Chapter 14 #2
“You should try it out. Trust me, it feels amazing.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping conspiratorially.
“One time, I was in a foster family that had this older brother who was a total assclown. I get the whole angry at being in the foster care situation thing, but he decided to make me his personal target. He used to do things like smash my lunch so it was all crushed by the time I wanted to eat it. Or steal the laces from my shoes. Anything to cause chaos. And before you ask, no, it was not a crush thing,” she added firmly.
“The guy just used me as a punching bag for his anger.”
The casual way she dismissed what sounded like genuine bullying made me wonder what other worse things she’d experienced that made this seem minor in comparison.
“What did you do?” I asked, curious now.
Faith took a deliberate sip of wine and leaned forward with a smirk that could only be described as deliciously devious.
“So, the guy was a major jock, right? And at that point, he was in baseball season. He had this super-expensive bat that he worked all summer to save up for. The thing was shiny black, very manly.” She rolled her eyes.
“That particular weekend, he had a baseball tournament coming up. I went to a garage sale and found a hot-pink bat. I painted Hello Kitty all over it, and just before he left for the tournament, I replaced his manly black bat with the hot-pink Hello Kitty masterpiece.”
I chuckled, the image forming vividly in my mind. “He didn’t notice?”
“Had one of those gym bags that was so big, it was hidden until it was too late.”
I laughed.
“It was the only bat he had to use the entire tournament,” Faith said, a satisfied gleam in her eye. “The coaches wouldn’t let him borrow one because they said he needed to learn responsibility. His face was the exact color of the bat by the end of the weekend.”
“Okay, you really are fun.” I raised my glass in a toast.
“I have my moments.” She clinked her glass against mine. “You should do something like that to Axel.”
“It’s tempting,” I admitted, the wine making the idea seem less outrageous by the second.
“He either needs to talk to me about whatever I did to offend him or move on. Torturing me for the rest of my life isn’t acceptable.
There’s a statute of limitations on grudges, and a decade definitely exceeds it. ”
“You might be stuck with him, but he’s also stuck with you,” Faith pointed out. “Trust me. Pull a prank on him or something. It’ll make you feel so much better. Bonus points if it hits him in his Achilles’ heel.”
“His Achilles’ heel is his business. As angry as I am, I would never hit him there.” Even in my wine-soaked state, I knew some lines shouldn’t be crossed.
“No, this has to be more fun. What else is his weak spot?”
I shrugged, sighing dramatically. “I have no idea.” God, Faith came up with a Hello Kitty bat, and I couldn’t think of one thing to make him mad. “He is upset that he can’t date at least. So, I have that small victory, I guess.”
She snapped her fingers, her eyes lighting up like she’d just had an epiphany. “That’s it.”
“What’s it?”
“He’s not allowed to date, right? The whole time you guys are fake together or whatever?”
“Yeah?” I tilted my head, curious where she was going with this.
“And from what you’ve described, this is a guy that doesn’t go two days without a date.”
“He’ll be taking a lot of cold showers.” I nodded, a grin forming on my lips at the thought.
Faith’s answering smile was positively wicked.
“You’re plotting,” I accused, pointing at her with my wineglass. “I can practically see the cartoon light bulb above your head.”
“What if the guy came home to this gorgeous girl in a scandalously clad outfit? How hard would that be for him?” Her eyes danced with mischief.
“It’d be like a starving man coming home to a perfectly cooked Italian feast, smelling it all, feeling the aching hunger in his stomach, and not being allowed to have a single bite. ”
I laughed, the wine amplifying my amusement. “That would be hilarious. And he did say he was an ‘ass man.’ ” I mimicked his smug tone with surprising accuracy.
Faith raised her eyebrows suggestively.
I shook my head, even as the idea took root. “I don’t think I can do that.” It was mean. Deliciously mean, but still mean. “Besides, he probably hates me too much to see me as anything other than the target of his mysterious pent-up aggression.”
“I doubt it. And even if you’re right,” Faith countered, “you are warm flesh and blood of the opposite sex. And the only female that he is allowed to be near for the foreseeable future.”
True …
“I haven’t missed a day of squats since before my mom’s accident,” I mused, a new confidence seeping into my voice.
“I did them to keep my legs strong so that I could lift her in emergencies or any other situation where she needed me.” The side effect of all that dedication was that I had a rock-hard ass that could probably crack walnuts. Not that I’d tried. Yet.
“Okay, here’s what you do.” Faith set her wine down, eyes gleaming with purpose.
Two hours and several glasses of wine later, the girls had cleared out, and I was alone in Axel’s penthouse, feeling ridiculously reckless.
When the elevator doors opened, I bit back a giggle and got into position.
The sound of his footsteps came to a sudden halt.
“What. The. Actual. Fuck?”
I turned slowly, feigning surprise, and watched with immense satisfaction as Axel Pierce, Chicago’s most notorious playboy, stood frozen in his tracks, his eyes wide and fixed directly on the part of my anatomy he’d so smugly declared himself a connoisseur of.
Game on, Axel.