Chapter 15 #2
He doesn’t reply, just hooks his fingers in the elastic waistband of his charcoal briefs, drawing my attention to the wet patch of the front of them.
Oh my God. Did he…?
“Did you…?”
Davis strips his underwear and uses them to clean himself, because I can see now that yes, yes, he definitely did.
He balls them up and tosses them in the trashcan next to my desk.
I get a good eyeful of his dick while he does, and despite the fact I’ve just had the orgasm to end all orgasms, my pussy tightens.
He’s uncut and thick, not super-long, but even now, there’s more than enough there to make my mouth water.
I watch as he tugs his jeans back up and tucks himself in commando.
Fuck, that’s even hotter.
“My eyes are up here, boss.”
I blink, startled. Davis looks at me with that soft intensity he does so well, but the term boss rings in my ears.
“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” I babble. “I just, um. Phone!”
I dig my phone out of the back pocket of my shorts, where it’s been dangling by a thread this whole time. I have several missed calls and a message from Jake:
I’m 5 away.
I groan, my post-orgasm glow evaporating. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Davis straightens like someone pulled a wire in his back. “What now?”
I’m already moving toward the door, scooping my shirt up off the floor. “Playtime’s over. You might have to really earn your Coke Zero tonight.”
I run back to the bar to find Ada on the stripper pole.
Not just on it—owning it. Twisting, spinning, flipping upside down like gravity's for amateurs. I don’t know when she learned to pole dance, but if she didn’t, it’s the most Ada thing ever, pulling a hidden skill out of nowhere and performing like she was born to do it.
Davis is beside me again, his eyes pointedly glued to his phone.
I’m not as noble. I can’t look away from Ada’s body, and neither can anyone else.
The whole bar’s hypnotised by her slutty Cirque du Soleil.
The two uni boys from earlier are still circling like vultures, hooting and stuffing notes into Ada’s crop top as though they summoned her from a wet dream.
But Ada isn’t enjoying their attention. She barely seems to know they’re there.
Her face is set like a diamond, beautiful and cold.
She’s not having fun, but she keeps right on dancing.
She’s still on the pole when Jake walks in. His eyes lock on Ada like a heat-seeking missile. His jaw clenches, and he starts pushing his way through the crowd.
“Shit,” I hiss to Davis. “We need to…”
“Yeah.”
I cut across the dancefloor, ducking between and around people and intercept Jake. He’s a wall of muscle, but he was raised a gentleman despite whatever he’s been playing at, so all it takes to stop him is a hand on his chest.
“Nope,” I say. “Not tonight. Don’t even try it.”
He shakes his head. “I need to talk to her.”
I jerk a thumb at Ada, who’s dangling upside down with her legs twisted around the pole. “What part of that looks like a woman who wants to talk, Jake?”
“She’ll talk to me.”
“Maybe, but she won’t hear you.”
You idiot, I think, just barely stopping myself from saying it.
“I have to explain,” Jake says. “I never meant for her to get upset.”
I laugh because that’s what guys always say when they fuck up. I feel sorry for him, the way I feel sorry for people who try to domesticate lions and then get their faces chewed off.
“Jake, you’re not listening. Ada’s not upset; she’s furious. If you go in guns blazing, she’ll burn you to ash.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Yeah? That’s all you’ll be handling. Enjoy a lifetime of wanking over Ada’s magazine covers.” Frustration boils my blood, and I shove his shoulder. “What the fuck were you thinking taking that photo with Jenny? Why were you even with her today?”
He shifts like the floor’s turned slippery. “She wanted to meet up for a coffee. I thought it was to talk about that award I’m giving at the bullshit reunion.”
“The bullshit reunion you don’t want to go to?”
Jake pulls the same irritated face that all guys do when they realise women actually talk to each other. I fold my arms over my chest, holding my indignation close.
“I didn’t know Jenny was gonna make that photo look like we were hooking up or whatever the fuck she was playing at. I thought it was for the reunion, too. When I saw what she did, I called her and told her I had a girlfriend, and she took the posts down. That’s all there is to it.”
“Too little, too late. And quick question, if Jenny hadn’t posted about seeing you, would you have told Ada you met up?”
His hesitation is all the answer I need, and it makes me want to cry. Not for him. For Ada. For what could have been.
“You’re a complete moron, Jake. She’s never gonna forgive you for this.”
His face crumples. “I haven’t seen Jenny in years, she told me she wanted to talk about the reunion. I didn’t wanna be a dick. I just didn’t think…”
I know exactly what he can’t bring himself to say.
He just didn’t think he’d have to compromise between being honest with Ada and making Jenny angry with a straight-up refusal.
He always had to be mates with everyone.
Liked by everyone. He knows Ada hates Jenny, but he couldn’t handle saying no to a coffee.
He wanted to juggle, keep one party happy and the other in the dark, and he was wrong.
“You should have thought,” I snarl. “Because if you did, none of this would have happened. You should have just told Jenny to email you and fronted up to Ada about whatever happened between the two of you whenever that gross party photo was taken. You know Ada despises her with the power of an atom bomb—”
“Yeah,” he says miserably. “That punch-up they had at school—”
“That was at the end, not the beginning. Jenny had it out for Ada the second she showed up in Pukekohe.”
He gives me a tortured look.
“So, you knew that too.” Disappointment rolls over me like a tide. “Then you should have known you were screwed from the start. Ada would have looked past a lot of things about you. She did. But not this. Not her.”
“Cece, please, just tell me how to fix it?”
“You can’t.”
“I need to.”
“You’re not listening. I told you not to come here tonight, Jake. Nothing you or I can do is gonna fix this.”
His eyes slide away from me towards the dancefloor, and I follow his gaze.
Ada’s down from the pole, and the two guys are now grinding up against either side of her body. She’s laughing, but her eyes are empty.
Jake’s expression becomes murderous.
“Don’t,” I say, grabbing his arm. “She’s not yours to rescue anymore.”
But he’s already shaking me off and moving toward her. I follow, determined not to intervene unless things go totally nuclear. I tried to warn him, but maybe Jake needs to see what it means to cross a woman like Ada.
The uni guys are smarter than Thrasher. Ada’s would-be lovers take one look at Jake and vanish. Ada doesn’t move a muscle. She smiles seductively up at Jake like the stripper she was just impersonating. As terrified as I am about what’s about to happen, I can’t help but admire her nerve.
This afternoon, she was a quivering wreck, a second ago, she was a husk, and now you wouldn’t know anything was wrong at all.
She looks vibrantly alive. Invincible. She’s not, but she looks it, and I know that’s what matters most to her at this moment.
Masking so well Jake has no idea how broken her heart is. My own aches in sympathy.
“Well, well, well,” she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “If it isn’t Mr. Jenny Wallis…”
“The hell do you—”
“Shut up.” Ada’s anger is audible even over the music. “We’re done. Get the fuck out.”
Jake’s face crumples “Baby…”
“Nope. This is the last time you come in here to start shit like you actually care about me.”
He takes a half step backward. “I do care—”
“You don’t, or you wouldn’t have the balls to look me in the eyes after what you did. I don’t wanna hear it. Just fuck off.”
Jake throws his hands in the air. “I met up with Jenny for a coffee. You posted pictures of me in bed. My manager’s having a fit, and the whole team thinks I’m a joke. Can’t we just call it even?”
Ada’s laugh is manic. “Oh, sure, having two girls catfight over you on social media must be such a blow to your reputation, Jake.”
“Renaldo—”
“No.” She jabs a finger at him. “You don’t get to pull that bossy shit with me anymore.
I posted one picture of your arm and my face and let people come to their own conclusions.
You put my back against the wall, said we should be a couple, then lied to me about meeting up with Jenny Wallis, who you clearly fucked! ”
People are gaping at her, but Ada doesn’t give a damn.
She jabs her finger at Jake like it’s a dagger.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have posted that stuff, but I come out of it looking like a homewrecking slut, and Jenny looks like a desperate idiot who can’t keep a man, but you?
You’re gonna be just golden, aren’t you, baby? ”
“I—”
“You told me your sponsors love the lady-killer thing. I bet they’re thrilled about the drama.
Classic Graves-Holland, smashing his way through minor celebrities and has-been Head Girls.
Better that than coupled up with a flute-playing weirdo, right?
What would all the female fans who wank over you every night have to say about that? ”
“Ada—”
“Shut up. We both know what I did won’t affect you. You could line someone up to take my place tonight, but I’m left—”
She clams up, shaking her head. I can see the agony burning beneath her fury. She opened her soul to Jake, and he threw it in her face. After what Name Forever Redacted did, I’m witnessing a killing blow to her trust.
“Just go away,” Ada says flatly. “There’s nothing left to talk about.”
She turns, and Jake reaches for her arm. “Renaldo—”
Ada jerks away from him like he’s poison. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on me. You make me sick.”