Grey
“Why the hell did she bring him?” I mutter under my breath. I narrow my eyes at the happy couple across the pool. The minute she saw me, she turned around faster than you could say, “What the fuck is she doing here?” They’re now drinking bubbly champagne and talking with some people. Her hand is on his shoulder, and his is around her waist. And she is laughing so loud, you could probably hear it from Nebraska.
“Why do you care?” Rose asks from beside me.
I glance at her and scoff. “I don’t,” I lie and take a long sip of my ice cold beer. I end up finishing it and groan. “She just shouldn’t have brought someone no one knows or cares about. It’s an important event.”
She just hums like the pretentious thing she is. “Sure, that’s it.”
“Yep, it is.” I bend down to the cooler and grab another beer.
“So it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re not over her?” she questions with attitude, her hand on her hip.
“I couldn’t be more over her.” I pop open the beer and take a long drink. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, the same time Liv is looking around. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think she’s looking for me. She finds me and stares at me, then at Rose, then turns back around and continues talking animatedly.
Rose hums again, and I roll my eyes. She’s always been so annoying. But now she’s annoying with a purpose, which is ten times worse.
“Don’t you have anything else you can do?” I snap at her. “I’m sure Holly would like to yap about the lip gloss she’s wearing on the big day.”
“I’d rather talk about lip gloss than your bitching over someone who deserves better than you,” she grits through her clenched teeth.
I turn to her, Liv and her boy-toy be damned. “Great, because being around someone who’s just pissed I don’t want her can get really fucking irksome.”
“Screw you,” she scoffs and stomps away.
“In your dreams!” I snap. It’d be too bad if she accidentally fell in the pool…
I down the rest of the beer, then drink another and another, but they do nothing. I am still very aware of her and that fucking Ken doll across the pool. It wouldn’t be bad at all if that fucker fell in the pool…with chains linked around his feet… Wow, I am getting quite buzzed, aren’t I? But still, it’s not doing that much. I hit up the bar and take three shots. That’s when the liquor finally hits me, hard.
I take a random blonde’s hand and take her onto the dance floor. I dance with her along to the fast rap song, sipping a new cracked-open beer. As she shakes her ass on me, I stare across the pool. Liv’s dancing with that pansy. Her back is turned to him, and he has his long-ass ape arms slung around her small waist. Fuck, she looks so beautiful. Her natural curly hair blows in the wind, and some sticks to her perfectly puffy pink lips as she laughs.
Fuck! Stop thinking about her. And stop looking, for God’s sake, you pussy.
But my subconscious is right: I should focus on this five dancing on me. Liv gave me another chance, and I shot her down for her sake. It just hurts and annoys the fuck out of me to see her dancing on him like he’s what she really wants. I know she doesn’t like him like that. I can tell by how stiff she looks each time she really thinks about what’s she doing. I can tell by the tiny little dimple on her cheeks she gets when she makes a forced smile. I can practically smell her want for someone across the way…me, fuckers. I mean me. But she isn’t meant for me; she’s for him, as much as I despise it.
There is no world where me and her would actually work. We tried it once, and it ended in a disaster. Even if she didn’t do what she did, I think she would have found my dark past and not-so-bright future too much and left me for the douchebag in khaki shorts and polo who’s too scared to dance frisky-like with her. He’s holding onto her like he’s trying to rein in an aunt who drank too many wine coolers. Speaking of which, I can see her lips from here. So pouty and reddish and wet, I think she drank one or two cherry coolers…
Stop fantasizing about her, Jesus H. Christ.
“Where’s my gift?” David jokes with a jackass of a smile as he walks up to me.
I crack a smile before downing the rest of my beer and tossing it in a trash. “I’m right here, you ungrateful bastard.” Disregarding the girl stumbling away from me, I spread my arms open, and he rolls his eyes but gives me a bro-hug.
“Did you keep the receipt?” he says like the smart-ass he is.
“Fuck you.” I laugh.
“Enjoying the view?” He nudges me, and I quickly shake my head.
I drag my eyes away and scoff at the ground. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” he assures with a knowing smile.
I roll my eyes. “Why’d you even invite her? You know what she did to me.”
He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “I ran into her, and I couldn’t not invite her. Plus, I genuinely wanted her here, and I know Holly definitely did too. She’s a nice girl.”
“What a sweetheart, going behind my back and shit,” I gripe through my teeth.
“Don’t do that,” he breathes.
“Don’t do what?” I scoff. I think he’s had one too many champagne glasses.
“That. Hate her so much it pushes others away…like Rose,” he explains, “when we all know you don’t remotely hate her. You just think you have to because of your twisted-ass, hard-headed-ass mind.”
“You don’t know what goes on in my head,” I say, not knowing what to say really because he’s right. I just…now it’s too late to try to be anything with her again. She’s already got someone new who actually deserves her.
“Sure…” He squints at me, and I roll my eyes because he’s acting like he knows everything that goes on in my head. Trust me, the best therapist in the universe wouldn’t be able to understand what’s going on up there.
“David! Where are you?” Holly hollers, and I cover my ears, grimacing. Fuck, I’m wishing him all the luck with this parrot. “Oh, hey there, Grey!” She waves at me, freckled cheeks bright as a tomato and auburn hair swept up in a stylish hair-do.
“Hello, Holly.” I hesitantly wrap my arms around her when she launches into me. I pull back after her heavy scent of cinnamon spice and grape wine coolers becomes too much.
“Where’s Rose?” she asks, linking her fingers with David’s.
I shrug and look around aimlessly; I don’t really want to find her. She’s being a fucking pest at the moment. “Somewhere around, she’ll show up,” I tell her noncommittally.
“You should look for her. She’s your date,” she whines.
“Like I said, she’ll turn up.” She is really testing my patience.
She squeezes my bicep with a frown. “We’re gonna start opening presents in a while. Find her.”
I give her a tight-lipped smile but let it drop when they finally walk away. There is no way I’m getting stuck with one girl I can barely tolerate while watching the girl I actually want. I’d rather drink and watch the fakeness drip around me as everyone talks and laughs and has the time of their lives.
I go to the bar and grab another shot and am walking back to the pool-side when I make the mistake of looking across. Liv and lover-boy are dancing, but they’ve left the aunt-stage and are dancing more risqué than before. My blood boils, and I glare at his hands that are traveling around her lower back, close to her ass. And she isn’t putting up that much of a fight against it.
That just pisses me off.
“Hey, Holly kept bugging me to find—what are you doing?” Rose stops talking when I swing her back into my chest. I grab her hips and shush her when she tries to talk again.
“I’m sorry about what I said earlier. You’re right,” I whisper in her ear and glance across the pool, locking eyes with a pair of eyes that rival the crystalline water between us. “I should get over her.”
“By making her jealous?” She whips around and jabs a sharp finger at my chest. “I am not some toy you can just—oh…” She shuts up when I kiss her under her chin, then down her neck and right under her neck. I gently spin her back around and wrap my arms around her, swaying her hips side-to-side. I move us closer to the pool, push some people away, and broadcast our little tango.
What I am doing is petty as hell, but if she can dance with another guy and have him be all up on her, why can’t I do the same with Rose? At least we’ve been in an actual relationship, whereas she and Mr. Barbie are like two different species trying to live under one roof—it won’t end pretty nor would it ever work.
Liv looks me up and down and stumbles on her boy-toy’s feet until they stop dancing altogether. He tries to ask why she stopped, but she can’t stop looking at me. And when he looks over, I smirk as widely as possible and send him a little smirk while lightly nipping under Rose’s chin. She moans slightly, her eyes closed in bliss.
“Gift opening time!” Holly announces loudly, and the music cuts off abruptly.
I swing my eyes from her standing on a table back to the happy couple. Liv is staring at me with an unreadable expression…or is that anger? But what the hell should she be angry about? She’s the one who started this in the first place. At least she looks as miserable as I feel inside. Good. Now we’re sort of even.
“Let’s go, babe,” I whisper in Rose’s ear.
She nods, and I give the couple a wink before leading her to the back patio. There are a bunch of wrapped gifts surrounding the sitting couple. What? Is this a fucking baby shower? Is there something David’s not telling me?
They get through two dozen gifts, and I have the strongest urge to plunge a knife through myself on repeat with each squeal and “Oh my God!” that escapes Holly every few seconds. Mine was a big-ass pack of condoms, to which everyone laughed like it was meant to be a joke. It wasn’t, though. He’s already doing one of two things I’ve vowed to never ever do: get married, the other have children. One forces me in a relationship with one person for the rest of my life when divorce rates are sky high, and the other just ruins life, plain and simple.
Liv’s present was an immaculate white and blue vase. Of course it must have cost like three hundred bucks or something.
I am half tempted to bounce and find something more exciting, anything really, when they land on a particular gift: a “Welcome Home” rug. What really sets off bells in my head was Holly’s response.
“We should set this down now before you forget. You know how bad your memory is.”
“Why would you do that? It’s just a rented beach house,” I pipe up, and many people glance at me like I’ve lost my mind. I lift my eyebrows expectantly when the celebrated couple share a meaningful glance. “Well? Don’t all speak at once.”
David exhales heavily and rubs his neck vigorously; he’s definitely hiding something big. “Can I talk to you in private…?”
I scoff and look around at the rest of the people, who look afraid to say something, in fear I might lose my shit. Too fucking bad it’s going to happen if no one says nothing at all. “No, just tell me here. Why the fuck is that mat necessary on a rented beach home?”
He opens his mouth, then lets it drop. “I think you know why…”
He’s fucking living here now? Without telling me?
My eyes widen for a brief second, but then I grit my teeth together and ball my hands in fists. “No fucking way. You wouldn’t…you’d tell me.”
“Grey, can we step to the side—” He sounds jittery, nervous.
“Fuck you, David!” I storm through the crowd, pissed off beyond belief. I thought we were fucking brothers who told each other everything. I guess not.