by Sabrina York
When Chloe calls one morning to see if I want to hang out, I jump at the chance to set my mind on something else and get the hell out of the apartment. We end up shopping for the things I wish I would’ve packed from home. As much as I want desperately to confide in Chloe, I worry what she’ll think of me sleeping with Erik—especially after she made a comment about him letting me stay with him in exchange for sex. What if that’s really what’s going on, but I’m just too daft to acknowledge it?
Once we return to the apartment, Chloe throws her armload of bags on the island, huffing with the movement. “This is a lot of stuff. I can’t imagine starting over like this. Once we get everything unloaded, I can take you to a few of the cheap knockoff stores. You must be getting tired of your limited wardrobe.”
“Thanks,” I say, pretending not to be so fearful that Erik could walk through the door at any moment. “Eventually I hope to have my things from home shipped out, but I could use a few more outfits in the meantime.”
She shimmies up to sit on to the countertop, her dark eyes scanning the loft as she swings her feet. I’m thrown off for a moment when I remember the blonde having sex with Erik in the very same spot. “Where’s Prince Charming? Off polishing his fangs? That guy’s something else. Part of me couldn’t believe you actually took him up on his offer. I mean I get it, this place is amazeballs, but the attitude…ugh, I don’t know. Either you’re a lot tougher skinned than I am, or that shit’s just an acquired taste that gets some getting used to.”
“He had classes or something. I guess he won’t be back until late tonight.”
Chloe’s eyes grow wide with excitement. “Holy shit, I know exactly what you need to do. Let’s invite some peeps over for dinner and cocktails, have a little party! It’s not every day you land a place this stellar. If you’re going to be a real New Yorker, you have to learn to entertain the shit out of people on a whim. We could get some sushi from Chinatown and grab a few bottles of booze from the liquor store on our way back.”
I’m instantly intrigued with the idea. Remembering Erik’s short list of rules, I decide having a few people over wouldn’t violate anything and a party would help relieve some of the tension. “It would be a little party. You’re one of five people I know here, Erik included, and Jewels has to work tonight.”
Chloe counts her fingers. “Wait. Who’s the fifth person?”
“Have you met Theo? Jewels and Adam’s friend?”
“Oh yeah. That man is one sexy piece of meat, I tell you. Not my type—I like my men to be able to rock a guitar—but I mean, have you seen his massive arms? Those gorgeous eyes, they draw you in with a ‘come hither’ vibe. I guess he doesn’t have a girlfriend, which is a complete travesty. The guy’s the complete package.”
“He wants to take me on a date.” And I’ve probably fucked up any chance of us actually being together by continuing to play these twisted games with Erik.
“Holy shit!” She claps her hands excitedly. “What are you waiting for? Call that hot man up and invite him over already! We’ll find you a new outfit to wow the pants off him. It’ll be so fucking fun!”
Laughing, I start texting everyone about our impromptu shindig. Even though it will be hard to face him at first with my dirty little secret hanging over my shoulder, seeing Theo again might be exactly what it’s going to take to clear my head.
Adam, Jewels, James, Chloe and the two guys from her band—Beckett and Landon—mill around with hip music floating through the air. Dressed in the latest fashion from a boutique near Chelsea, watching my friends in my apartment, I feel incredibly mature and put together. For the first time since leaving home, I finally feel like I was meant to be here, even if it is someone else’s apartment. Someone who I still need to get away from as soon as financially possible.
Jewels sneaks up to my side with a glass of white wine in hand. “See, this is exactly why I had to switch my shift for this party. You’re freaking glowing, Kel. I haven’ seen you this happy in a long time.”
I bring my attention back to the new plate of sushi I was trying to arrange artfully. “Yeah, except Theo still isn’t here. Do you think I should call him?”
“Don’t over think it. He’s coming, I promise. He probably just got held up having to comfort one of the starlets he’s been working with. You know how those gorgeous actresses like to get attention, feel wanted.”
“You always know what to say to make me feel better,” I deadpan, shooting her a dull look.
Her full lips pull back in a grin. “What else are best friends for?”
“Taking this tray over to the living area, and looking real pretty.” I push the tray into her hands and give her a mocking smile. “Maybe throw a little of that old cheerleader attitude of yours in to get the guys going.”
“We’ve got spirit, yes we do!” she mocks, wiggling her butt. I slap it before she saunters away.
The doorbell rings, creating a bundle of giddiness and fear in the pit of my gut. I haven’t seen Theo since I told him that I moved in with Erik. Or since you fucked Erik again, an annoying little voice in my head quickly reminds me.
Swinging the apartment door open, I’m delighted with the sight of a smiling Theo wearing a navy button down and cargo shorts, a bright bouquet of wild flowers in hand.
“Cavenaugh.”
I burst forward to hug him, shivering delightfully when his solid arms cradle me, bringing me against his rock hard chest. My lungs fill with his crisp scent of Irish soap and cool aftershave. “I missed you,” I say, pulling away. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Jewels hollers Theo’s name behind us. Chloe and one of the guys holler out a “heyyyy!” after.
“Sorry it took so long for me to get here. Traffic was a beast.” Theo slips his hand into mine and squeezes, flashing me one of his most gorgeous smiles. “I’ve been waiting to see you all week.”
I tug him inside and shut the door. “What can I get you to drink?”
“I would venture to guess you have Jameson?” He raises his eyebrows, and I laugh.
Taking the flowers, I drop his hand and head for the collection of liquor on the island. I fill a glass with ice and Jameson, then hand it to Theo. He’s distracted, his eyes darting around the spacious loft. I can’t quite read him when his eyebrows draw down as the rest of his expression is still light, curious. “Damn, this place is something else. How much is your rent?”
“Um…nothing yet, though I told him I expect to start paying him something. For now I just have to clean for him once a week.” I stop to swallow hard, realizing how ridiculous it must sound that I’m staying in a place this amazing without paying a dime. “He’s only letting me stay until I can afford a place on my own.”
Theo turns to me with a sudden, unexpected fire in his eyes. “Does he expect you to have sex with him?”
The question throws me for such a loop that I have to take a moment to catch my breath. “Of course not!” I yell. Jewels stops dancing with Adam to look my way, her brow furrowed.
So technically I am lying, but I had sex with Erik, past tense. And when I look into the intriguing eyes of this gorgeous man, I suddenly want to be his girlfriend more than anything. I may have messed up before now, but I vow I won’t let it happen again. I don’t want to worry about the complicated bullshit that comes with Erik, even if sex with him is hotter than hell.
I want Theo. I can see myself truly happy with him.
Running his hand over his head and down the back of his neck, Theo looks down to the floor. “Shit. That was out of line.” His green eyes flicker back on me. “My last girlfriend was sleeping around with guys to get what she wanted. I guess it’s made me insensitive. I’m sorry for being an ass.”
“It probably wasn’t too out of line,” I concede, setting my hand on his bulging bicep. “The arrangement is a little far-fetched. But I promise, I’m not going to have sex with Erik, so there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Theo’s bright smile returns. He squ
eezes my elbow. “Glad to hear it.”
Jewels and Adam are suddenly at our side. While Adam and Theo exchange some kind of manly handshake/slap combination and launch into a conversation on an upcoming movie premiere, Jewels stares me down with concern, silently asking if I’m okay. I pass her a subtle nod, smiling.
“About time you showed up, big guy,” Jewels tells Theo, lightly punching his arm. “Kel thought she was going to have to take me up on the offer to hire a room full of strippers to properly welcome her.”
“Glad I could be accommodating,” Theo answers with a deep laugh. My stomach stirs excitedly with the sound of it.
“Very funny,” I say, taking a sip of my drink.
Jewels stabs her thumb over her shoulder where the rest of the guests bounce around to a hip hop tune. “Why are we standing here when there’s sushi and dancing over in that section of the apartment?” She takes me by the hand to lead me away, doing a little jig with her feet. She glances back at Theo. “If you want to hang with her, you’re going to have to show her your moves.”
I shoot Theo a suggestive smile over my shoulder before we join the others, falling into rhythm of the beat. Chloe squeals delightfully, and knocks into me with her hips. Jewels steps in on Chloe’s other side, sandwiching her between us. We become a tangled mess of arms and legs, grinding and swaying to the explosive beat.
Soon I feel large hands slipping over my hips, and feel Theo’s excitement against my back as he joins in. For a minute I’m jolted, remembering how Erik did the same thing not too long ago. Telling myself this isn’t the same, I bring my hands up over my head to wrap around his neck, bringing him close while we sway in sync.
“You’re so damn sexy, Cavenaugh,” he whispers, his breath hot against my ear.
His hands run up and down my sides, igniting every last of my nerves. Eager to feel more of his wandering hands, my underwear becomes wet. I close my eyes, enjoying his hard body pressed against me, his breath blazing hot against my neck. Dancing with a guy has always had the effect of an aphrodisiac on me, which always seems to be what gets me in trouble. Damn, I really want to kiss the hell out of him.
Realizing this is exactly how things escalated so quickly with Erik, I back away. I can’t let things progress with Theo too far, this fast, or it’ll just end up another worthless fling. If he gets what he wants from me, he’ll likely grow bored and move on. When I turn around in Theo’s arms, it’s clear by the turned on look in his eyes that he thinks I’m about to kiss him.
I give his chest a small push, distancing us. “Bathroom break.”
His hooded gaze breaks and he tips his head in understanding with a little grin. I half stumble away from my friends, drunk on hormones. I pass the bathroom, however, and head straight for Erik’s room, locking the door behind me.
The air’s cooler in the large bedroom, and Erik’s musky scent lingers. Everything is in the exact same place as it was when I last cleaned, as if he wasn’t even in here the past week. I pace in front of the large windows, my vision hazy as I look out to the sparkling city lights below. What in the hell possessed me to come in here, and not my own room?
My eyes flicker over to Erik’s closet. I cross the room in long, quick strides, flinging the doors open. My heart pounds against my ribcage as I reach for the cabinet I know to have Erik’s naughty bits. I find the vibrator I saw earlier, still in its package, and don’t even hesitate when I rip it free. I’ll replace it with a new one before he realizes it’s missing.
It’s more important that I find a way to stop these urges if I’m going to be around Theo all night without losing control. I shut the door to the closet, muffling the sound as I turn the switch on, finding my sweet release.
My friends are still sweating it out in the living room when I return ten minutes later. Theo and Jewels ham it up together, doing the old sprinkler and reeling in a fish moves to elicit laughs from the others crowded around them, clapping in encouragement.
Adam watches from the island, sipping on a bottle of water.
“Hey,” I say, slipping into the stool next to him.
“Hey,” he answers, turning to me with a bright smile. Then he squints. “Are you okay?”
Holy shit, I forgot I’d be flushed from my self-induced orgasm. Admittedly, I feel a little dirty knowing what I did considering there was a room filled with guests twenty feet away. “Just warm from dancing.”
Adam turns back to peer at the giant windows framing the living room. “My brother certainly knows how to pick ’em. This place is unreal.”
“Funny, that’s almost exactly what Jewels told me when she first saw the brownstone you bought for her. Guess the Murphy brothers have impeccable taste.” I reach for my drink and run my fingers along the rough texture of the glass. “You know, you should come over sometime when he’s here. I think Erik wants the two of you to hang out.”
Adam’s jaw flexes. “That’s not likely to happen.”
“Adam, I seriously think he’s trying. Maybe it’s time you give the poor guy a chance.”
“Poor guy?” He turns to me, his gaze dark. “Has he told you the reason why we don’t get along?”
An uneasy feeling swirls through my gut. As much as I want to hear it, I’m still afraid to hear the truth. “No. He won’t talk about it.”
“You know how I was sick most of the time as a kid? Erik was pretty resentful of all the attention I got from our parents. I can’t really say I blamed him. Keeping up with my doctor’s appointments and hospital stays took a lot out of them. By the time they were done running around and taking care of me, it didn’t leave much time for Erik. He started acting up in school, getting in fights, pulling ‘F’s in the easiest of classes. He turned into a real pain in the ass for our parents. They didn’t really figure out what was happening until he started high school. At that point, our mom chose spending time with him over staying in the hospital at my side. But that wasn’t enough for Erik. He acted out even more. It started with pot and booze, then turned into random sex with older girls, sometimes even women out of high school. He was given a driving infraction his sophomore year when a cop pulled him over for swerving over the center line. He passed the sobriety test, though. Turns out he was swerving because he was having sex with a senior girl while driving down the road.
“Our parents threatened him with everything they could think of—boarding school, military camp, detention centers—but it didn’t stop him. He was out of control. I decided it was up to me to fix it, make things right. As soon as I was released from my latest stay in the hospital, I went up to his room to confront him and caught him doing a line of coke. He was loaded out of his mind, and came after me with our dad’s gun.”
“Jesus,” I hiss, my eyes wide.
“I wrestled him down, he fired the gun. The bullet landed in one of his pillows, missing my head by a few inches. He became hysterical, begged me not to tell our parents what happened, or that he was using cocaine. After that night he promised to sober up, get his life back on track. I felt sorry for him, knowing half his struggles were because of me, so I agreed to it. He turned his life around just like he promised, stopped using drugs and made the honor roll, but he still played it up to our parents that he was the one worthy of their attention. They spoiled the hell out of him, buying him new cars, sending him on trips to Europe, throwing money at him like he was some kind of king. He never apologized for trying to kill me. Instead he always had this righteous smirk whenever he looked at me, as if he was gloating for never being reprimanded.”
“Oh god,” I say, heaving a deep sigh. “I had no idea.”
He looks from our friends back to me. “I figure you deserve to know who you agreed to live with. I haven’t even told Jewels what happened yet.”
There’s a big difference between simply being a jerk and actually being mental enough to almost murder your sibling. All at once I’m angry that Adam didn’t tell me sooner. I’m also fearful that I’m living with someone menacing. “This was
probably something that would’ve been helpful to know before I moved in with a possible psychopath.”
“Considering you told me just as you were leaving to move in with him, I didn’t have much notice to work with. Besides, I don’t think he’s physically dangerous now that he’s staying off drugs.” Rubbing at the back of his neck, he glances at Jewels. “I’ll probably tell her now. I don’t want you to have to keep that kind of secret from her. She’s probably going to freak, maybe even beg you to move out. I’m not going to tell you what you can or can’t do, but you need to be extremely careful around him. Erik knows exactly which buttons to push to manipulate people into getting what he wants. If you get hurt by him, I can’t help but think it’d all be on me.”
I bite my lip, watching as Theo and the others quit dancing when the song ends. They talk animatedly, laughing and carrying on. Theo’s gaze catches with mine, and his smile grows.
One thing’s clear in this moment: time to find a new roommate.
Chapter Nine
My housewarming party is still going strong at eleven. I keep thinking I should kick everyone out before Erik shows up, but since I’m going to move out soon anyway, I just enjoy the night. We dance, and drink, and devour every last piece of sushi. I’m more relaxed around Theo, letting him move against me without it feeling dirty. He whispers sweet words into my ear, and touches me with unassuming reserve. I can’t believe how lucky I am to find such an amazing guy.
Being with Theo feels right. I’m able to be myself around him like he’s an old friend. He’s fun, and gorgeous, and lights up when he’s around me in a way that gets my heart fluttering. I just hope I can get my shit together so we can give our relationship an honest try.
It’s after midnight when Chloe, Beckett and Landon announce they’re leaving. Soon Adam and Jewels follow suit. After we say our goodbyes to James, I take Theo by the hand. “I haven’t given you an official tour.”
