I watched him slip out the back door and felt like the biggest asshole in the universe. Not because I felt embarrassed at having him here on my arm as my date for the evening, but because I couldn’t believe that I’d dragged him here just to have him treated like shit by the people who were part of my world. I could feel my mom’s eyes on me as he walked out, could feel her smugness because she had been right that he wouldn’t feel at home here, and I ignored her. I decided to join him outside, but before I could go after him, she made her way over to me.

“How’s your evening going, darling?” she asked sweetly.

I swear if she wasn’t my mother, I would have slapped her. She knew damn well how it had been going, and yet she was still coming at me, acting like her, and her ilk weren’t the reason my night was turning into total shit.

“Terribly,” I replied at once. I glanced toward one of the empty function rooms. “Can I talk to you and Dad for a minute?”

“Sure,” she replied, glancing at my father and indicating for him to follow.

I made my way into the room and closed the door behind us, then planted my hands on my hips and rounded on them. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.

My mother’s eyebrows practically vanished into her hairline. “Language,” she scolded.

I closed my eyes to keep from yelling back at her. “Okay, so I can’t curse but you and all your friends can treat my date like shit?” I gestured back toward where we had just been, raising my eyebrows expectantly.

“Honey, we just don’t think he’s a good fit for you,” my father cut in as gently as he could.

I hated this even more. He kept pretending that this was for my own good, and not just to torment the man I had chosen to bring with me this evening. “How would you know that?” I shot back. “You don’t know anything about him.”

“Neither do you,” Mom countered.

I couldn’t argue with that one. She was right. I really didn’t know a lot about him. But I knew I liked spending time with him, that he treated me well and that should have been enough. “That doesn’t matter,” I snapped. “I just want you to treat him with some respect, that’s all. I’m not about to marry him, I just want him to be able to come to a place like this and not feel like everyone here wants him gone.”

They exchanged a look.

I tossed my hands in the air and let out an irritated groan. I knew that look. There would be no point trying to debate this with them, they would never see my point of view. They wanted things one way, and that was the only way they saw the world working, even when it was obvious that their worldview was hurting other people. I turned around and walked out.

Neither of them tried to stop me. In this issue, they were united.

I went out the same door Jesse had gone out of, and glanced around, looking for him.

I spotted him sitting on the back step of the kitchen door with a cigarette in his hand. He was taking long drags and staring off into space. He hadn’t noticed me yet and I stared at him in surprise. He looked so relaxed, so rugged and beautiful, so far removed from everyone back inside that room. From this distance, he was a complete stranger. A mysterious man who had fucked me in every conceivable position, but had never let me close to him.

As I stood there watching him, a woman emerged from the kitchen back door, a waitress, by the looks of her.

Jesse smiled at her. She must have asked if she could join him, because he shrugged and she sat next to him. They exchanged a few words. The waitress laughed as Jesse reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette box. She pulled a cigarette from it and put it to her mouth. He lit it for her.

The moment felt unbearably intimate. They did not talk, they just smoked in peace. I was the outsider looking into a kind of camaraderie he had never shown me. Always, even when we were in bed, he called me Princess. A term I found mocking, and designed to keep me at a distance.

I found my stomach twisting with jealousy.

A moment later, one of the bartenders came out to join them. Both Jesse and the woman stood. The three of them talked for a while, and Jesse actually looked as though he was enjoying their company, gesticulating with his cigarette while the other two looked on with amusement.

I really knew nothing about him.

Maybe he was just some stupid fantasy, my brain’s way of filling in the blanks after what had happened with Mark. I hadn’t known that man either, apparently. But what made it all the more ridiculous was when I felt that swell of need for Jesse. It was so close to love that it scared me. I’d never felt that for Mark…ever. Old feelings stirred up like sediment on the bed of a river as I watched him. He still hadn’t seen me and part of me didn’t want him to, because he actually looked like he was having a good time for the first time tonight.

Without me.