“No shit?” Gavin asked, assessing me from head to toe. “You’re planning my cousin Margaret’s wedding?”
“I am,” I said, keeping my work mask in place to deal with all of this excitement. “It should be beautiful.”
“Oh, I know Merritt Locke. I bet the wedding will be glamorous.” English assessed me for a minute. “Have you ever done anything in LA or New York?”
I gulped. “I haven’t.”
“English,” Court warned.
“I hate my wedding planner,” English said, shooting Court a look. “My future mother-in-law picked her out, and she doesn’t listen to anything I want. It’s only a few months away, and I’m pulling my hair out.”
“That’s a tough place to be in. She should always listen to you first. It’s your wedding, not your mother-in-law’s.”
English arched an eyebrow at her fiancé. “See!” English assessed me. “Do you have a card?”
I tried not to gape at her. Then, I scrambled into my purse and withdrew a business card. Was this real life? “Here you go.”
English looked at it and nodded. “I’ll be in contact.”
Then, she grabbed her fiancé and headed toward Campbell.
“Did that just happen?” I whispered to Blaire.
She laughed. “Looks like it.”
“Well, you’re going to be busy if you plan a Kensington wedding,” Gavin told me.
“Yeah, she will!” Blaire agreed.
“Are you coming to my cousin’s wedding?” Gavin asked Blaire.
She shook her head. “I’m going to be in LA. You’ll have to tell Nate that I said hi.”
“I’ll do that,” Gavin said with a smirk.
“It’ll be good to see a familiar face when I’m there,” I told him.
“Yeah, I just need a date.”
His eyes passed over Blaire to the girl who had bypassed Gavin to sit with a redhead. She was nearly as short as I was with lavender hair and an effervescent smile. Until Gavin looked at her. Then, it dropped, and she quickly averted her gaze.
There must be a story there.
“And who wouldn’t want to go with Gavin King?” Blaire asked.
The last member of their group dropped a hand on Gavin’s shoulder and laughed, overhearing our conversation. “Gavin doesn’t have a problem finding girls, just keeping them.”
Gavin clapped a hand to his chest. “Sam, you wound me.”
“Just ask Whitley to go with you,” Sam said, gesturing to the lavender-haired girl.
“In what universe would she want to go with me?”
“She was in LA for almost three years,” Sam said. “A lot can change in three years.”
Blaire and I exchanged a look. “Sounds like a story,” Blaire said.
Gavin sighed heavily, as if resigned to what was about to happen.
Sam arched an eyebrow at him and then explained, “He and Whitley had a fling a few years back when she and her boyfriend were broken up. She got back with her boyfriend, and he found out they’d hooked up. It was a huge blowup in the middle of Fashion Week.”
“I wouldn’t do that to Robert.”
“Robert is seeing someone else. Happily. And he doesn’t blame you anymore,” Sam interjected with a pointed look.
“I say, go for it,” Blaire said. “That sounds like a lot of wasted time.”
I bit my lip. I knew the feeling of betrayal in all of this. I’d experienced it myself. But three years was a long time to hold on to that feeling, and it was clear to me in Gavin’s look that he still felt something for Whitley.
“Definitely,” I agreed. “I’ll look out for you at the wedding.”
Gavin’s eyes strayed back to Whitley, as if he could will her to look at him. “We’ll see.”
That was the end of that conversation. The song shifted, and English was there, pulling everyone out onto the dance floor. I laughed as Blaire grabbed me and took me with her. I let loose in the crush of it all. I’d never been much of a dancer, but it was liberating with so many people all in one place.
Then, I felt hands on my hips. I gasped, ready to scold whoever was touching me, but a mouth was at my ear. “It’s me.”
I relaxed back against West. There were so many people, but still, not enough to completely hide that we were dancing this close. That our movements were perfectly synced, as if we’d worked overtime at night to synchronize our bodies. But no one seemed to care that we were this close. No one paid any attention at all.
And for this night, I forgot about the potential consequences to our entanglement and let myself pretend that this was forever. It was a dangerous thought. A thrilling idea. One I shouldn’t want this bad.
Yet I couldn’t lie to myself and say I didn’t want Weston Wright.
21
Weston
We closed the bar down with English’s friends.
I was just past tipsy, but Campbell was as drunk as I’d ever seen him. It was only because of Blaire all but holding him up that he made it back to his room at all. The rest of the band headed to our rooms in Percy Tower.
Nora waved at us. She’d stopped drinking hours ago, and she was the steadiest on her feet compared to everyone else. “Night, y’all.”
“Night, Nora,” Viv said, blowing her a kiss as Nora opened her door.
Nora’s gaze shifted to me before she disappeared into the room.
Viv wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Hey now, don’t let Campbell see you doing that.”
“Doing what?” I asked, suddenly nervous.
“Looking at his sister like she’s a tasty snack.”
Santi laughed. “She is though. I’d hit that if I didn’t think Campbell would skewer me.”
“Hey,” a girl said on Santi’s arm.
“I mean that in the best way, babe,” Santi said.
Yorke snorted. “Yeah.”
Santi opened the door for the girl to go in with him, which she did despite his stupidity. Viv winked at me as she got to her room. Yorke held up two fingers in good-bye. Both of them disappeared, and then it was just me. I could go back into my room at the end of the hall if I wanted.
Or…
I took two steps backward and crept back to Nora’s room. I knocked twice gently.
She cracked the door open. “About time.”
Her hand fell onto the front my shirt, yanking me inside. The door crashed closed behind me, my hands tangled in her hair, and our mouths collided.
“Fuck,” I groaned, tasting this fucking girl.
“You are such a tease.” She kissed me harder, deeper. “Your hands on me all night. Your hips against mine. Your body so hot.”
My hands moved exactly where she’d mentioned, tugging her harder against me. “I wanted you.”
“It’s hard to stay away.”
“So hard,” I said, thrusting forward.
Her fingers deftly moved down the buttons of my shirt, pulling the bottom loose from my pants.
“Not fair,” she said, running her nails down my abs. “Not fair at all.”
Then, she was removing my belt, dragging the zipper down low, and dropping to her knees before me. I went utterly still as I watched her yank my pants down my hips and remove my cock from my boxers.