I want them back.
I may have fallen for a straight guy, but my heart is bricked back up. Duct-taped shut. Jack’s not getting anywhere near it, and once I have my clothes it’ll cement that shit.
Charlie closes his eyes like he’s going to take a nap on the ride to Philly. I should do the same—sleep when I can—which is practically never. But my mind is on high-speed.
I’m about to see Jack.
Again.
I clasp a hand over my mouth, my face hot from what happened between us.
And what’s worse—I have no earthly clue why Charlie wants to meet with him. It’s like walking into the world’s darkest tunnel without a flashlight.
God help me.
OSCAR OLIVEIRA
The Most Embarrassing Moment of Oscar Oliveira’s Life
TWO DAYS AGO
The skies split, rain poured, lightning cracked, and even as the storm subsided, everything felt exactly how it was supposed to feel. Happy, joyous. I just officiated my best friend’s wedding. I just watched him walk down the aisle in Anacapri and marry the love of his life.
And now…now my urge to be in a relationship has ballooned to the umpteenth degree.
Sign me up for sunsets, romantic strolls in the park, sweaty never-ending nights on a dance floor, and mind-blowing sex. Fuck, I’d take average sex at this point if it meant being in a steady love-affirming relationship. I just want the good stable pieces. The thing that seems to slip through my fingertips ever since I joined security.
I haven’t been in a real long-term relationship since college and it’s starting to grind on me.
But who in the fuck would want to date someone who can’t be around longer than five seconds?
Sometimes I wonder if all I’ll ever get is the sex. The quick fucks. Easy to come by, but damn the novelty wears off fast.
With the wedding reception in full swing, guests dressed in white are milling about a breathtaking cliffside restaurant. Stuff made for celebrities and for travel writers penning Top 10 Most Romantic Getaways. Waves splash against the rocks, oranges and yellows bathing the sparkling sea as the sun begins to set.
Italy can’t be more beautiful tonight.
I wander around, doing two things.
1. Trying to avoid my parents and avós. Love them and their gossip, but they’ll trap me in their chatty web for too long. I already spent half an hour talking to my mom.
She’s been snapping a thousand photos, and she thanked me again for paying for the family’s flights to Italy and making this possible. She always expected Farrow to invite her to his eventual wedding, but I doubt she thought it’d be an international destination.
I grew up in a typical middleclass family, and money for travel always went towards flights to Brazil to see our avós.
Farrow said he’d pay for the plane tickets, but I manage my finances well, actually better than he does. His prideful ass will just never admit it.
I set aside a lot in savings before we all got a pay-cut from hell (downside to joining Kitsuwon Securities—a brand new firm).
Another thing I’m doing right now:
2. Trying not to follow Charlie. It’s a habit at this point. I’m off-duty, but I trust the temp guards on his detail about as much as I trust a gnat not to zap itself in a fly trap.
Sipping on champagne, I unconsciously spot my client—yeah, we’re saying it’s unconscious. Charlie is kicked back and balancing on two legs of a patio chair, all while Audrey Cobalt talks his ear off. He rolls his eyes at whatever his carrot-orange-haired little sister says.
The one good thing about Charlie being around family—they always try to drag him into their orbit. When he’s tethered to the rest of the Cobalts, it’s easier to keep track of him.
Really, it makes it easier to relax. To stop leaning on the arches of my feet like I’m two-seconds away from an Olympic sprint after him.
Passing rows of breakfast platters and seafood, I grab a couple shrimp off a tower, gather some crackers in a napkin, and leave the restaurant area.
The wind is warm and the air smells like salt. I’m about to step down the stone steps toward the lounge chairs on the sundeck. The cliffside restaurant straddles a sunbathing area where people can swim in the coves.
Just as I take that step, movement catches my eye in the parking lot to my right. All I can see is the back of a tall guy, sleeves rolled up his arms to reveal sculpted, muscular biceps, and his dark hair blows with a seaside gust.
Like every guest, he’s in all-white. The dress code.
That belt is mine.
Lent him that for the ceremony.
I waver for a second.
Fuck it.
I tip the flute back to my lips, and cold champagne slides down my throat, emptying the glass. Slowly, I close the distance between me and the most gorgeous guy at this reception.
Jack Highland is often behind a camera; yet, he looks like he could model for a cologne ad.
It doesn’t help that he’s bent over the back of a hatchback. Car trunk lifted up while he fiddles with his camera. Ass in perfect view. His athletic build screams jock bro. But I wish I knew him better to discern what kind he actually is.
I tend to steer clear of chest-thumping frat bros. But I like a good sports-loving jock. Let’s go to a Phillies game. Share a pack of peanuts and complain about the Mets.
My shoes pad along the parking lot as I approach him. His skin is a mixture of light brown and red-gold hues and looks more sun-kissed in the setting light. He’s Filipino-American and biracial: Dad is white, Mom is Filipina.
As I near, he turns his head, and his long lashes lift.
“Hey,” he says with a smile and a genial nod of his chin. His eyes hold mine for a beat longer. A beat that makes me question every fucking thing. It doesn’t help that he does that thing that most people do when they’re checking me out.
The up-down, imperceptible motion. A one-two movement with his eyes. Up-down. Two seconds flat. Barely noticeable.
Maybe he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
But those two seconds tangle the axons in my brain. Twisting. Pulling. Tying them into a confused knot. So far as I know, he’s straight, but sexuality is a fluid thing. He could be questioning, right?
I just don’t know for sure.
The parking lot is quiet. No one else here.
I return the nod. “You hiding out, Highland?” I ask him casually, despite the fact that nerves ratchet up. I don’t need my Yale degree in Kinesiology to tell me why my heart starts racing or my palms get clammy.
I have a crush on him.
A stupid. Silly. Dumbass crush.
I’m the one who nearly choked on my food when Maximoff used that word. Back at his sister’s first Rainbow Brigade outing, he asked me about Jack, “You have a crush on him?”
I laughed.
Crush.
I thought crushes were for twelve-year-olds. But I’ve never been this nervous around someone I like. Is there something different about Jack from all the other women and men I’ve dated? Or is it just because I know this could be unrequited?
He’s probably not even attracted to men.
But the way he’s looking at me…
I toss a cracker in my mouth and stand my ground. Not running away from a crush, that’s for sure.
Jack twists off a lens to the Canon camera. “Just need to switch these out,” he says and then a smile inches across his lips. “Why would you think I’m hiding out?”