Читать книгу The Blind - A.F. Brady - Страница 30

I’m at Nick’s talking to a friend, and although I’ve been told that he’s very sexy and charming, I haven’t noticed it until right this minute. He’s standing in front of me, and we’re flirting. Everyone else we know here is behind me, jammed in near the DJ booth. He’s looking at me with a pair of eyes that I have never seen in his head, and I feel like the universe is shifting and my stomach is flipping. He is devouring me and I don’t want him to stop.

He’s a player—we all know it; I have always known it. I watched him hook up with a prepubescent neophyte yesterday and he has been picking the low-hanging fruit for years. I see every woman fall for him; I laugh at them and silently hope they remember to wrap it up, and I giggle at the girls who are mad at him for the fuck-and-run. I’ve always considered him a decent soul, and at the same time I don’t see any of this right now. All I see is man. Man who can take my whole world and turn it upside down, just by paying me the slightest bit of attention.

Someone has taken out their camera phone, and of course this is a problem because everyone here knows Lucas, and I’m dating Lucas, and I should be thinking about Lucas, but I can’t even remember his name right now. I’m absentmindedly pulling my scarf up around my neck to keep the bruises from the other night obscured. We are all crammed together, taking pictures that someone will inevitably post on Instagram, and then all infidelity will be exposed and I’ll be the bad guy and Lucas will run from me and I will be alone and I can’t have that.

So I pose and I smile and I pretend that all the feelings I have rushing through me—the fire, the heat that’s pulsing in my veins, in my stomach, in my pants—all of this is not happening. And of course, he comes to stand next to me for the pictures, and he is almost in front of me, and he is kissing my cheek for the photo.

The group is closely huddled together, and without anyone else seeing, while we’re no more than a quarter inch from all our friends, he reaches his hand behind him, between us, and holds my breast. He’s killing me and he knows it and I love it and all I want to do is stay and take more pictures and have him keep his hands on me and all over me and take me away from here and make me something better and never, ever, ever leave me.

Somehow it’s all over and in a whirlwind, I’m on the street walking home. When we said goodbye he kissed me on the lips, but we all kiss each other on the lips, so this didn’t mean anything to anyone witnessing it. But we had never kissed on the lips before and mine are burning with man all over them, and I am walking home toward Lucas and I want to turn back and run into the arms of man, but Lucas will leave me and I can’t have that. But I need to see this guy again. When will we be able to do this? This is a mission and I must accomplish it, and I will have him no matter what it takes. His name is AJ. I don’t even know what it stands for.