21 - Jess
Jess
David tugged my arm, guiding me toward the far end of the bar so fast my heels nearly clipped the edge of a ceramic planter.
“Don't look now,” he muttered, his eyes locked straight ahead as he intercepted a passing waiter and grabbed two glasses of champagne. “Mark from Compliance just walked in. If he tries to talk to me about that mistake from the Christmas party last year, I'll throw myself off the balcony.”
“Mistake? You bragged about that one-night-stand for weeks.” I took a sip of my drink and let the cold bubbles dull the noise in my head. “This is a crisis of your own making.”
“A crisis I’ve managed by actively avoiding him at every turn, thank you very much.
” His gaze swept over me with the critical, intensely focused eye of a man who spent three hours orchestrating my appearance.
“And speaking of flawless execution, look at you.
I'm a genius. The baby blue makes you look less like a basement rat and more like an heiress.”
I fidgeted with the neckline of the slinky, backless dress he’d picked out, feeling more exposed than I would’ve liked. David had literally forced me into the damn thing, then went ahead and did something miraculous to my hair.
“It's too much. This is the first time Hunter’s seeing me outside the gym. I'm gonna scare him off.”
“Please,” he scoffed, swirling his glass. “You clean up like a dream. Embrace it.”
I took a gulp of champagne, wishing the floor would open up and swallow me instead.
The transition from sweating in Capitol Fitness to standing in a glass penthouse atrium at Fisher Investments felt too fast. The residual ache from the back of Dane's Bronco still lingered deep in my thighs, a secret counterweight to the elegance of the room.
“I look desperate,” I muttered, my fingers tightening around the stem of the glass. “He's used to seeing me all sweaty and messed up in compression tights. He's gonna think I'm insane.”
“Oh, honey,” David said, his tone dropping into a mischievous purr. “By the look on his face, I'd say that's the least of your concerns tonight.”
I followed his gaze to the entrance.
Hunter stood by the double glass doors, detached from the crowd of corporate suits surrounding him.
The transformation hit me low in my abdomen.
His usual unruly dark hair lay slicked neatly into a classic James Bond style, exposing the clean lines of his jaw.
The tailored tux hugged his broad shoulders and narrow waist with perfect precision, replacing his casual ease with sophisticated elegance.
His piercing blue eyes scanned the room, bypassing the ice sculptures and the string quartet until they locked onto me.
The instant our eyes met, his gaze ignited. An open, blazing hunger flared in his expression raking over me from head to toe.
David let out a soft chuckle, patting my arm before he began to drift out of view. “Good luck.”
Hunter stopped a foot away, his mouth slightly open in awe. He looked vulnerable, sweet, and so thoroughly smitten it made my knees ache. “Jess. You look... I don't even have a word for this. You're breathtaking.”
My cheeks burned under the expensive blush David had applied. I smoothed the dress over my thighs, aiming for casual indifference and missing by a mile. “What, this old thing?”
“You make it look good,” he said, brushing my bare shoulder for a brief second before he dropped his hand, mindful of the corporate eyes around us. He adjusted his bow tie with a self-conscious tug. “Honestly, this is the fanciest place I've seen since my senior prom.”
I laughed softly, but the humor died a quick death as an unwelcome memory intruded.
Dane's face filled my mind. The leather seat of the Bronco, his pocket stuffed with my underwear, voice flat as he warned me not to tell Hunter or Brock about what happened.
A cold splash of guilt hit my stomach, threatening to ruin the evening before it had even started.
I shook the feeling off, forcing my attention back to the present. “Let's get a drink. My glass has been empty for two whole minutes.”
“Now you’re talking.”
We walked together to the middle of the bar and I waved the bartender over. “Two glass-rinse Sazeracs. Rye whiskey, Peychaud’s bitters, a splash of absinthe, and a lemon twist, please.”
The bartender nodded, instantly impressed by the specific order. Hunter raised his eyebrows, a grin breaking across his handsome face as he watched the glasses get prepared.
“Look at you, shaking down a corporate bar,” he teased, leaning his forearm against the polished wood. “I'm usually the one mixing your pre-workout drinks into a plastic shaker. This feels like a major demotion.”
“Consider it my way of showing you I possess actual life skills outside of lifting weights,” I said, accepting the drinks and handing him one.
We turned around to face the crowded room, our shoulders brushing as we took a sip. Across the glass terrarium, David stood next to a group of executives. He caught my eye, pausing mid-sentence to offer an emphatic thumbs-up right by his chest.
I rolled my eyes, shifting my focus back to Hunter before my roommate could embarrass me any further.
“So what's the protocol here?” he said, his eyes tracking a senior partner downing a tiny quiche. “Do we network? Do we dance? Do I talk to people about interest rates?”
“We definitely dance,” I said, guiding him to the section of the floor where a dozen couples already swayed and drifted to the music.
Hunter's hand settled on the small of my back, his warmth penetrating the thin blue fabric within seconds.
He pulled me close, closing the gap until we were pressed together.
Our eyes locked, a shared wave of bashful realization washing over us before we both looked away, laughing softly at the awkwardness of our current states.
“You really are beautiful,” he said. The sincerity in his eyes struck me right where the old college scars kept guard, dissolving a layer of defense I didn't know I still held.
"Don't get too comfortable," I whispered, deciding the honesty felt right. “I should probably admit this isn't just a standard date. It's actually a test.”
His step faltered. “A test? What do you mean?”
“It’s nothing bad,” I assured him quickly. “I need a plus-one for Amberleigh’s wedding, and I need to decide between you and Brock.”
“Pick me. I wanna go.” His face lit up with a grin.
“Let me finish,” I said with a laugh. “This is a trial run. I'm testing the waters to see who fits best in the wild.”
“Oh, I'm gonna win,” he said, a streak of athletic rivalry glinting in his eyes. Without a word of warning, he spun me out in a smooth circle, and swept me back into a deep, dramatic dip.
A fluttering laugh caught in my throat as the glass ceiling tilted wildly above us. Hunter hovered over me, his face inches from mine, and pressed a brief, firm kiss to my lips before pulling me back up with effortless strength.
“Consider the bar raised,” he winked.
Brock definitely seemed like the obvious frontrunner for a high-society event given his polished look, but Hunter possessed a dark-horse charm when his competitive nature took over.
The night took on a sweet, fluid rhythm from there.
We drifted between the bar and the balcony, trading stories about who we were before Capitol Fitness over a second and third round of Sazeracs.
Hearing him talk about his childhood sports injuries made him feel real, a stark contrast to the sterile corporate environment surrounding us.
An hour later, the firm’s founder took the small stage for the mandatory executive speeches.
The drone of financial projections and market expansions washed over the room, prompting Hunter to lean down and whisper highly inaccurate translations of financial jargon into my ear until I had to bite my lip to keep from disrupting everything.
David materialized beside us just as the applause signaled the end of the presentation. “Hunter, right? Phenomenal tuxedo choice.”
Hunter smiled back and extended his hand. To my utter dismay, David didn’t shake his hand. Instead, he reached up and firmly squeezed Hunter’s left pectoral muscle through his shirt.
My cheeks burned from second-hand embarrassment. Hunter’s hand was still extended in mid-air, his expression a mix of profound confusion and mild alarm.
“Don't mind me,” David said smoothly, dropping his hand back to his side without a hint of shame. “This is a native greeting in my culture.”
“You're from Fresno,” I said flatly.
“A very tribal region,” David shot back. “And you call yourself a history buff.”
“Right.” Hunter cleared his throat. “Well. You learn something every day, I guess.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, elbowing David hard enough to make him groan. “He’s on meds but took the wrong dose again.”
Hunter looked uncertainly from me to David, not sure whether I was kidding or not, and way too polite to take a guess. “I need the restroom. Excuse me.”
The second he left our orbit, I spun round and smacked David on the arm. “Are you kidding me?”
“What’s with the violence, Seymore?”
“You grabbed his boob,” I hissed, glancing around to make sure nobody was listening. When I looked at him again, his lips were tightly pursed, holding back his laughter. Which only made it worse. “This is technically our first date, and you grabbed. his. Boob.”
“Wasn’t the whole point of this to see how he holds up?” His expression was plain and simple innocence. I was the unreasonable one in this scenario. “If the man can withstand me, then he’ll be deemed worthy.”
“You need to worry about withstanding me.”
“Okay, okay, but seriously…” David’s hand clamped onto my wrist, and he dragged me across the floor past a decorative column, out onto the stone balcony.
The cold night air hit my bare back, a welcome shock to my system after the suffocating humidity of the atrium. David looked out over the illuminated expanse of the National Mall before turning to face me.
“What are we doing out here?”
“You’re about to tell me how you landed that man,” he said with a hint of scandal in his tone. “The tux, the hair, the height. And that chest? The man has the muscle density of a solid marble statue. I almost passed out when I grabbed him. It would’ve been so humiliating.”
“Sure, that would’ve been the humiliating part.”
“I know the night’s young,” he said, ignoring me, “but so far he’s passed with flying colors."
“Not your call to make.” I rubbed my arms to fight off the chill, although his gushing warmed me up on the inside. It was fun not being the only one.
“He's gorgeous.”
“They both are,” I clarified. “That’s what makes this so hard.”
He sighed and looked back out into the night, as if contemplating one of the universe’s most baffling questions. “Honestly, it's a pity you can't take them both. No, not a pity, a tragedy.”
I looked at the dark silhouette of the Washington Monument, the cheap champagne souring in my stomach as the secret burned a hole through my resolve. “I slept with Dane.”
David’s perfect posture collapsed into a slouch as his jaw hit the ground. “You what?”
“In his truck. A Ford Bronco. It changed my life.” The admission tumbled out of me like loose change. “So it’s not two of them, David. It’s three.”
He stared at me, truly speechless for the first time in his life, probably.
“Say something,” I pleaded. “Or slap me. Just… do something.”
“I’m not slapping you,” he laughed softly. “But I am gonna tell you not to overthink this. There’s nothing wrong with being attached to three men at the same time. It’ll take some finesse, but I believe in you.”
“Finesse, huh? Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
He put his arm around my shoulders to help stave off the goosebumps. “Much to learn, you have, young padawan. Teach you, I will.”
“That scares me more than this whole thing blowing up in my face.”
But the guilt evaporated, replaced by an exhilarating confidence. I was going to date all three of them, and they were just going to have to deal with it.