by Piper Lawson
Cameron
Get attacked by horny baristas?
Need an extraction?
His response came five minutes later.
Sorry, something came up
Rain check?
I sagged against the wall. The excitement I’d been feeling this morning was gone as quickly as it’d come.
Buzz.
Buzzzzz.
I sat up, disoriented. The intercom by the door rang a third time.
I pushed myself off the couch, where apparently I’d fallen asleep, and stumbled across the room to hit the button.
“Yes?” I managed, looking in the mirror and realizing I had drool on my chin.
“There are two young ladies in…costume here to see you,” the concierge said.
I frowned, still groggy. “You mean like clowns or like strippers?”
“Maybe you should come down, Ms. Briggs.”
When I emerged from the elevator, the knot in my gut loosened.
My roommate stood in the lobby, a carry-on resting beside her. She wore a white sundress and a giant straw hat with “bride” written in glitter across the front. Ava was in a skirt and tank top she’d clearly made herself. The concierge eyed them with a look of intrigue mixed with mistrust.
“What are you doing here?”
“Ava decided to make it a weekend of bachelorette,” Lex explained. “Forty-eight hours of fun and debauchery. But first things first, nice hair! It’s so edgy.”
“And are you wearing a skirt?” Ava demanded.
I deflected, taking in Ava’s shirt. “Isn’t it ‘maid of honor’?”
“’Best woman’ sounded better. Do you mind if we crash tonight?” Her tiny frame was dwarfed by the two suitcases that seemed to be hers.
I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed them until they’d shown up. Or how much I needed this.
“Yeah, no problem.”
I grabbed one of two giant suitcases Ava had in tow as she explained they’d flown directly to LAX as a surprise and then gotten a shuttle to my place.
“Nate had to work so he’s flying to Vegas tomorrow,” Ava went on. “As for the boys, Dylan and Kent are driving straight from San Diego. I think Ethan’s flying, because time is money or whatever. Which means the three of us are going from here. It’s all planned out.”
“And how are we getting to Vegas?” I ventured. Ava’s blank look told me she hadn’t worked through that part. “No worries, leave it to me.”
“First, let’s get dinner,” Lex suggested.
Twenty minutes and an Uber later, we were at a sushi restaurant I’d picked for its location as much as its reviews. We talked, mostly about the wedding, and downed way too many glasses of sake.
When we finished, Lex started to flag down a cab but I grabbed her hand. “Not yet. I want to show you guys something.”
They followed me down the block and around the corner. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. The street was lined with stores and they looked around, confused.
“Well?” I asked.
Lex clued in first, crossing to the window of the store. “Oh my God, this is it, isn’t it?”
“This is it.”
We clustered around the window of the children’s store. It was closed for the day but lights in the window played off of toys and clothes.
“I can totally see it,” Ava breathed.
“Me too,” said Lex.
“This is our test store,” I confirmed. “If this goes well, we can launch overseas in another year.”
“I can’t believe it. When Elle said we could be ready for this, I thought it was impossible,” Lex murmured. The internship she’d done with a top young designer in Paris had taken the ideas she had about growing and elevated them. Accelerated them.
“It’s going to happen,” I promised.
We stood there together, talking excitedly—if a little drunkenly—about our plans and dreams. Ethan bailing on me was forgotten in the sake-tinted haze of hope and friendship.
It was late by the time we found our way back to my place. The front was quiet, and I waved to the concierge as we stumbled up to my suite.
“So what else have you been doing in LA?” Lex asked after I stabbed the right floor button with my finger. “Except for getting that place, I’ve heard almost nothing.”
“You know, shopping, tanning.”
She and Ava eyed me skeptically as we stepped out of the elevator. “Nah, I mean, I’ve been working a bit on the website for the fall collection. Orders are starting to come in.”
“And?”
I hesitated, and a bit of the buzz fell away. “They’re tracking last year, not growing.”
“But we’re still OK to go international in a year, right?” Lex’s serious eyes said more than her words could’ve. We needed this. They needed this. It was why they’d brought me on. Why this friendship that meant more to me than I would ever admit was even forged in the first place.
“Yeah. The LA store will help.”
Ava leaned against the wall while I found my key card. “So Ethan came through after all.”
I led the way inside and hit the lights, trying to sound normal. “I haven’t heard back on our application, but Ethan said it’s usually a formality.”
“That’s awesome. I wasn’t sure he’d be much help, because he was a mess after breaking up with his girlfriend a while back.”
“Really?” I tried not to sound too interested.
“Yeah. He asked her to move in with him and she ran. Not just out of their relationship, she took off to Italy. Hasn’t come back.” My chest tightened at the thought of how much that would suck. “But, I’ve gotta say the guy knows how to rebound. My FOMO hits an all-time high whenever I check his Facebook.”
“Meaning…?”
“Girls. Parties. Booze. Check this out.” She pulled up her phone, hit a few buttons and held it out.
I don’t Google people. It’s a privacy thing—I want to learn who people really are, not what the internet says about them. For some reason, though, I couldn’t resist taking the phone from Ava.
The first picture looked like Ethan at some kind of event. He had the same broad smile that made my stomach twist. Two women flanked him, and he had one arm around each of them.
I swiped to the next photo. More of the same, one with a woman kissing his cheek. In another one, he was wearing a suit…which I barely had time to process before I realized some woman who looked way older and way more stunning than me had her hand twisted playfully in his tie.
This was how Ethan liked to spend his time. And who he spent it with.
Not taking his little sister’s friend around for celebrity tours.
I ignored the knot in my stomach. Ava dropped onto the bed, oblivious, barely managing to kick off her shoes as she padded across the floor.
Lex returned from the bathroom, dropping face first onto the bed next to Ava.
“Now get your beauty sleep before tomorrow, ladies,” Ava warned, slapping a half-asleep Lex on her pajama-clad ass. “It’s going to be a wild ride.”
11
Jordan
“Have you ever seen an ass like that?”
“Not two inches from my face, no,” I replied to Ava as the hostess showed us to our booth.
This morning I’d rented a BMW 5-series to drive to Vegas, where we’d met up with Lex’s friend Jane from school at the hotel.
Las Vegas was an orgy of color and glitter and booze.
And that had just been getting dressed in our hotel room.
The first stop for the evening had been Thunder from Down Under, where Lex had flat out refused the lap dance. Lex’s friend Jane, a junior associate at a law firm in San Diego, was too shy to do much of anything—and she had a long-term boyfriend.
As the token single girl? I hadn’t gotten off so easily.
I thought I’d feel more uncomfortable having a stripper flaunt his wares in my face, and my lap, and over my chest. But once the initial sho
ck wore off, the sight of gyrating body parts didn’t have much of an impact.
Still, it was a relief when we made it to Orbit, which Ava informed me was the hottest new club on the Vegas Strip.
Our booth was one of a dozen surrounding the circular dance floor. Lights flashed in every color of the rainbow from every corner of the room. I thought I’d seen it all, until acrobats started swinging from the ceiling, dressed in barely-there spandex.
It wasn’t my scene, but I’d underestimated the power of the Strip. People came here to have a good time, and they were damn well going to.
Ava shrieked in delight as the hostess poured two rounds of drinks. Lex led the way, gamely downing one shot, then the other. Ava was right there with her. Jane sipped a cocktail, but I followed Lex and Ava.
I’d realized something in the last twenty-four hours. Whatever strange urges I’d been having these past few days in LA, whatever momentary obsession I had with Ethan Cameron, were just by-products of the sunshine. I’d gotten carried away by the local flavor, just like the partiers here.
There was an obvious solution to the fleeting distraction that was my friend’s brother.
Drinking. And dancing.
Followed by more drinking.
“Come on!”
Someone hauled me onto the dance floor and I went with it, throwing my arms in the air like I was trying to hail a taxi at rush hour. My ass was probably on display, but what the hell. Ava had made the yellow dress for me to wear tonight and I hadn’t had the heart to say no.
One song blurred into the next in a riot of sound and color until I realize I felt hot all over.
Needing air, I pushed my way through the crowd and off the dance floor. I stumbled into the hallway, grabbing onto people in the crowd of traffic like they were buoys in the water. The floor started to spin, and I leaned against the cool wall.
Just. Need. A second…
Something brushed my arm and I blinked my eyes open.
I’d gone from dizzy to hallucinating. Even in the darkness, I knew the form in front of me. It was the one that’d been doing way too many cameos in my head.
Intent eyes framed in dark lashes. A square jaw. A hard body, dressed to its usual perfection in a green button-down shirt and dark jeans.
I swayed toward Ethan and he steadied me. “Easy, Jersey,” he called over the music. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Two.”
“Two what?”
I frowned. “Vodka. Champagne. Tequila. Something called an orgasm.”
Ethan’s eyebrows rose. “Two of each? I might have to carry you back to the hotel.”
His low voice was barely audible over the bass, but my skin tingled at the sound. He was close enough that his scent was invading my booze-scrambled senses.
“You smell like pie,” I observed.
“What?”
“You smell. Like pie.” With my monster heels, our faces lined up. I leaned in to take a delicate sniff near the open collar of his shirt. “Pumpkin.”
“Fuck, I love your compliments.”
My gaze narrowed on him. He had no business crashing my ‘forget Ethan Cameron’ party. He definitely had no business adding to the warm and tingly sensation I was already feeling with his half-grin and sparkly eyes.
“There’s a whole Strip,” I pointed out. “Are you following us?”
“I didn’t know you were here. Ava and I coordinated on the hotel, but the rest we did solo.” Ethan’s gaze warmed on mine before his attention was pulled down my body. He did a slow sweep to the floor before coming back up, his eyes lingering once or twice along the way. “If I’d seen you, though, maybe we would’ve followed you.”
Ethan had been drinking too, I decided. That was the only possible reason for the extra warmth in his expression. For the way it felt like all of his attention was locked on me and he didn’t spare a glance for the rest of the club, the people brushing past us, the music pounding out of the speakers.
“Listen. I’m sorry about canceling yesterday. I’ve had some shit going on at the office, but we’re taking that tour next week. The deluxe version.”
“Ethan…”
“I’ll even buy you an iced coffee and a muffin for the ride.”
“Ethan.” A hint of regret crept into my voice.
“What?”
“I’m going home early. Day after tomorrow.”
Ethan’s smile vanished. “To New York?”
“Yeah. We have the store, thanks to you. And I found a manager. So I’m ahead of schedule. Mission accomplished.”
“Mission accomplished,” Ethan repeated. He frowned, looking over my shoulder as if something fascinating had appeared on the dance floor.
It was for the best. There was no good reason for me to stay. I’d made the decision earlier today.
Which didn’t explain why part of me already regretted it.
“I guess this is goodbye,” I went on.
He tapped his fingers against the wall, lightly, but his jaw worked.
“Whatever you say.” With a last look I couldn’t read, Ethan stepped into me, folding me in his arms before I could protest.
I’m not a hugger but when Ethan Cameron hugs you, you don’t say no. The way his muscled arms tightened around my body. His hard chest pressing against mine through the thin fabric.
My hands drifted up around his neck as I breathed him in, my thumb stroking the skin there. He exhaled against me and I wanted to melt into him.
After seeing those pictures of Ethan with all those girls, I knew I couldn’t possibly be on his radar—as a friend or anything else. But the way he’d looked when I told him I was going…and the way he was holding me, like he actually gave a shit?
I could’ve stayed like that the whole night.
When he pulled back, my arms unhooked themselves from behind his neck. Instead of retreating to my sides where they belonged, my fingers trailed down his chest, lingering there. His body felt warm through his shirt, and it sent shivers of sensation of awareness along my alcohol-numbed nerves.
I swallowed, meeting his gaze. “Thanks, Ethan. For everything.”
“Sure. No regrets, right?” Ethan’s voice held an edge but it was the intensity of his stare that had my stomach tightening.
My attention fell to his mouth, and my heart beat harder in my chest.
No regrets.
That mouth was inches from mine. Ethan’s clenched jaw should’ve been a warning, but instead of driving me away, it made me want to be closer. Made me wonder what it felt like.
Awareness prickled down my spine, chased by a need I couldn’t name.
If this was a dream, I wanted something to remember when I woke up back in New York. And despite the haze of alcohol, I knew exactly what memory I wanted to take home with me.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I leaned in. My eyelids fluttered closed when I brushed my lips over his.
Then I was kissing Ethan.
My mouth was on his mouth was on my mouth was…
Oh God.
Abort.
The rational part of my brain had evaporated, leaving the crazy lusty part behind to make bad decisions. We were in the middle of a Vegas nightclub. But we might as well have been in a storage locker, because all I noticed was the firmness of Ethan’s lips. The warmth of his skin under my hands. The hardness of muscle beneath his clothes as his chest brushed mine. If I thought he smelled good, he tasted even better.
A bolt of heat went straight down my spine, settling into a dull ache between my thighs. It wasn’t enough.
I wanted him to kiss me.
I wanted it enough that my hands fisted in the smooth fabric of his shirt as I rubbed my mouth against his. I pressed my hips against him, and a moan of frustration escaped my lips.
It took a minute to realize Ethan had gone completely still under my hands.
I sprang back, guilty, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks. I couldn’t look at his face. Couldn’t stomach his reac
tion.
Spurred by the sudden clarity only absolute humiliation brings, I whirled on my heel and stumbled down the hall toward the bathroom.
12
Ethan
“Mixer?” The waitress hovered over our table expectantly.
I shook my head, taking the double vodka shot from her and downing it.
Ava’s boyfriend Nate raised an eyebrow next to me.
“You don’t approve, counselor?”
The lawyer shrugged. “Long as you’re having fun.”
I don’t know why I was picking fights. I hardly knew Nate, but he seemed like a decent guy. Dylan was sitting across the table, joking with his roommate and didn’t notice.
Normally I could make small talk in my sleep. But tonight, I didn’t have it in me to make nice. To make anything.
Running into Mick had thrown off my entire week, and the fact that Barlow was interested in both of us had put me and Dom into paranoia mode. Doing research, making calls. I’d barely been able to get out for Dylan’s bachelor party.
Craning my neck to see over the crowd, I could just make out Lex’s red hair across the dance floor. My sister was five feet on a good day, so there was no hope there. But the one girl I wanted to see, I didn’t.
Irritation clawed at my gut.
“Another round!” Kent declared, grinning broadly. I accepted another drink from the waitress, vowing to nurse this one.
“This place is cool, right?” Kent shouted.
“They seem to think so,” Nate commented, lifting his chin toward the fan club Kent was accumulating. Four attractive women were dancing at the railing behind Kent’s head, shooting him looks you’d have to be dead to misinterpret. Kent glanced over his shoulder before his attention returned to the booth.
“Not my type,” he said, as if that explained everything.
Thing was, I knew the feeling. Vegas was a parade of beautiful women. But as I made a slow scan of the room, not a single blip registered on my radar.
Until I got to the middle of the dance floor. The restless feeling in my gut twisted sharply.
Jordan’s hair swung around her head as she danced. It wasn’t straight tonight, but wavy. Shorter at the back, angled down the front. My fingers itched to run through it.
