“Christopher?” I hear a female voice call. I glance over to see Heidi as she approaches our table. Nicki is with her too.
My two favorite girls.
My eyebrows rise in surprise and I stand. “Heidi.” I kiss her cheek and turn and kiss Nicki. “Hello.”
“You’re back? Why haven’t you called us?” Heidi smiles sexily and looks me up and down.
The girls and I have a thing going, a very good thing. Had, I correct myself.
“I just got in.” I glance down at my brothers, who are all goofily smiling up at them. Yeah, yeah. I get it: they’re gorgeous. “These are my brothers, Jameson, Elliot, and Tristan.”
Heidi gives a sexy little wave with a playful sashay. “Gentlemen, I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Hello.” They all smile up at her as if she’s Aphrodite herself.
“What are you doing after?” she asks. “Let’s catch up?”
“Ah . . .” I frown as she puts me on the spot. “I can’t tonight.” I gesture to my brothers. “I’ll call you?”
“You promise?” She smiles as she leans in and pecks me on the lips.
I step back from her. “Sure.”
They turn and walk off through the crowd, and we all stare after them. Heidi in her hot-pink tight dress and figure to die for: nothing is left to the imagination. And Nicki is just a walking wet dream, every man’s fantasy.
I drop back into my seat, deflated.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tristan whispers. “Go and bend them over the bar, right now.”
“Totally,” Jameson agrees.
I scratch my head, flustered. I pick up my drink and drain the entire glass.
They did look good . . .
Fuck.
I glance over, and Elliot raises his eyebrow again.
“What?” I snap angrily.
He holds his two hands up in surrender. “Nothing.”
“I’m not in the mood, okay?”
He widens his eyes, realizing he’s hit a sore point.
Tristan’s phone rings on the table, and he answers. “Hey, dude. Yeah, I’m ready.” He glances at his watch. “Pick me up on your way through.” He listens. “Okay, see you then.” He hangs up. “Harrison just finished work. He’s picking me up on the way home.”
“Yeah, I’ve got to get going too,” Jameson says as he puts his hand up for the bill.
“Let’s have another one,” Elliot says.
I nod, feeling more unstable than ever. “Get the whole fucking bottle.”
Jameson’s eyes rise to meet mine, and he frowns. “What’s wrong with you? You’re acting weird.”
“Yeah,” Tristan says. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Nothing,” I snap.
Elliot leans back in his chair. His knowing eyes hold mine, and he signals to the waiter. She comes over. “We’ll have two more scotches, please.”
Hayden would have had a margarita.
“Actually”-I cut him off-“I’ll have a margarita . . . make it two.”
“Margaritas.” Elliot winces. “The fuck is wrong with you?”
“Four,” I say to the waiter.
“No scotch?” she asks Elliot.
“No,” I reply for him.
Jameson chuckles and slaps Elliot on the back as he stands. “Good luck with that one. Christopher left his taste buds in Spain.”
Tristan stands too. “Thank fuck I’m not staying. I can’t handle that shit.” He pulls his jacket on. “What time we signing contracts tomorrow?”
“Nine,” Jameson replies.
“See you then.” I fake a smile. They amble off through the restaurant, and my eyes come back to Elliot. He’s now leaning on his hand, his finger steepled up along his temple, his gaze fixed firmly on me.
“Who is she?”
“Nobody,” I lie.
“Cut the shit. Who the fuck is she?”
“Just drop it.”
“I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”
I stay silent.
“Listen, dickhead . . . don’t lie to me. I know there is something going on with you, and I want to know what it is.”
“Four margaritas.” The waiter puts them down on the table in front of us.
“Thanks.” Elliot picks his up and takes a sip. He winces. “The first one is always so rough.” He licks the salt from his lips. “Christ almighty,” he mutters under his breath. “Tastes like fucking shit.”
I exhale heavily. “Her name is Hayden Whitmore.”
“Nice name.” He smirks as he takes another sip. “Sounds like a character from a Jane Austen book.”
I smirk and take a sip too. “She is.”
He watches me and waits for me to elaborate.
“Kind, loving, innocent, and . . .” I pause. “Different to the women I know. Curvy and sweet, intelligent and witty. She’s fucking perfect.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know.”
He frowns. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I literally don’t know.” I tip my head back and drain my margarita glass until it’s empty.
He takes another sip and holds his drink up and studies it. “It’s tasting better now. Those first few mouthfuls were . . .” He fakes a shiver.
“It is.”
“How do you know her?”
“She’s one of my roommates in the hostel. We’ve been traveling together for three months.”
He nods. “And how long have you been sleeping with her?” he asks.
“I haven’t slept with her.”
He screws his face up in confusion. “What?”
I shrug and drain my other glass. “I know.”
“So . . . let me get this straight. You haven’t even slept with this woman?”
I shake my head.
“So you’re not even with her?”
“Well . . . technically, no.”
“How is there a technically in that sentence?”
“Because I am with her. I spend every minute of every day with this girl and follow her around like a puppy, and she doesn’t sleep around and hasn’t been interested in me at all, and then we kissed and fooled around, and I freaked out and came home.”
He stares at me. “Define fool around.”
I puff air into my cheeks. “There was a head job involved.”
His eyes widen in horror. “You made her go down on you and then flew the coop?”
“No,” I stammer. “It wasn’t a good time for her, and . . .” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Yes.”
He stares at me.
“We’re friends, like, best friends, and she’s all I can think about, and then I’ve gone and fucked it up,” I blurt out.
“Why have you fucked it?”
“Because I’m . . .” I try to search for the right terminology. “Me.”
He drains his glass, too, and puts his hand up to signal for more drinks. “I need more tequila for this conversation.”
We sit in silence for a while.
“So . . . you don’t want her?”
“That’s the problem. I do.”
He screws up his face. “So why aren’t you pursuing this?”
“Because I already know I’m going to fuck it up, and she’s the one person I can’t hurt.”
“Why do you say that?” He frowns.