact that she’s wearing a virgin white bra with matching panties, or the fact that this is the girl coloring my nightmares and dancing all over the mayhem in them.
I toss the dress in the trash and turn around to see her eyes wide and
her breath held.
“Leave the bra and panties on, like a swim suit, but get your ass in the bath and clean up.”
As I’m walking out the door, she calls behind me with all the sass she can muster when I’ve just done something a girl like her has probably dreamed of a man doing to her in a completely different context. “Why can’t I take them off?”
I look back at her, she’s still sagging against the wall. I want to tell her, because I have wanted inside you since the first night I saw you beside my bed. Or something even more real, because I want to fuck you all the way to unforgettable… like you’ve already fucked me.
But I don’t, because she deserves so much fucking more than I could ever give a human being.
Instead I tell her, “Because I’m going to come back in here and make sure you don’t drown.”
After I throw out my shirt, I stand outside the door listening to the water move, and the small sounds escaping her as she washes herself.
I tell myself stand down, soldier, whenever I feel like I can’t take another second.
I hear her get out, I hear her pull the towel off the rack and I wait like a good little boy until she says my name. I walk in and see her wrapped in a towel shaking and her teeth begin to chatter. “I’m cold.”
I hand her a tee-shirt and a pair of sweats and tell her to put it on and I leave the room.
When she comes out swimming in my clothes, she’s still shaking. I pull back the duvet and point to the bed. “Get in.”
She hurries over and gets onto the bed, and I cover her quickly.
“It’s so cold, Oliver,” she says through chattering teeth and I don’t fucking think, I react.
I pull lose my pants and slide in next to her, and she moans at the connection of our bodies, as she buries her face in my chest.
Teeth chattering, she asks, “When will I get warm?”
“Right before you get sober,” I sigh and rub my hand up and down her back to warm her.
“Why do people even drink?” Her body shakes.
“Most don’t pound shots and mix it with whatever else it was you were drinking.”
“Sparkling cider.” Her body shakes violently, and I pull her closer. “Apples and pa-pa-pears,” she shivers. “It was so go-go-good.”
“I bet it was.” I can’t help but laugh and she sinks her nails into me a bit.
Fuck, that feels damn good.
“Not funny.”
Not at fucking all, I sigh to myself.
“How did it taste coming up?”
She sinks them in farther and I force a laugh, but fuck, fuck, fuck.
“You should go,” she sighs. “I’m sorry I interrupted your date.”
“Wasn’t a date, Natasha, it was,” I pause trying to decide whether or not to tell her the truth, but then realize she probably won’t remember anyway. “Work.”
She looks up at me. “Work?”
“I used to work with her. She does private security work now.”
“You should go work with her then.”
“Natasha, this is my room.”
“Well, I’m not leaving.” She peeks up at me, eyes giving me some sort of hell.
“I know you aren’t. Get some sleep.”
“So cold,” she whispers snuggling up closer to me.
“You’ll survive, now shhh.”
“Oliver?”
“Natasha.”
“Thanks.”
Her body is flush against mine and it should be really fucking uncomfortable but it’s not, it’s so damn comfortable. The way she just fits. It should feel wrong, but it feels so fucking right.
“Oliver?”
“Yeah?” I rub up and down her back a little harder now that I’m not worried I may mistakably push her up against me any tighter, she’s done that herself.
“This feels good.”
“Yeah,” I admit, knowing she’ll probably not remember it, but also not giving a fuck right now.
“I’m sick of fighting with you, Oliver, so sick it that it–” She stops.
“Made you throw up?”
She shivers again as she silently smiles against my skin. I don’t need to see it, I can feel it. I pull her head against my neck and rest my chin on top of her wet hair.
“I’m serious,” she sighs.
“I agree, it’s quieter.”
“Silence is overrated,” she yawns.
“You’re right. Contrary to what people believe, silence has a sound, it actually has many. Buzzing. Ringing. Hissing. Roaring. Near deafening. It’s never peaceful. But quiet, like this, it’s so fucking nice.”
“I’m glad I can be part of it,” she yawns.
After a few more moments, she giggles.
“What’s so amusing?”
“This, us,” she laughs again. “You taught me to ride a bike, yesterday, my first time. I got drunk today for the first time and you were here. I had my first dance tonight, with you. It’s weird, right?”
“Not unless you make it that way,” I sigh and roll to my back. I run my hands through my hair and sit up. “I’m going to shower and you’re going to go to sleep.”
She sits up, and not without issue, but my not thinking and simply reacting put us in this position to begin with, so I restrain my need to help her.
“Now who’s making it awkward?” I turn around and walk to the bathroom. “Oliver, wait.”
I grip the doorjamb, physically stopping two conflicting urges, one to turn around and make it real fucking awkward, and the other to fight with her again, push her away, but that’s why I never left to begin with. I can’t keep living like this.
“Two of those things, my dad should have taught me. But not the drunk part, I’m so glad it was you.”
I look over my shoulder at her smiling face. “Now that would have been awkward. So please stop fighting with me. I mean, I know you feel it too, the connection, the friendship, so please, just stop.”
I nod, “Okay.”
Her eyes smile and her nose crinkles up. “Okay?”
I nod again.
She smiles. “Thank you.”
I step into the bathroom. “And thank you for being my pretend boyfriend.”
I turn around and look at her. I don’t know what to expect, but she’s rolling her eyes and laughing at herself. “He had something green in his teeth, that’s a hard no for me. And I swear he would’ve kissed me if it weren’t for you.”
My body heats and I swear my blood is boiling. “If he ever tries to kiss you again, your pretend boyfriend is gonna kick his ass, for real.”
As soon as the words leave my lips, I step back in the bathroom and shut the door behind me.
I take the longest shower in history. If I were still in the desert, I would be getting my ass chewed for running us out of water. I’m taking longer than a twelve-year old boy trying to figure out how to make his first hard-on disappear. And not because I’m trying to get off, but because I needed her to fall the fuck to sleep.
Once I’m showered, I throw on a pair of sweats that I’d left in here before walking over to the Spread Eagle to meet Celine.
When I walk out, she opens her eyes and pulls the covers back for me. When I hesitate, she whispers, “I’m freezing, Oliver, get in here.”
So I do.
I wake to a heartbeat against me, the smell of lavender and the ocean surrounding me and… fuck. I’m hard. I’m so fucking hard.
“Morning,” she sighs and arches her back.
“Gotta piss,” I grumble and practically throw her off me. “Shit, I apologize.”
“S-okay,” she huffs.
After pissing, I can at least hide my dick, and when I walk out, she’s holding her head.
I grab my phone and look at the time. “Natasha, you have class at noon?”
“Uh huh,” she mutters.
“It’s almost eleven now.”
She sits up and scampers across the bed, each movement a whimper and when she stands, she nearly falls.
I grab her biceps and steady her.
“I’m gonna be so late.”
“You’d make a terrible drunk,” I can’t help but laugh.
She cocks her head to the side. “Are you picking on me, Oliver?”
“I am.” I step back and let go of her. “Go shower, I’ll grab you some food.”
“Hair of the dog?” She attempts to smile, and it’s clear that doing so pains her.
I can’t help but push it a little. “Apples and Pears?”
She walks past me toward the bathroom grumbling, “Never again.”
I order pastries and coffee to be delivered via room service, and dress in jeans and a black sweater. She’s been in the bathroom for ten minutes when I hear the blow dryer that buzzes for another five minutes.
When she finally walks out of the bathroom, in the tee-shirt she slept in, her hair is dry and lays straight, nearly to her waist.
She walks to my closet and grabs my denim shirt and walks back into the bathroom. “Help yourself,” I whisper.
When she comes out, she’s’ dressed in my shirt, the sleeves are rolled up and she has my belt wrapped around her, twice. She looks fucking stunning and without a stitch of makeup on her perfect heart shaped face. I wonder why the fuck she even bothers. But then I remember.
“Where did my boots end up?” she asks looking around as she picks up her handbag, pulls out her phone and begins sending a text without me answering. “Can’t believe it still has ten percent battery left,” she says to herself.
She looks up and cocks her head. “What?”
“You look amazing.”
She smiles. “Is that a compliment?”
I nod.
“Well, thank you.”
She walks over, and I hand her a cup of coffee and a croissant. “I’m never going to need a real boyfriend if my pretend one keeps this up.”
“How the hell are you the same mess that just rolled out of bed?”
She nearly chokes on her coffee; a couple drips slip down her lip. She licks it and laughs, “Okay, maybe not.”
“What?” I’m confused.
“You just told me I looked like crap when I wake up. You simply won’t do,” she shrugs and turns. “My boots!”
