I smile at her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She looks me up and down, the disdain obvious in her expression. “Hmmm, likewise.” She turns her attention to Austin. “We haven’t chatted or taken pictures yet.”
“Sorry, Serena, but we have to go. We took pictures earlier, and I’ll make sure that Scarlett sends them to you,” Austin says as he takes my hand and leads us out.
We make our way back to the booth that was reserved for us. Cooper is sitting there with Parker on his lap, John and Dani are sitting next to each other on one side, and Noah and Kaleigh are seated opposite them on the other side of the booth.
“Hey,” Kaleigh greets when she sees me. “Where have you been?” she asks, leaning over Noah to look at me. They slide over in the booth, giving us space to sit down. Austin sits first and then pulls me down on his lap. Kaleigh leans in and whispers conspiratorially in my ear, “You totally just had sex!”
I gasp loudly and look at her, denying it by shaking my head no. “Oh yes, you did. You are glowing and have the ‘I’ve just been fucked’ face. Trust me, I know that look.”
Everyone is talking amongst themselves and the music is loud so no one is really paying attention to our conversation. “You’re crazy,” I tell her.
“I’m starving,” I say loudly and everyone agrees.
“Pizza?” Dani suggests, standing up. “Let’s go.” We all get up to make our way outside.
I hold Austin’s hand as we leave the club. Some fans have spotted Cooper, and he goes over to them to take some pictures. While he’s doing that, the rest of us climb into a huge black party bus that Scarlett has ordered for guest who drank and don’t want to drive home.
“I can’t wait to take off these shoes,” Parker whines, propping her feet up in Cooper’s lap.
“You can wear flip flops tomorrow when we go skating with Austin,” he tells her.
“Skating?” I ask.
“Oh yeah. I was telling them about Gabe, and since Matthew is in town and wants to run drills with Cooper, we are all meeting at the rink at noon.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun. Can I come?” John asks from his side of the bus.
“Can you skate?” Austin asks.
“Well, not like you guys, but I can keep up,” he states as Dani laughs out loud.
“Honey, I love you dearly, but you can’t skate.” Dani leans over and kisses his cheek.
“I’m coming,” Noah announces from his seat.
They talk and make plans for the next day, while I take it all in. We spend two hours at the pizza place, laughing over their stories from the ‘old days.’
Austin asks me, “Your place or mine?”
“I’m going to Noah’s. So you can go home and have loud monkey sex without me hearing it.” Kaleigh runs up behind Noah, who has already flagged down a cab.
“Let’s swing by my house and grab some clothes for tomorrow,” Austin suggests, yelling at Noah to wait for us.
We wave good-bye to everyone as we cram into the cab. “You live near each other?” I ask.
“I couldn’t leave my boo,” Noah jokes.
We pull up on their street, a chic, modern neighborhood, where all the houses are three stories high.
We get out of the cab. I look at Austin’s house. It’s white with a brown, wooden door. There is a huge window above the door, trimmed in black, and narrow, long rectangular windows are on either side of it.
When he pushes the door open and the lights come on, I take in the modern, masculine space that looks like it could be in a magazine. “You live here?” I ask him, walking into the all-white sunken living room. The back wall is the showpiece of the room with its floor-to-ceiling windows.
“I live here.” He laughs. “Want to come see the upstairs?” He holds his hand out for me to take it.
We head up the stairs, which are black and look like they are held together with wire. “Should I take off my shoes?” I ask him when we make it to his room and I see the plush white carpet. His bed sits in the middle of the room, overlooking a wall of windows. He walks in, touching something on the wall so that the lights turn on. Walking further into the room, he opens the door to his walk-in closet, except it’s the size of a bedroom. “Jesus, how many suits can one person own?”
“Should I ask about your shoe collection now?” He turns to me while grabbing his bag from the shelf, throwing in a couple of pairs of pants, then going to the wall that has drawers, where he opens a couple and pulls out socks, shirts. “Should I pack boxers?” he asks with a smirk.
“I don’t know. Should I go to work on Monday without panties?” I smile back at him and yawn.
“You know, we could stay here and then go back to your place tomorrow.” He shrugs off his jacket and kicks off his shoes, pulling his shirt out of his pants and unbuttoning it from top to bottom before shrugging the shirt off and throwing it in the basket in the corner. His pants are next to go. “Sleep with me in my bed?” I look back at the huge bed with its thick, white covers and think that it looks like a cloud. “I want you in my bed. I want to roll over when you’re not here and still smell you on the pillow.” I take the pins out of my hair, letting it fall down to my shoulders.
“Are you going to do dirty, dirty things to me?” I ask him, unclipping my outfit so it falls to the floor. I kick it over to join his pants. “I just need to take off my shoes.” I walk out of the closet to the bed, bending down at the
