Chapter Seven #2
“You’re an idiot,” she shakes her head, wiping her chin and using her phone to fix her lipstick.
I order her a fresh drink. “I do have some distant family in Venezuela,” I tell her. “But we don’t speak often. We were never close.”
“I see.” She leans back in her seat, assessing me slowly. Every inch of my skin is on fire under her gentle perusal, as if it’s her fingers skimming over my skin beneath my suit. Is it sad that just her focus makes me hard? “So, it’s just you, Elias, and Rowan?”
“Pretty much.” I shrug. “They’re the only family I need. Unless you’re ready for me to get down on one knee—”
“Slow your roll there, pretty boy.” She holds up a hand between us. “We are barely friends.”
“Right… And what about your family—"
“A story for another time.” If she hears the disappoint in my sigh- the drop of my heart into my ass- she says nothing. Instead, she pivots the subject to, “So, Cristian is Elias’ son.”
I’m still fucked up over that revelation.
Cristian- Elias’s whoopsie baby- was the boy we were all shit talking about.
He’s the controlling asshole Poppy was trying to make money to get away from.
It’s unfathomable to me. I mean, I fucking taught that kid how to play soccer- which I am proud to hear he still plays exceptionally well- and he decided to grow up into an asshole?
Fuck him, he deserves the trauma of his dad stealing his girl.
They are perfect for each other though, in an almost fated kind of way.
Everything that Elias missed out on because of Vivian and Cristian he is now able to experience with Poppy.
All of the spontaneous dates, the dancing, the wining and dining he could never afford when he was younger.
Don’t get me wrong, Elias has dated a lot of women, but none quite like Poppy.
None that have inspired him the way she does.
And through him she gets to be herself too.
It’s become apparent as we’ve gotten to know her that Penelope Hastings was never allowed to figure out who she really wanted to be.
It was all just decided for her, and the decision was that she would be Cristian’s wife.
But she loves to write, read, relax on the beach, and spend quiet nights in with her friends.
She’s never once asked Elias to go to a country club or even a boutique.
Sunday nights she’s either in a sundress or still in her bathing suit with one of his t-shirts and a pair of shorts thrown over it.
Elias gives her the simplicity she craves and she keeps him young.
Like Naomi, I’m temporarily ignoring the awkward energy between Clara and Rowan. They can figure that shit out on their own, we all know they’re inevitable. I just wish I wasn’t the only one who knows Naomi and I are also inevitable.
“You know, you could have mentioned his name at any point and saved us all of this trouble,” I point out.
“As could you,” she retaliates. “Elias’ son this and Elias’ son that. You all avoided using his name in any manner of conversation, as if the taboo would summon him into existence.”
“It hurts him,” I defend my friends on instinct.
Naomi’s eyes soften just a little. “We never mention Vivian by name because she’s a raging cunt, but we don’t mention Cristian because it makes Elias shut down.
He gets quiet and distant and then calls the kid eleven times an hour until one of us decides to take his phone away. ”
Naomi averts her gaze. “That’s really sad actually…”
“He’s a good dad,” I sigh. “He just got saddled with unfortunate circumstances.”
She’s silent for a long time before finally raising her glass to mine for a belated toast. I clink my glass against hers as she admits, “You’re a really good friend, Graham.
” She whispers my name so no one else around us can hear.
“Elias is lucky to have you.”You could be lucky to have me too, I think.
I don’t say it out loud. If she doesn’t want the full force of my friendship, I’m not going to force it upon her.
For now, at least, she seems to enjoy my company, or she wouldn’t have sought me out. Perhaps I can learn to live with that.
???
I can’t live with it.
Pitiful doesn’t even begin to describe me when it comes to the hold Naomi Mychal has on my every conscious thought. Unfortunate, miserable, wretched is a good one.
I am a wretched, lustful fool because I show up at The Cellar every fucking Sunday and three or four days in between always with the hopes to get a chance to talk to her again.
To exchange more than the few words we get when she comes to visit Poppy at the bar.
But Naomi doesn’t frequent The Cellar often, not for herself or at her brother’s request.
I get it. She has college and other shit going on outside of this place. I am decidedly not an important point on her bullet list- a fact made apparent by the way she blatantly ignores me at Elias’ mandatory Sunday dinners more than half the time.
Not that she’s the only reason I go.
Elias is trying to reclaim the family he’s lost in Cristian by drawing all of us closer.
And it keeps Poppy out of her own head about the break up and all that mess.
We’re his family now- Rowan and I always have been- and one day it’ll be so official, none of us will have the breath of thought to leave.
Eli will marry Poppy. Rowan is definitely going to marry Clara- if he can get his boot out of his own ass- and I will marry Naomi.
I will marry her. I’ve been saying it since the night we met. That woman is made for me, and I will live on my fucking knees if that’s what she asks but I will marry her.
Fuck, at this point I’d take just another night alone with her.
It’s been weeks since we last spoke at this bar.
I come in looking for her every time and just end up drinking alone when I come up short.
I’ll wait, see if she shows up at an indecent hour, but lately I’ve always ended up just paying my tab and heading home alone.
It’s not like I can go whine to Rowan, he’ll just tell me to get the fuck over it.
And Elias has enough going on what with Cristian finding out about him and Poppy. He doesn’t need my bullshit right now.
Groaning, I drag my hands through my hair, leaning my elbows on the counter.
“You look like you could use a drink,” Adonis says pointedly, sliding into place at my side. “Or several?” He flags the bartender. “What’s got you down, mate?”
Oh, I’m just head over heels in love with a woman who doesn’t care that I exist, is nearly half my age, and who I want to do unspeakable things to my body.
“Nothing important…”
“Uh huh…” He raises a brow, ordering me a Scotch on the rocks.
“Look,” he leans in closer. “I already have plans tonight with Apollo, but I can get you in with another one of my friends if you’d like?
Ares and Aphrodite?” All of his frequent flyer friends stuck to his theme.
I think it’s what drew him to the waiter he’s so messed up over.
The kid just happened to fall into his micro-kink. “Or Hermes—”
“I don’t actually feel like playing tonight,” I tell him as nonchalantly as I can- which is to say not chalant at all. The despondence in my voice makes him blink and then lean in closer.
“Gray? Is there someone in particular…?”
Sucking at my teeth, I pull my shirt sleeve over the red band around my wrist. “No. Of course not.”
Shaking his head, Adonis takes a sip of his drink. “You always have been a bad liar.” He turns, looking around the club slowly. “I saw you talking to that girl a few weeks ago. Naomi Mychal, right?” My head snaps his way and he chuckles. “I know her brother. You could say we’re… Good friends.”
“You fucked him.”
“Don’t be so crude,” he admonishes with a smirk. “But yes, we’ve had our dalliances from time to time. And I’ve spoken to her often, though we have never played I assure you. She doesn’t like to bend.”
“No, she doesn’t….”
“What she does like, however,” Adonis leans in to whisper in my ear. “Is to watch.” I blink as he takes his glass from the bar. “Do with that what you will.”
He leaves and I lean back against the bar, taking in the sights and sounds of the club.
This is what I typically do on nights like this, stand here, enjoy the ambiance and the atmosphere.
I enjoy just being surrounded by like people, seeing how they use each other, sometimes fall in love, typically fall in lust. There’s something about the vulnerability that comes with inherent trust that makes my nerves light up with sensations long dead to my broken brain.
Adonis knows this about me, it’s why I have an ongoing open invitation in his name to certain events the club puts on. A slow smirk curls my lips.
She likes to watch.
How convenient, so do I.