“I’m at work, Kara,” I replied, waspishly. “I’m not ignoring them. I’m just not seeing them.”
“Someone’s in a bitchy mood, sheesh. What crawled down your throat and laid a turd?”
“Such a way with words,” I said. “Mind keeping your voice down? There are customers waiting for their orders, and I doubt they want to hear about… turds while they’re waiting.”
The woman at the table closest to us, a redhead and with sharp blue eyes, stared at Kara, her lips twitching like she was about to bust a rib laughing.
Kara stuck her tongue out at me. “You’re in a shitty mood today. Let me guess, Damien Eat Your Heart Out Woods got to you.”
“Kara.”
“He did,” my sister said, laughing. “Man, I knew that would happen the minute I laid eyes on the guy. I remember how obsessed you were with him back in high school.”
I’d never told her about the kidnap of my virginity nor the destruction of my heart.
“So…? What happened?” she asked. “Did you, you know.” She wriggled her eyebrows at me. “Do the nasty dance? The horizontal bop and jive? Or was it more of a… hmm, how do I put this? Gag reflex test? Know what I meant?”
“I think the pizza menu knows what you mean at this point,” I replied, cringing at that same redhead who now had a hand in front of her mouth to keep from showing either her mirth or disgust. “Let’s take it down a notch, shall we?”
“Did someone say gag reflex?” Jessa arrived to take over.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I wasn’t a prude, but there was a time and a place, and also, I never wanted to discuss Damien with my sister. Hell, with anyone. The more I talked about it, the more real it became.
I circled the counter and escorted my sister away from it and Jessa’s inquisitive streak.
“What are you even doing here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Oh, that doesn’t start until next week,” Kara replied, giggling and pointing at the love bite on her neck. “Good thing too, right? Then again, they can cover this up with makeup. You’d be amazed at what you can get away with when—”
“What happened last night?” I asked. “With you and Timmy?” I hadn’t figured Kara was the settling down type, but she’d been solid with her boyfriend.
“He cheated on me,” Kara replied. “So I broke it off with him and decided to have a little fun of my own.”
“That’s terrible, Ka.”
“Nah, it’s OK. Seriously, sis, you’re too… deep with all that emotional stuff. You need to chill. Sex is sex. Fun is fun.” She slung an arm around my shoulder and squeezed me tight to her side. “I just came over to say thanks for coming to celebrate with me last night.”
Liar. She’d come to find out what had happened with Damien.
“Yeah, it was nice.” And now I was the liar. Watching my sister get with some rando dude wasn’t high on my list of things to do on a Friday night.
“How nice?” Kara asked. “Like… what happened with you and Damien?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, please!” She practically shrieked it, and I shushed her. “You were practically in love with the guy back in the day. There’s no way nothing happened last night. I can see it on your face. You’ve got this self-satisfied glow combined with…” Kara leaned in and sniffed me. “Yep, the stench of guilt. You boinked him.”
Ultimately, a better description than the “horizontal bop and jive” but still mortifying. I wasn’t a sexual prude, it was just Damien. He could get anyone he wanted and I hadn’t wanted to fall into that category again. “Nope. You’re wrong. Nothing happened.”
“Nothing happened?” Kara asked, looking past me and out the glass windows of the Pieslice.
“Yes. Nothing happened.”
“So, you’re never going to see him again?” A sneaky smile had appeared on my sister’s lips. “Like never ever?”
“Why would I?”
“Generally, when you boink a guy, and it’s a really good reaming, he wants to see you again. You know, for round two.”
“I swear to god if you don’t stop talking like that, my skin is going to cringe right off my body.”
“Keep your skin on, sis,” Kara said. “Damien’s going to be weirded out if you don’t.” She blew me a kiss then headed for the door. I turned, opening my mouth to tell her what a weirdo she was, but caught sight of a glinting black SUV outside.
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
Damien stood outside the Pieslice, dressed in his usual suit and tie, his head tipped to one side, sunlight painting his strong jawline and devilish dark eyes. He raised an eyebrow at me and beckoned.
9 Damien
This ought to be good. Or bad. Entertaining at the very least.
Hazel stormed out of the pizzeria and onto the stained sidewalk, her hair falling out of its ponytail and her eyes blazing like she’d filled them with fire and brimstone this morning. Hell in her eyes and heat between her legs. That was how I liked her.
Hating me but wet.
It made it easier to walk away from her every time, rather than get involved. The day I’d left Chicago had been the worst and best of my life. I hadn’t known it at the time, but if I’d stayed, I would’ve wound up fucking up her life and mine, just like Mortimer had destroyed my mother’s.
“You’ve got some kind of nerve showing up here,” Hazel said and flicked her hair back.
The obligatory “fuck you” hair flip was one of my favorites in her repertoire. She’d changed, but the mannerisms were the same.
God damn, her body was mature now, though.
Don’t think about last night.
“Took you long enough,” I said, checking my Rolex, tapping its face. “We’re going to be late.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not a fan of tardiness,” I
