CHAMPAGNE SEEMS TO BE POPULAR with rich people. So is caviar. I have no clue why. Just the thought of eating fish eggs repulses me. So are oysters. A shiver runs through me when I watch a woman pour one into her mouth.
Here I am, standing at the hostess desk as they all flit around the restaurant, fake laughs and fake toasts.
While Adrian and I wait for the crowd to clear out, we laugh at how fake this culture is. “I mean, look at her.” He nods at Mrs. Saunders, the wife of a tech billionaire. “I’d bet if you threw a quarter at her, it’d bounce off.”
A laugh bursts from me, and I turn to cover it up. “Shut up, Ad,” I hiss.
“It’s true. Bet she goes for tennis lessons and fakes an orgasm just to say she’s screwing the instructor.”
“Oh, my God.” I laugh. “Stop.”
He leans into me as we both continue laughing. The night is almost over, and this stupid table is dragging ass. I just want to go home. I’m finally comfortable with my current life. Have finally found a small semblance of happiness.
Adrian has been the best friend a girl could ask for. I found out that he lives around the block from me, so on our days off, we hang out. I hate feeling like I’m lying to him. I want to tell him the truth so badly, but I can’t.
He fills the role of friend and family in one package.
My head is in his chest, and we’re trying to suppress our laughter when a throat clears. We both look up and into the very angry face of Paxton. “Get back to your job, Adrian,” he snaps. “Come with me, Katy.”
I widen my eyes at Adrian as he walks away and then follow Paxton down the hallway. He never tells us when he’s coming. Usually, he’s here once a week—sometimes more, sometimes less. Between his show and the other restaurants, he doesn’t spend a lot of time here. This is the first time I’ve seen him since last week.
When we arrive in his office, he closes the door, and before I know it, he shoves me against it and is running his lips along my jaw. A surprised squeal leaves me, and I push him off. “What are you doing?”
He backs up, shoulders heaving. “What I came back early to do.” He advances on me again, but I skirt out of the way. His brows snap, forming a ‘v’ between them. “Katy?”
“Paxton…”
“Fuck.” He runs his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. After what happened last week, I thought… Then I came back early to surprise you, and I see you with Adrian.”
“Adrian’s gay, Paxton.”
“He’s bi.”
I shrug. Ad says he’s bi, but I don’t believe it for a second. I’ve never seen him with a girl or even shown interest in one. I think he says he’s interested in both sexes to appease his parents who haven’t quite accepted he’s actually gay. “I told you I was sorry about last week; it was a huge mistake.”
His face reddens, and he walks to me and stops half a foot away. “And I told you it wasn’t. It was beautiful, Katy. You’re beautiful. I know you want me just as badly as I want you.”
My nose itches, and I shake my head. “No. I don’t. I can’t, Paxton.”
“Why the fuck not?” The sudden anger in his voice makes me jump. He steps closer, taking my hands in his. The pads of his thumbs running along my palm. I shiver as little ants crawl over my skin and nip at the flesh. “See. You feel it; it’s still there.”
“I don’t.” I want to hate Jay, but that’s impossible because I don’t have any closure. I’m half worried to death that he’s back home fucking random chicks—I refuse to allow myself to think about the photo I saw of him and Opal, so I don’t even pretend that’s a possibility for my own sanity—and half afraid he’s dead. I’m to the point where I don’t know what I feel. It’s been almost three years. I want to hold out. Want to have the faith that this will end soon and I’ll be able to go back home, but if it hasn’t happened now, when the hell is it going to? Did he forget about me? Did something happen to him or Brandon, and nobody knows where I am?
How long can this last? What if it’s twenty years before they catch this guy? What if the person who knows where I am gets killed in a car accident, and Jay’s been trying to find me for years? Will I be stuck here forever, not knowing?
All these thoughts run through my head constantly.
They’re distracting me right now so badly that I don’t realize Paxton’s about to kiss me again. When it happened last week, I was shocked and I wasn’t expecting it. I enjoyed spending time with him, but up until that point, I only thought he was a friend.
Yes, there have been times of tension between us since I started helping him plan for Savory the past few months, but I never wanted anything to happen. I was so ecstatic to get the opportunity to help with the opening that I think I overlooked some of his advances. But that was because I was so happy because I finally felt like the old me. Organizing the event made me realize how much I missed my old job.
And that made me miss the old me… the real me. I liked feeling happy. I enjoyed giggling again.
But last week… when we stayed at the hotel in Portland before we came back here to Seattle after the opening, I made a huge mistake.
It wasn’t when I had too much to drink and I could barely stand. When he walked me to my door and inside my room. When I was so emotional from feeling guilty for having fun that night.
Certainly should have been when he gently brushed a tear away. Kissed my cheek then my lips… but that wasn’t the mistake.
Neither was when his hand brushed the swell of my breasts.
Not when his lips trailed across my collarbone.
It wasn’t then.
But when his knuckles trailed down my side. When they slid across my hipbone and down between my legs. When he pressed his fingers beneath my panties and felt the wetness.
That was when I made my mistake.
Because even though I told him to stop, I didn’t push him away.
His fingers brought me pleasure I hadn’t felt in almost three years. They coaxed out pain and passion and love and loss. He brought me bliss and shame.
He took away everything but gave me nothing in those minutes, and I hate myself for it. I hate that I told him to stop, and he didn’t, and I was left feeling even more guilty and confused and used by him.
I watched him pull his hand away from me, my body’s betrayal coating his fingers. It was then, too. It was right then when I have never been more disgusted with myself. All I wanted to do was take it back. I didn’t want to pretend it never happened; I wanted it to never have happened in the first place.
“You feel it, Katy.”
I want to scream at him. Tell him that’s not even my name. He doesn’t know me. He has no clue I have three sisters. Has no idea that my mom used to cry in the kitchen because she was so hungry. Hasn’t met my crazy aunt Lois or had my father shake his hand.
He’s not even aware that my real hair is brown. And long. That I hate this hairstyle, but I’m too afraid to change it because if I do, that takes away part of the identity I have now, and I don’t know if I’m even allowed to.
Paxton Ray doesn’t know me.
He has no clue who I really am.
But he’s right about one thing… I do feel something. I just don’t know exactly what it is.
I feel it because I’m desperate. I’m scared. I’m alone. I succumbed to temptation. I let another man touch me because I didn’t give clear boundaries.
But that was then.
This is now, and I’m not intoxicated. I see clearly, and I’m getting more and more pissed by the minute that he still thinks he can touch me. “I’m sorry if you feel I’ve led you on. I’m simply saying I can’t, Paxton. It was a mistake, and even though I let you touch me, I clearly told you to stop, and you didn’t.” I take two steps back.
“What can I do? Time? Do you need space?” He doesn’t even deny it.
I shake my head. “It was a mistake.”
“Give me a reason, Katy. Give me a reason to walk away. Because from where I’m standing, from what I remember, you weren’t pushing me away the last time I had my hands on you.” He takes one step to make up for my two. “I remember you feeling so soft. I remember how wet you were.” He uses the back of his hand to trail a path from my shoulder to wrist. “How your tiny little fist squeezed my arm when I was giving you pleasure, and how beautiful your face was when you came around my fingers.”
“Paxton, stop,” I plead.
He answers by putting his mouth against mine. Gently, he kisses me. I squeeze my eyes shut to keep his face out of my vision, but the blackness I desire beneath my lids is nowhere to be seen.
Instead, it’s Jay.
It’s his face and his mouth. His lips hovering over mine and tilting up on one side before they cover mine. It’s his hands kneading my breasts. His leg wedging between my thighs.
“God, Katy.” But it’s not his voice. It’s not my fucking name.
“No. Stop it. I don’t want you.” I push him off me. His body heaving and mine trembling. “Please, Paxton. Please don’t do this to me. You need to stop touching me. I can’t do this.” My hands form fists at my side, and I collapse to the floor, my knuckles absorbing the impact.
“Shit.” He kneels in front of me.
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” My fingers twitch in their tight confines, and I slowly curl them out, digging them into my arms. My nails rip away my skin, and I hiss at the pain.
“Katy! Stop it.” Paxton grabs my wrists and holds them at my sides.
“No, no, no, stop!” I chant. My body flails as my head thrashes against the door. “I can’t, I can’t. I can’t do this anymore.” I’m tugged away from the door, and I fight whoever is holding me. I kick to get away, scream to let me go.
“It’s okay.” Another set of arms wrap around me as another holds my feet. “Kay, it’s all right, honey.” I calm when I hear Adrian’s voice. “You’re okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
I don’t remember how I got home, but when I open my eyes, I see Adrian slouched on the loveseat. “Hi.”
He looks away from the TV and purses his lips at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. God.” I look down at my arms and pull the blanket up high on them to hide the angry red lines. “I don’t know, I just… Did Paxton say anything to you?” Is he going to fire me now that he knows I won’t let him touch me again? It’d probably be for the best. Forget the job.
“Not really. You kind of passed out, and I carried you to my car. He only said to take care of you.” Ad shrugs. “He looked like someone kicked his puppy or his heart got broken… You know anything about that?”
“It was a mistake.” I push the words out through a dry mouth. “Last weekend in Portland. I shouldn’t have let him.”
“You had sex with him?”
“No!” I scream. “No, I didn’t have sex with him, but he, uh… whatever. Anyway”—I wave my hand in the air—“it was a mistake, but apparently, he didn’t think so.”
Adrian falls back on the couch. “Wow. Are you okay? I’ve heard rumors of him treating women like shit but never hurting them.”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
He doesn’t look convinced. “You wanna tell me the truth yet?”
“The truth is, I don’t want Paxton. I want a scruffy beard. I want tall and so toned he looks like an underwear model. I want a man who holds me like he’s going to lose me, and fucks me like it’s gonna be the last time. I want a man who has tattoos on his right arm and so much love in his eyes every single time he looks at me that he takes my breath away.” A sob rips out of my chest, and Adrian comes to sit next to me, wrapping an arm around me.
He rubs his hand in circles on my back. “Who is he?”
I reach over for a tissue and dab my cheeks. “He used to be the absolute and complete love of my life. But the truth is, I don’t know what he is anymore.”