Chapter 57
Fifty-Seven
CADE
Maybe it’s mental illness, but I fucking love the smell of nail polish remover.
If that makes me a sociopath or something, whatever.
It’s a nostalgic scent that instantly takes me back to Mom’s art studio, where I'd sit for hours on the floor in front of the mini easel she set up for me beside hers while she worked.
Before things got bad. There are no rules, she told me once. Paint what you feel.
Fingers snap in front of my unfocused eyes. “We're staying in the present, babe,” Andrea says, holding up two swatch cards lined with different shades of black and purple.
I tilt my head, squinting at the selection. “I was thinking more… neon.”
She hikes the swatches over my head. They crash land into the pedicure basket beside Mae, who yelps in Korean. Andrea snickers.
“What’d she say?” I ask.
“Apparently, I’m a dumb monkey.”
I bark a laugh.
“See, he agrees!”
Andrea chucks another swatch card at her coworker. When I texted her this morning, she offered to pick me up on her way to the salon. Whisked me away just in time, too. We sped out of the neighborhood right as Sebastian’s truck turned into it.
Immediately, I got a text.
Saint Seba:
I like you in pink.
Dad gave me his card to order myself some new clothes and shit.
I've always had an eclectic style, but getting a compliment from Sebastian of all people on my rainbow rage reaper tee caught me off guard.
I didn't know what to do with it, so I ignored it.
No more than ten minutes later, another text came through.
Saint Seba:
Is it that you don’t want to be upstairs? Or do you just not wanna sleep in my old bed?
I fell for the bait.
Both
I’ll put the package for you on the couch then
A few minutes later…
Saint Seba:
What’s the name of that cologne you wear?
And a few minutes after that…
Saint Seba:
try one of the oranges on the counter when you get back.
And after that…
Saint Seba:
this song reminds me of you.
Yeah, I threw the phone at that one.
I meant it when I told him that he doesn’t deserve me. He doesn’t. But the more he opens his damned mouth— or phone— and says things I really wish he wouldn’t, the more I find myself second-guessing my resolve. Which never fucking happens. I’m the most decisive person on the planet.
Motherfucker has me by the nuts.
My phone vibrates with another message, rattling a line of nail polish bottles like broken piano keys.
Saint Seba:
Craving anything for dinner?
“Fuck my life,” I groan. “Help me.”
“Tell him you’re busy.” She shrugs as she applies a base coat to my freshly manicured nails. “Your girlfriend is servicing you.”
“Are you offering to suck me off right now?”
She snorts. “You wish.”
“Upon every star.”
That raspy laugh of hers does things to me. Like make my heart speed up and my feet all antsy. I’m addicted to it. She shakes a bottle of alien green polish, a glint of mischief in her eyes.
“I see that little smirk.”
She chews her lip, focused on coating every nail evenly. “I’m just thinking.”
I lean forward. “Do share.”
“It’s a bad idea.”
“I like where this is going.”
“It’ll probably make things worse for you.”
“Even better.”
She skims her tongue ring over her teeth. “It’ll definitely make things worse for me.”
I’m distracted by her piercing, imagining it gliding up and down my shaft… massaging right under my cockhead…
“Stop looking at me like you’re gonna eat me.”
“Maybe I am.”
“God, this is gonna be a disaster,” she mutters under her breath.
“Of course it is, you’re dating me: a living dumpster fire.”
She shoots me a glare, a sharp nail landing between my eyes. “Don’t talk about my boyfriend like that.”
Shit, I like that. No, I love that.
“This girl,” Mae snickers from behind me. “She says, she doesn’t do relationships and this and that, then this pretty boy comes in out of the blue and BOOM! She’s all happy and smiley and calls him boyfriend,” she croons, pointing at me. “You must have a magic dick.”
“Mae!” Andrea gasps.
I’m doubled over in stomach cramping laughter while Andrea hurls bags of cotton swabs at Mae’s head. Her coworker ducks with a cackle. “Maybe his magic dick can fix your vagina!”
A growl. “Oh, you are SO getting the next ingrown toenail!”
I’m dead. KOed. Laid the fuck out.
“Hey!” Amira barks. “This is not a circus!”
“I don’t know, according to Mae, I’m a dumb monkey, so it may be,” Andrea snaps.
I die again.
Even Amira’s permanent frown veers towards a smirk. She whips her rag at them, grumbling something in Korean before returning to the check-in desk. The flow of customers has slowed to a trickle. With only fifteen minutes left in Andrea’s shift, I’m getting restless.
I don’t want to go back. The idea of facing Sebastian makes me nauseous. No, that’s a lie. It’s something worse. I’d rather rip my tongue out than admit what I’m feeling.
Andrea resumes my manicure, applying the top coat and shoving my hands under the curing lamp one more time.
“You never told me your bad idea,” I prod.
Her nose wrinkles as she drops her head back to stare at the chandelier.
“Because I’ve got a new, worse idea.”
“The suspense is killing me.”
She grins, then massages oil into my cuticles. “Remy has been in a funk since his ex-boyfriend came back and started stalking him— don’t ask, it’s a long story— but basically I’m dragging his depresso ass out tonight… and I was thinking… You could meet us there.”
“Are you asking me out again, church girl?”
“Maybe?” She shakes her head and straightens. “You know what? Yes. Yes, I am. Cade Warren, will you come to a shitty college club to get drunk and make out on the dance floor with me?”
I don’t know how I’ll get there but…
“I’d love to.”