55. Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Five

Anna

" S o wait a second."

I whip my head from one side of the table to the next, my hair floating all around and ending up stuck in the lipstick Aria swore I should wear tonight.

It's a soft pink that's super pretty and not at all what I'm used to.

"You're still leaving?" Aria asks over the bass of the heavy music drowning out most other conversations, hence the head on a swivel.

Not to mention the showpieces on each table.

"Of course I am." I shrug and bring the glass back up to my lips, careful of the color as I sip the fruity concoction Cedar brought to our table. "Leo will be fine. So if he put you up to this, you can stop."

Aria snorts and Cedar's shoulder bumps into me when she shrugs.

"It's just us being nosey bitches, is what it is," Cedar responds as she raises her glass and sways with the beat of the music, her eyes lifted to the space above us.

"She's not wrong," Aria says on a snicker and shoots back the rest of her drink. "We are nosey and thirsty."

I tip my head back and laugh, the warmth of the liquor I've already consumed loosening my inhibitions and swirling around in my chest.

I can even feel it in my face already.

"At least you two have thirst-quenchers at home," I mutter low enough that I hope they don't hear, but Cedar's guffaw is a dead giveaway that at least she did.

"A talllllll drink of water in the desert, baby!" Cedar exclaims with a grin and downs the rest of her drink.

"So why are we watching dudes shake their stuff in our faces?" I motion with my cup-holding hand to the rather attractive men taking up several tables, including ours, with nothing but strings covering their groins.

Literally nothing has been left to my imagination and the guy dancing all over our table is blessed.

"It's the closest we'll ever get to another cock," Aria explains around the straw between her bright red lips. " You on the other hand …"

I feel the flush hit me before she even finishes her statement, the look in her eyes screaming mischief despite my shaking head. "Nope. Absolutely not."

Aria's grin mirrors in her best friend when I turn to her for help. "Drink up, buttercup. We already bought you a show."

I'm still shaking my head when Aria tips my elbow up, the glass meeting my lips and as soon as the liquor is gone, I'm being pulled by my wrist to another part of the club.

Colored light dance across the walls, highlighting the people, only single spotlight illuminating the dancers at their stations.

Thankfully, we're heading away from the thick of the people, but that just means that Aria wasn't kidding at all.

Because back here are the private rooms.

The bouncer at the hall's entrance doesn't even check our ID's, just nods the two of them along despite my protests and clearly restrained nature.

Had I been sober for any of this, I probably would have given it some more fight. Some resilience. But I'm not and I don't.

In fact, I'm laughing when the two women push me into the single seat in the room sat directly in front of the small, lifted platform and step back as if to flank me.

"What if he's a serial killer?" I call after them, too loudly now that the closed door has cut off some of the noise.

"Oh, honey, we're not leaving." Cedar's snicker has me turning around in the chair, her hand extended with another glass that she's offering to me.

"We came to fucking watch," Aria adds and I wrinkle my nose.

"Ew."

Aria snorts and shakes her head. "You don't get to have sex in here, Anna, Jesus."

I plop back down in my chair, my smile amped up, my pits too sweaty.

That answers that.

"But if you want to," Cedar adds, her hand finding my shoulder. "You gotta wait until his shift is over and we will totally wait with you."

I snicker, but nod to Cedar's receding form as the lights change in the room and the stage illuminates.

A deep beat fills the space, one of those that's so bassy that I can feel it's reverberations rattling around in my chest, and a figure darkens the far corner of the stage. It doesn't take long for him to make his way front and center, his caramel skin and dark hair lit up perfectly, his hips rotating to the music.

Slinking back in the wing-backed chair seems like the wrong approach to this situation, but that's exactly what I do when the stranger comes to the edge of the stage and grips the tight tee shirt covering his clearly defined torso.

It should be tempting when he rips the shirt from his frame, exposing his sculpted muscles, the shreds of material hanging from his arms.

Just as it should be attractive when he fists his pant legs and yanks the tearaways in a move that leads him to his knees.

Knees he crawls on towards me, his bare bottom on full display, until his hands find the arms of my chair and his body lifts right in front of my face.

The heat of his bare skin skims my knees and I clench my already crossed thighs even tighter when he stands, naked as the day he was born.

I'm single. I have been for a long time.

So why does this feel like betrayal?

The man is beautiful. His moves alluring as he twists and grinds in the air around me. He's even got a sheen of sweat coating his skin that makes it look like he's glowing in the light.

But when he leans down to me, hips gyrating in my direction, and his lips ghost over the shell of my ear, I instantly wish I could sink into the cushion beneath me and disappear.

Anywhere else but here, because while I might be single, my heart is clearly still stuck in the past.

If this enticing stranger can't catch my attention, will anyone else ever?

Those lips, too hot against my ear, lean close enough that skin makes contact.

" Aye, mami ," he mutters in a thick accent, and I freeze. " Eres tan hermosa . I get off in two hours."

I push on his sweaty shoulders.

"No, thank you," I mutter, the edge of my voice shaking as he leans back with his brows in his hairline and it's just enough for me to bolt from the seat.

With my heart in my throat and the women I came with hot on my heels, I sprint from the private room and out into the wild mass of gyrating bodies.

All the colors flashing, the musky scent of sweat mixed with booze thickening the air, makes it hard to breathe.

I shouldn't be here.

"I shouldn't have come," I say the thought out loud, my heeled feet refusing to stop despite the hands that grab at me and the voices that ask things like ‘ are you okay? '.

My lungs feels like they're working overtime, through a sludge of guilt that rolls over me violent enough that it churns my stomach.

When I break out into the humid night air, a sense of relief washes over me and I pull in the first deep breath since that man took the stage just for me.

"Anna," Aria murmurs, her voice soft and close as she lays a hand on my shoulder and helps guide me down the sidewalk. "Just breathe, honey. You're alright."

"Tell me if he did something weird and I'll go get my bat," Cedar adds strongly, her thin frame taking up my other side. "But after you breathe, like Ari said."

Nodding, I do just as the women advise and focus on calming my wild heart.

It takes a moment, possibly a few, before I feel confident enough to raise my sight from the passing sidewalk, and for my stomach to stop threatening to evacuate its contents.

"Where are we?"

"Still in downtown," Aria answers, her grip still steadying on my shoulder. "The boys are behind us, so don't worry about it."

I nod, thankful in this moment that security follows both Aria and Cedar around when they appear in public because the park we're approaching is dark and intimidating.

And probably filled with all kinds of riff raff at night.

"I'm so sorry." The words are shaky when they leave my lips. "I didn't mean to ruin your guys' night."

"Nonsense." Cedar shakes her head, her raven-colored hair flowing around her shoulders, the thin stripe of red peeking out from behind her ear with the movement.

"You didn't ruin anything, Anna," Aria adds, her brows pinched, creating a vee between them. She uses the hand on me to pull me to a stop just in front of one of those little benches most parks have right at the entrance of the greenery, and gives me an encouraging push. "I ran out on a concert once."

Cedar snickers as I settle into the seat and try my best not to think about the number of germs transferring from the wood to my butt.

The number of germs in my ear from that stranger …

"And I had a panic attack right in the middle of a tattoo festival." Cedar slides into the seat beside me. "Not sure if that's what happened with you just now, but it's totally cool if it was."

"I'm honestly not sure …" I shrug and brush away invisible lint from my skirt, my sight trained on the grass beneath Aria's feet. "It was fine until—"

I cut myself off and bite my lip.

"Until what?" One of them ask and I feel the heat rise on my face.

Sighing, I shrug.

Because how can I explain that the man called me a name way too close to the one that Toby does without giving everything away?

There's no way I can tell either of them that Mama and all its variations prompts all kinds of thoughts in my head about a man that they know and I want, but can't have.

It's not for me to tell Cedar or Aria about the tryst that happened at the cabin, one that's over with for good, without giving it away that at some point, the playing around became serious for me.

That just makes me sound pitiful and no different that the woman that blackmailed him to begin with.

I shrug again when I feel both of them just staring at me. It's all I can manage when it feels like my heart is breaking all over again.

For the man that Toby could be.

For the version of him that I fell in love with anyway.

Neither of which are mine to keep.

"So, I just want to say something." Aria crouches in front of me, her head dipping until her green eyes meet mine. "Both instances C and I just mentioned, the panic attacks? They were both because of other people and the uncertainty that comes with exposing yourself to them."

She nods encouragingly, her eyes so soft and understanding that I feel tears prick the backs of my eyes.

"And sometimes," Aria continues as Cedar's hand finds my shoulder and rubs soothingly. "It helps to talk it through with someone else."

The woman's perfectly sculpted brow arches expectantly, almost knowingly, and my heart swells for a moment. A beat.

"Just say his name," Cedar snarls next to me. "And I'll go get that fucking bat."

Is it possible to feel both heartbroken, and loved at the same time?

I snicker, and it comes out thick. "It's really no … big deal."

"That's it. I'll be back," Cedar leans up from the seat like she's leaving for real and I grab her arm, stopping her midair.

"Seriously, it's fine. No one needs the Slugger."

"Aw," Aria coos, still crouched in front of me and snickers. "She even knows his name."

Cedar snorts but drops back into her seat. "Fine. For now ."

"So. Since I've literally never seen you with anyone else, you wanna tell us what Toby has done?"

I jolt back in my seat.

Breath has left me, eyes have gone wide, and if she didn't know before, I'm certain my reaction has given me away.

"How in the—"

I swing my startled gaze to Cedar who shrugs. "There's only two people you spend all of your time with."

Aria still has that arched brow aimed at me. "And you didn't mute the phone that night."

My furrowed brow swings back to Aria and I blink at her. "Mute—what?"

"On the phone," Aria says easily, like she's not tearing apart every denial I've built up over the last few weeks.

Months.

"When you called about the pictures to cover up more of Toby's mistakes. I heard him call for you and that phone did not mute when you answered him."

"The only other option was Leo," Cedar adds like she's been in on the secret the whole time. "And he's just too …" Her lips purse in my peripheral and a laugh bursts past my lips.

"Corporate," I answer for her, and she nods, Aria snorting her agreement.

"You'd run circles over him, all day long."

I sigh. "Leo's great at his job. He just needs to meet reality for a dang second."

Aria's eyes roll, but she nods as if she understands and I realize that some of the weight bearing down in my chest has begun to ease.

These women … they're here with me, accepting of me, and comprehend more of what I'm going through than I thought possible.

The pieces of my heart inflate a little more.

"Do you guys like hot cocoa?"