Chapter 8
Amelie
He stops on a dime, so I do too. He collects the hand that rests on his shoulder, and he laces his fingers through mine, and it barely rates. Mainly because of the look on his face.
Wide eyes, shocked and maybe a little scared, stare back at me. A slack jaw hangs open in disbelief. “Yeah, that’s a little too on the nose, lady. Let’s don’t do that anymore.”
I giggle at his tone. He’s trying desperately to have it come across as a joke, but I’ve heard it often enough when I make off-the-cuff statements about people’s psyches. Most of them don’t like my insight, and that’s okay, but it’s second nature for me. I can’t turn it off.
Believe me, if I could, I would.
“Yeah, I hear you. I’ll leave it alone. For now.”
I sink into the same chair I sat in before and look around for Suzette. I find her at a pub-height table, in the middle of a conversation with two other women who look like they’re close to our age. She’s such a natural people-person. She can make a friend anywhere.
Tamping down the jealousy, I look at her until I catch her eye and wave, letting her know I’m back in my seat. She throws up a wave and a “just one second” finger, and I nod and melt a little further into the chair.
“Do you want a refill? On your wine?”
Carter’s fingers trail so lightly over the back of my hand, I barely feel it, and goosebumps rise on my arms. “Yes, please.”
“As you wish,” he says with a wink and navigates his way through the growing crowd.
He just quoted The Princess Bride , he’s smooth on the dance floor, and I have zero aversion — so far anyway — to him touching me?? Who is this man? And who is this version of me?
I close my eyes and perform a quick breathing exercise or two to clear my thoughts. They’re racing to the point of madness, and I need to get myself together.
A breeze drifts over me from someone sitting down beside me, and anticipating it being Carter, I smile and open my eyes. “That was fa?—”
“Hi,” says a man who’s most definitely not Carter, with a very off-putting smile.
“Umm, hi?”
Not-Carter fake-laughs and reaches out towards my knee, and I jump up so quickly, I nearly trip over the table behind me.
“What’s wrong, darlin’?” His drawl is far too put-on, and his eyes look everywhere but my face.
“What’s wrong is I don’t like random people sitting down next to me and touching me.” As soon as the words fall out of my mouth, I realize that’s exactly what Carter did not even half an hour earlier. I regret the next words that tumble from my lips on accident. “Well, not usually, anyway.”
“Well, this can be one of those unusual times, then, right?”
I shake my head adamantly. “No. It can’t, actually. I’m waiting on someone.”
“I’ll wait with you.”
“No, thank you.”
“Listen to those manners. Such a proper southern lady.” His smile gets even skeevier and smarmier, and I’m so very close to bolting until I feel a hand rest on my left hip. This touch settles me instead of setting me on edge.
It’s Carter.
I shift my weight to one leg so the curve of my hip would push harder into his palm and breathe a sigh of relief.
“Can I help you?”
“I was just talking to the little lady here, that’s all. Nothing to get worked up over.” He stands, lifting his hands, and the lapels of his jacket spread open.
“He doesn’t have a pass,” I whisper out the side of my mouth.
“I see that,” he murmurs back, very close to my ear. “Just roll with me, okay?”
I nod, not quite sure what he means or where he’s going, but convinced he won’t steer me wrong.
You’ve known the man for 30 minutes.
I tell the voice in my head to shut up and perk my ear towards the man beside me.
“No hard feelings, huh? Join us for a drink.”
The man is as surprised as I am, but he nods and sits back down in Carter’s chair. I’m not sure where we’ll all sit until Carter maneuvers himself behind me, sitting and pulling me down onto his knee.
“This okay?”
“Surprisingly.”
Another hum of approval and a squeeze of my hip creates more of those seldom, yet welcome, feelings below my belt.
Carter pulls out his phone and taps out a quick text before slipping it into my back pocket. I feel the buzz of a reply, but Carter couldn’t care less about a response.
Before the man in front of us can lift his beer to his lips, the security guy from earlier walks up. “This him, Mr. Ortiz?”
I look back and catch Carter’s single nod and feel the weight of his stare at the massive man who polices the area.
“Leo, this is…” Carter trails off because my admirer hasn’t introduced himself, but I know Carter doesn’t care one way or the other from his tone. He simply wants the man to give security his name.
When the interloper doesn’t answer, the massive man asks, “Sir, do you have the appropriate credentials to be in this area?”
“Credentials? Do you know who I am?”
“I don’t really give two fucks who you are if you don’t have a pass.”
The man tries to argue further, but Leo — I use context clues to assume that’s his name since Carter called him that — simply takes the man by the elbow and discreetly walks him towards the velvet rope I had to cross earlier.
“How’d he get in here without a badge? And why do you know the security guy’s name? And why did he call you Mr. Ortiz?”
The vibrations of his laughter buzz through his leg into my thighs resting on it. “I’ve known Leo for a long time. He’s been on the security staff for a while, since before the guys and I started playing here a few years ago.”
“Wait. Playing here? You’re in a band, too? I thought you were a songwriter.”
“I am. I implied earlier that it was just one of my many gigs.”
Our eyes lock, and I take a deep breath. “You did. That’s true.”
“Does that change anything?”
“Change anything? What do you mean?”
Carter shifts in his seat, shifting my body a little closer to his. “I guess I mean does that make you any less attracted to me?”
A laugh sort of erupts from between my lips, and I cover my mouth at the volume and sharpness of it. “You’re awfully presumptuous.”
“Am I, though?” He smirks, and I swear I feel like I need another medical evaluation.
Can a perfectly healthy woman in her late twenties go into a-fib just sitting still?
I pull in another long, deep breath and meet his eyes. “No, I guess you’re not. I can’t figure you out. I can’t figure myself out right now, if I’m being completely honest. I’ve never had this type of reaction to physical touch before. That’s not an exaggeration. I’ve been so averse to it for so long, I don’t remember a time I wasn’t.”
His eyes never leave mine, but I’m keenly aware of his hands and their whereabouts. I sit on his right knee, perpendicular to his body, and my knees brush against the inside of his left thigh. His left hand rests on my knee closest to him, and his right hand ghosts a path between my hip bones along the waistband of my jeans.
The electrical pulses following his fingers are just shy of overwhelming, and I have no good reason for why I never want him to stop. For the first time tonight, it’s starting to overwhelm me — even if it’s not necessarily in a bad way — and I feel like I need a little space.
“I just need to, um— I’ll be right back.”
He just nods, his eyes never leaving mine, and I stand up quickly, grabbing my bag from the chair beside him. I start for the back hall and the bathrooms but decide I need some fresh air instead.
Slipping through the crowd, I notice something as I bump into people again and again just like earlier.
Where Carter’s touch feels like silk, these all feel like sandpaper.
Yep, that settles it. I’ve got to go. This isn’t normal. There has to be something wrong with me… with this.