Dirty Headlines

“No, thanks,” I resumed my walk to the subway.

He began to drive slowly beside me. Not unlike a creeper. I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help but feel a little satisfaction at the way he’d been chasing me the last few days. He’d even come down to the fifth floor to fetch me from lunch with Ava and Grayson, muttering an excuse about an urgent meeting, when really, all he’d wanted was to ask if we could see each other that night.

The answer, by the way, had been a big, fat no.

“I want to show you something.” His car was blocking a long line of vehicles now.

“You already showed me plenty,” I muttered, secretly liking that people were still honking at him, and that for the first time in our relationship, he was the one out of sorts.

“Get your mind out of the gutter. I mean geographically.”

“Would you like to dazzle me with your rich-boy Hamptons house? Show me another glitzy hotel you own?” I made grand, hoity-toity gestures with my hands as I walked.

Four. You’re acting like a four year old. That wasn’t Jesus speaking. Just me.

“In the fucking car, Chucks.”

“Say the magic word.”

“My cock.”

I made a gagging sound.

“I agree. It is abnormally big, but I haven’t heard any complaints.”

“The magic word,” I repeated.

“Please.” The word rolled off his tongue like it was in a foreign language.

“Whoops. Still a no.”

My determined stroll slowed when his catcalling stopped. Had he given up on me? I took a few more steps before a hand grabbed my wrist. I looked up. He was smirking darkly, his thick eyebrows drawn together.

“Grayson was right. This is kidnapping…” I said as Célian yanked me toward his car.

He’d parked in the middle of the street, blocking approximately thirteen cars now, all of them honking. Some had tried to reverse and slip out of the road. To say Célian didn’t give a crap wouldn’t be a stretch. I got into his car and buckled up, mainly because I didn’t want anyone to put a bullet in his head for his behavior. He started driving and strapped in as he did, not wasting any time.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

“You never apologized for the phone.”

“I do. I am. It wasn’t my finest moment. I would say I didn’t mean it, but lying on top of breaking your shit would really be rude. You shouldn’t have exchanged numbers with another man. I’ve been dutifully faithful to you from the moment my tongue touched your crack.”

I threw my hands in the air. “You’re engaged, psycho!”

“It’s not real.”

“It is to me.”

“Bullshit. You wouldn’t touch a taken man, and we both know it. We aren’t cheaters.”

“Does that mean we’re in some sort of a relationship in your weird mind?”

“Not a relationship, but an arrangement. Yes. Do you think you can handle that?”

I laughed bitterly. “I can’t fall in love, Célian. I’m broken.”

“Good. Let’s be broken together, then.”

He threw the phone into my hands. It was fully charged and ready to be used. It should have made me happy, but it didn’t. I enjoyed having sex with him, and butting heads with him in the newsroom, but what was the point of all this? Love might not be in the cards for me, but I was getting more attached, setting myself up to get hurt more than I already was.

“Open the glove compartment,” he said, still staring at the busy road ahead.

And yet again, I had the feeling he knew exactly what I was thinking. I opened the glove compartment. “What am I looking for?”

“Morrissey.”

I patted the mostly empty space, my hand coming to rest on the familiar shape of my iPod. I yanked it out and squeaked. My precious iPod, with the thousands of songs I’d collected over the years, was back in my hand, and it felt glorious.

“Did someone find it at the hotel?” I turned to him.

“Yes. I did. The night you bailed on me.”

I frowned. “Why did you never give it back?”

He shot me a look I couldn’t decode—maybe bewildered verging on annoyed. “You stole something from me, so I stole something from you.”

Huh. I sat back, considering this. He rubbed his jaw.

“Who’s Kipling?”

Kipling was my notebook. But of course, I didn’t miss an opportunity to mess with him.

“A friend.”

“A good friend?”

I nodded. “Very.”

“How long have you known him?”

I grinned at this. I didn’t know if Célian was aware he was jealous, but I saw it from the outside. “Long enough.”

We drove into Manhattan and parked at his building. He rounded the car, took a duffel bag from the trunk, and we went up to the ground floor and out to the street.

“Where are we going?” I asked as he flung the duffel bag over his shoulder, looking royally pissed and completely disturbed by what we were doing.

“On a date.” He sighed, like I was forcing him to hang out with me at gunpoint.

“Huh?” I laughed. I’d ignored him for just over four days, and he was taking me on a date now? Imagine what would happen if I actually went through with what my brain told me I should do on a daily basis and cut things off with him completely.