Chapter 16 Aurora
AURORA
“Nervous?”
I glance up at Callie and stick my hands under my thighs to halt my fidgeting fingers.
She’s wearing this skin-tight green dress that I could never pull off, and her red hair is falling in waves around her face.
Add in her dark red lipstick and shimmering gold eyeshadow, and she looks like someone straight off a Hollywood red carpet.
I swallow back a laugh.
Of course she does. They all do. They’re celebrities. They practically are straight off a Hollywood red carpet.
I smile and nod. “A little. I haven’t been out like this in...well...ever, actually.”
Her eyes widen. “Really? Never been out clubbing with girlfriends?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Never.”
“And here I thought that’s what all college kids did.” She grins. “I never went, though, so all of my knowledge comes from shows and movies.”
“The closest I’ve been to going out with girlfriends was homecoming dances and bonfires in high school.” I shrug. “I wasn’t very social in college.”
“Well, we don’t go out much either, so this is a rare experience.” Callie waggles her eyebrows. “Things might get a little wild.”
My laugh is awkward, my nerves flipping around in my stomach like a fish out of water, and I press my hand to my chest to feel my rapid heartbeat.
Wild has never been a word I’d use to describe myself, yet here I am, going dancing with a group of rock stars. They’re all dressed in bodycon and sequins, and I’m so out of my element.
“Can’t wait.”
I flick my eyes toward Sav. She’s wearing a purple balayage wig and a black faux leather minidress.
There’s a see-through mesh gap that stretches from her collarbone to her navel, then two more on both of her sides, running from the top hem to the bottom hem.
So much skin. Side boob. Butt cheek. She looks, in Callie’s words, hot as fuck, but I could only dream of having the confidence to wear something like that.
For the hundredth time since climbing into this SUV, I adjust the skirt on the dress I borrowed from Claire. Sav offered me something from her wardrobe, but I almost passed out when I saw the options. Everything was so risqué and edgy. Perfect for her. Not so much for me.
Thankfully Claire’s selection offered more, uh, coverage. The black dress is still tight and short, but the sleeves are capped, there are no cut-outs or see-through details, and the hem reaches past the curve of my butt. And, the best part, I can wear black ballet flats.
Thank God. I don’t think I’d survive if I had to also wear heels.
I cast my attention out the tinted window and cement it there, letting my eyes unfocus until I see nothing but dark, blurry images rolling past. I’ve been a chaotic mess of cyclical thoughts since my outburst in the dressing room—since the negative pregnancy test, truly—and I haven’t had a chance to calm down.
So much has happened in such a short period of time, one massive thing after another, like a totem pole of ground-shaking revelations. I haven’t processed. I need to process.
I don’t want to have a baby right now. I might not want to have a baby ever.
And maybe...
Maybe that doesn’t make me a terrible person.
Sav’s words from earlier keep echoing in my head, loud and soft, fast and slow. Haunting and repetitive. She’s baby-free by choice. She won’t regret it.
Ever.
I’m happy, she’d said. I’m fulfilled, she’d said.
She doesn’t need to have a baby with Levi. She doesn’t want to have a baby with him.
And then...
Levi wants what I want because we’re a team.
I want to laugh at myself. The idea of Brady ever wanting what I want, of being a team with him, feels so unrealistic.
I’ve spent so long being led, being told, being spoken for, that I’ve all but forgotten how to use my own voice.
How to recognize my own wants and needs. But if I told him how I felt...
My chest contracts and my stomach tightens. I grit my teeth and remind myself to breathe. I feel dizzy and unsteady. I feel lost. But also...
I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a thick fog.
Just a few more steps, and the air will be clear.
The haze lifted. The light bright. It’s as exhilarating as it is terrifying.
This fog has been my home for years now.
A tight little cocoon of manufactured safety and security.
And while it’s starting to feel constricting, I don’t know if I can survive without it.
I blink out of my daze and settle my attention on the reflection in the glass. It’s clear in the semidarkness. Pink hair and a mischievous smirk.
Mabel.
I’ve worked to keep my eyes off her, but I’ve not had the same control over my other senses. I can feel her energy emanating from the bench seat behind me. I can smell her flirty blend of fruit and flowers with each inhale. I can hear her every move, word, breath.
After she left the dressing room, I went to the internet and found the pictures of Kat Hughes and Kaz Storm. My heart broke for Mabel, and from the bits of conversation I’ve heard, she has ended things with Kat.
I don’t know what I was expecting when I first saw her after the show. A sobbing, distraught mess, maybe? Instead, I found a brave face and a forced smile.
I just need to dance it out, she told me.
Then she emerged from the bathroom in a red sequined bralette, tight black skirt, and six-inch stilettos. The stilettos did me in, and I don’t even know why. I keep picturing those dainty feet with her white polished pedicure inside those sky-high heels, and it makes my heart beat faster.
How is she going to dance in those? Will she have to take them off? Won’t the balls of her feet hurt? Is she still wearing the toe ring?
I dig my fingers into the leather seat and will my heated cheeks to cool. I take out my phone and scroll through pictures of my garden, picturing my own feet and hands in the dirt until my pulse has calmed. I don’t look up from my screen for the rest of the ride.
When we get to the club, we’re lead through a back door and up a roped-off stairway into a private upper level.
It has its own dance floor and bar while overlooking the main dance floor on the lower level.
When I peer over the railing, I find hundreds of people staring up at me, and I immediately take several steps backward.
“Weird, right?”
I whip around and come eye to eye with Mabel. “Huh?”
She smirks. “Being up here while they’re all down there, staring up at us like we’re animals in a zoo.”
“Is that how it always is? Being famous?”
“Pretty much. Especially if I’m with the others. They attract the attention, but I can sort of blend in from time to time if I’m on my own.”
She glances over my shoulder toward the main dance floor again, and I don’t miss the way her smile falters, revealing the sadness underneath. I speak without thinking.
“I could find you in any crowd.”
She flicks her eyes to mine, something intense and almost painful flashing in those amber irises.
“You might be the only one.”
I do a quick scan of the venue, noting several people with their attention set on Mabel. It’s no surprise to me that people are looking. She’s gorgeous and charismatic. People are always going to look. Something akin to jealousy stirs in my stomach, but I force a small smile and shake my head.
“No. Definitely not the only one.”
I’m not sure if it’s the lighting from the DJ booth or my eyes playing tricks, but Mabel’s cheeks seem to color with a flush before that smirk of hers is back.
“Well, maybe I’ll try to slip down there later and find someone to feed my ego.”
She winks at me, then walks away, leaving me with my stomach at my feet and my heart in my throat.
Help feed her ego?
What does that mean? Dancing? It’s got to be dancing, right?
She wants to find someone to dance with.
I’m not completely certain what kind of dancing happens in dark nightclubs after midnight, but something tells me it’s not the kind I did at high school prom.
It’s probably a lot of touching. Groping. Grinding? I wince.
Wait.
Or does she mean she wants to hook up with someone? That’s a rock star thing to do, right? Hook up with someone you meet while clubbing? Would it be another supermodel? A woman like Kat Hughes? Someone tall and thin with more sex appeal in their left earlobe than I have in my entire body?
Oh God.
Will she be bringing them back to the suite?
I might throw up.
I don’t know that I’ve ever felt this intense blend of emotions before. Jealousy and anger and sadness. It’s overwhelming. It’s unbearable. It’s...
Well, it’s stupid, is what it is.
I shouldn’t care if she hooks up with someone tonight. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me because I’m not gay, and I don’t have any feelings, whatsoever, for Mabel Rossi.
I shake my head as if I can rattle loose my ridiculous thoughts, and then I zero in on the bar. Callie said that tonight is bound to get wild. I might as well jump in headfirst.
Shoulders back. Chin up.
I manage half the distance between myself and the bar before my shoulders start to slump, and I grip my purse a little tighter. The text I got from Brady earlier flashes in my head.
Making money doesn’t mean you don’t have to run things by me first.
My brows furrow, and I practice the excuses under my breath.
“It was just one drink. I didn’t even finish it. I just wanted something to hold. I didn’t want to text you and bother you over a single drink.”
By the time I’m stepping up to the bar, my stomach is in knots. I’m already dreading the conversation I’ll likely have to have with Brady. And after the Melbourne boutique and the clothes?
Ugh.
I close my eyes and inhale slowly, then I open my clutch to fish out my wallet.
I just want a buffer. I want something to take the edge off.
To quiet my questions and slow down my brain.
That’s all. What’s a cocktail go for these days?
Twenty bucks? Just twenty dollars. Twenty dollars won’t upset him.