- Lucy -
t would’ve been too expensive to take a cab home and too embarrassing to call Fiona and tell her to come get me. Plus, she was probably drunk, and I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to make any moves.
What I really needed was some time on my own to clear my head.
Of course, that would have to wait since there was a bottle of bubbly in my room just for me. Nice touch, Mr. Briggs.
I unwrapped the foil and loosened the wire cage, holding the top down as hard as I could, terrified that if I wasn’t careful I would break a mirror or something. And not only could I not afford seven years of bad luck right now, but I would be homeless by the time I replaced what I broke.
I squeezed my eyes shut and turned the cork slowly, hoping I wasn’t doing it all wrong. When the cork finally released, it made a muted popping sound and fizzed all over the table. Fortunately, I only lost about a quarter of the bottle.
I went to the bathroom and got a towel to clean up the mess. While I was mopping up the champagne, I caught my reflection in the mirror.
What the fuck was I doing here?
I shouldn’t be in my room already. This was a wedding. People would think I was hammered. Or maybe they wouldn’t because no one gave a damn that I was here.
I stood back and looked at myself, standing alone in the dimly lit room in my yellow dress. I knew what I was doing here. The problem was that I only realized it now.
I was here to do Claire’s hair and be a low maintenance date for Aiden. End of story.
I shook my head.
What a joke. Why would I think I wasn’t like all his other conquests? Because I knew him longer? As soon as I spread my legs for him, I was no different than all the other girls.
I hoped I was different, that his feelings for me were something he felt somewhere besides his dick. But that was incredibly naïve, and all I did by sleeping with him was make things awkward between us.
And for what? One night of passion? It wasn’t worth it. As good as it was, I missed my friend and what we had before, especially now that I knew sleeping with him hadn’t changed things for the better.
It killed me that I didn’t hear his whole conversation with Chelsea. The only good thing about it was that I had the wherewithal to back away from the door so I wouldn’t be trembling outside with cocked ears when they came out.
God that would’ve been embarrassing.
But what the hell was with her line of questioning about the underwear she found at his place? Why had she even been there? And why had my underwear- if they even were mine- been left lying around where anyone might come across them?
Of course, the thought of Chelsea finding my underwear was nothing compared to how sick I felt thinking he’d been with other girls since we’d been together. I shuddered to think that his hands- his tongue- could’ve seduced someone else the way they seduced me.
But of course they could’ve.
It was so easy for him to get me. Sure, I thought I was being coy, playing hard to get. But I wasn’t. Aiden was no stranger to women, and as soon as he saw me as one, he knew just how to play me.
And now I was just one of dozens of girls who had stupidly fled his apartment and forgotten their underwear. He probably had drawers and drawers of it.
It was ridiculous to imagine that one night with me could change everything, that I could just lay there and it would be enough to make him want me again.
Of course, he had wanted me at one point. How could I forget? That night after work when we got ice cream he’d invited me back to his place for round two. Maybe I blew it by choosing Fiona over him. Maybe the fact that I wasn’t up for it, that I wasn’t gagging for it as much as he was, made him lose interest.
Except I was up for it.
Every night I was going to sleep, thinking about his hands, his tongue, his breath on me. I longed to see his body respond to me again the way it had that night, to have him look at me that way.
Like I was beautiful. Like he wanted me.
For fifteen years, he’d looked at me through his gorgeous eyes, and it wasn’t until that night that I saw desire behind them. That look alone was enough to make my body ache.
But how many other bodies had quaked beneath him since then? I thought of all those nights when I was riddled with stress that he was mad at me. But he wasn’t mad. He was just busy.
And I drove him into the arms of those other girls by letting him down.
I must’ve been the only girl on Earth who thought sleeping with Aiden Briggs was a mistake.
I poured the champagne into one of two glasses on the table and picked it up. I thought about knocking it back, but instead I just sipped it, my thirst for drink exhausted.
I walked to the head of the bed and sat down, slipping my feet out of my shoes and setting my champagne down on the side table. Then I laid down, sinking into the thick white comforter and folding my hands across my stomach.
Could I ask him? If there had been other girls since me? Not how many but just if. Would that make me look crazy? Possessive?
I mean, I had no right to be either. But it sure would help me out.
Not only would it explain whether Chelsea had gotten her hands on my underwear, but more importantly, it would let me know whether my hoping for something more was in vain.
After all, if he’d been having casual sex with Tinder hook ups since that night then… then I was crazy. Or at least, crazy about him in a way that he obviously wasn’t about me. Because after that night, I swear he had me.
I hadn’t even noticed another man since that night. Even the random attractive body parts of other guys reminded me of his hands or his hair or his back… After the way he made me feel- so alive, so awake- I didn’t want anybody else.
But maybe he had a totally different experience. Maybe after that night he woke up and wasn’t changed at all. Maybe he just called me, flirted with me until I was red in the face for sport, and then went about his day noticing the hips and lips and thighs of other women without me being called to mind.
Maybe this whole time I’d been looking at him like he was a goal post when to him, I was just another notch on his bed post.
I sighed.
I could deal with that, but only if we restored our marred friendship and put the sex behind us. Then I would be able to move on… eventually. Or at least I had to believe that or I was going to start pulling my hair out.
But what I couldn’t deal with was that it sounded like he was actually ashamed of the fact that he slept with me. Otherwise, why be so adamant about the fact that we weren’t together?
“I’m not with her,” he said. “She’s just a friend of the family’s.”
I closed my eyes, determined to sink right through the blankets.
I needed to accept reality, no matter how much I wanted it to be different.
Because the bottom line was that when he was asked behind closed doors why I was here, he’d gone with I had to bring someone.
Which made me feel like no one.