His expression seemed equally unsure. “I wasn’t forced into anything. But yes, you’re right. She didn’t have my full attention. You, on the other hand, do.” Unsure or not, he was awfully brave.
I had a thing for stupid-hot brave players.
And fooling around with one was definitely not on the night’s agenda. I had to step away. “Okay, that’s fine,” I said, my head all jumbled and dazed. “Yep. I’m just. Thanks but no thanks. I just came up here to make a call and yeah. I’m going to go do that now.” I had the sense to leave then. Even more sense to call over my shoulder, “Please don’t follow me.”
All right, maybe it wasn’t sense that had me taking that last peek in his direction. I wanted to know if he was watching me walk away.
Call me an idiot because I was pleased to find he was.
Two
Teyana answered on the first ring. “Tell me everything.”
My head was still caught back in the silos with the irritating and irritatingly hot stranger. I probably should have waited for my temperature to cool before making my call, but I’d been eager to get on the phone so I’d look like I was doing something if he did happen to follow after me.
But he hadn’t followed, and now I was stuck having to try to word.
I let out a sigh-groan. “Everything would be better if you were here,” I said, which was the truth, but not something I would have said with such whine if I’d had my senses about me. Immediately, I tried to smooth it over. “I mean, I know it wouldn’t be better for you, but it would be better for me, and I’m not trying to make you feel bad, I just like being with my friend.”
Ugh, I was shitty. Worrying about my feelings and how sucky it was to have to be without her instead of focusing on the fact that she was actually physically suffering. I usually had a better grasp on the ways to be a good friend to someone with a chronic debilitating condition, but every now and then I failed big time.
“I’m sorry,” I added, wishing I’d said that first.
“Hey, don’t do that.” As she was often wont to do, Tey slipped into the role of comforter. “I am well aware that my flare-ups are not just inconvenient for me.”
“But that’s the thing—they are only inconvenient for me. For you, they’re so much more.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “They’re craptastic. I really do wish I was there with you instead.”
That had been the original plan, for both of us to come together. Actually, when I’d seen the invite in my boss’s mail, my plan had been to toss it in the trash and think no more about it, but Tey had grabbed it from my hands, her eyes bright with an idea.
“The invitation is for Kendra,” I’d pointed out.
“They aren’t going to ID people at the door. It says to bring the card for entry. This is all we need to get in.”
“I wouldn’t have anything to wear.”
“You’re house-sitting for a woman who has the largest selection of clothes outside Fifth Avenue. I bet some of her gowns still have the tags on them.”
I’d considered it then. Kendra had loaned me and Teyana clothes a million times before. Ever since the three of us met and became friends when we were pursuing our master’s at Georgetown. Though we weren’t quite as close as we’d been then—becoming her employee after graduation had changed the dynamics of our relationship—she would likely still have let me borrow something if she’d been in town.
Of course, if she’d been in town, I wouldn’t have been perusing her mail and wouldn’t have known about the party in the first place.
Tey must have realized my acquiescence was flickering. “Come on, Tess. When in our lives are we going to get to go to a party hosted by the Sebastians?”
The Sebastians were American royalty. With their money divested in everything from steel and oil to media and tech, they practically owned the city. Their name was on as many buildings as the Rockefellers, including the Sebastian Center—the headquarters for most of their businesses in New York.
A party hosted by the fabulously rich was definitely tempting.
“Kendra wouldn’t take us if she was here,” Tey pressed on. “This is once in a lifetime!”
And because she’d been right about that, and because I’d been feeling more than a little bitter toward Kendra as of late, I said yes.
But then Teyana had a flare-up that had sent her to bed in the fetal position. I’d only agreed to still come so she could live vicariously through me. I’d been friends with her long enough to learn that sometimes the only thing I could do for her illness was live my own life to its fullest. In a lot of ways, Teyana being sick had pushed me further than I would have gone on my own.
That fact only made me feel guiltier.
“How are you feeling?” I asked now.
“Dizzy, and it feels like someone is repeatedly stabbing a long serrated knife between my ribs, but mostly I’m bored. Please un-bore me and tell me about the party.”
“Well.” Honestly, I’d barely been at the party at all. I’d strolled from one side of the rooftop to the other, snagged a few exotic appetizers from trays as they passed by, and then snuck up the roped-off staircase to try to call her.
But that rendition of my evening wasn’t going to un-bore her, so I tried to fluff it up. “Everyone’s dressed up, of course. Everything designer. I actually feel dressed down and I’m wearing Dolce and Gabbana.”
“I saw the pic you sent. You fit in, trust me.”
I looked down at the pink skirt of tulle. “I look like a ballerina.”
“You look prima and hot as fuck. End of subject. What else?”
“The music is club style. I thought it was going to be all classics and Frank Sinatra but they have a mean beat going. I saw a couple of gray-hairs cutting it up on the dance floor, and I was actually impressed.”
“I’m snoring here, Tess. Were you cutting it up on the dance floor with them? That’s what I want to hear.”
Of course I hadn’t been dancing. That was Teyana’s scene. I could have fun too, but I was more often the girl with her hand raised at the front of the classroom. It was why we worked so well as friends, and why I liked parties better with her at my side. It really wasn’t fair that she was the one of us who was sick when she was so outgoing, and I was so not.
I wasn’t going to go down the guilt-trip road again, though. What else could I tell her? The sex scene I’d witnessed, but I wasn’t going to give her the good stuff first thing. “I didn’t dance, but I ate! The food’s really good, too. And weird. I couldn’t name half of what I’ve put in my mouth.”
“I’d appreciate that last sentence more if you weren’t talking about food,” she teased.
Okay, maybe it was time to bring out the filth. “Oh, I did watch a woman get finger-banged by a hot player in a fitted tux.”
I could practically hear Teyana sit up with excitement. “Hallelujah, that’s what I’m talking about. Please, please, please tell me there’s more to this story. I need every single detail.”
I laughed. “There isn’t a lot to tell, unfortunately. I was looking for a quiet place to call you and came across them. Then, when I probably should have left them to it, I stayed for some reason.”