Chapter 7 #4
He slid his hands out of my panties. “Jesus Christ, Emily, Jesus Christ. I haven’t come in my pants since the eighth grade.”
“Sorry?” I asked dreamily, and he laughed. I turned to look at him in the glow from the outdoor lights outside the windows.
“Wow,” he said, studying me. “You’re kind of a mess.” I put my hands where my bun had been. “A beautiful mess. Hang on.”
Luke disappeared into the bathroom for a while, then came back out with a brush. “Let’s get ourselves presentable, ok?”
Of course, he still looked like he had just stepped away from a fashion shoot. “Is it bad?” I asked. I didn’t want to look in the mirror.
“You look like, well, you look like you just came. You’re making me want to lean you over the bed and pull your dress back up.”
“Ok,” I said languorously, reaching for him again.
“We have to get back to the party,” Luke reminded me, and started waving the brush around my hair.
“What are you doing? Is that a brush or a magic hair wand?”
“I’m trying to fix it,” he said, his face a study of concentration. “Your hair is so slippery.”
“Let me take this one.” I removed the brush from his hand and started twisting my hair, poking the pins back into it. I stood and looked at the mirror above the dresser. In the dim light, I could see my flushed cheeks, my eyes huge and pupils dilated. Arousal. “Oh. I see what you mean.”
Luke reached for me again, then dropped his hands. “No, I can’t touch you. We’ll end up back where we started.”
That sounded good to me, but I took a few deep breaths. “Am I ok?”
“You’re gorgeous,” he said, looking straight into my eyes. I almost melted into the floor. “Let’s go see if anyone was looking for us.”
We drifted back into the party holding hands. It was still in full swing, a lot louder than before we drank all the wine at dinner. Diego and Tara were standing with arms intertwined over by the windows, and I pulled Luke slowly over to them.
“I noticed that you missed dessert,” Tara mentioned.
“I showed Emily more of the house,” Luke explained.
“It was really, really amazing,” I said, and the three of them burst out laughing.
“Remind me never to tell her a secret,” Diego told Tara. “She’s like a pane of glass, she’s so transparent.”
I covered my blushing cheeks with my hands. Did he mean he knew what we had been doing? Oh, sweet Jesus, this was embarrassing.
“Can I have everyone’s attention?” a man—Ken, Téa’s dad?—was calling, clinking his ring on his wine glass. “Attention! On behalf of all the parents and kids, I’d like to thank Annie and Milos for hosting this wonderful dinner tonight.”
Next to me, Luke tensed at the mention of Milos’ name. Annie waved her hand in acknowledgement. Her smile looked forced.
“And I’d also like to thank everyone on the Board of Directors of the Sharks for volunteering all their time to make this team so great. Can I have all our Board members come up here with our amazing Coach Sean?”
One by one, parents walked up to join Coach Sean. So this was the Board. These were the people who wanted to kick Charlie off the team because we couldn’t stay for Finals because I had a job, who thought that it was ok to punish a seven-year-old because his family was poor. I hated them.
Annie Whitaker walked up and joined the group with Sean. “Why is your sister standing there?” I asked Luke.
“She’s on the swim team Board. She’s really involved in the team, every part of it.”
A burning feeling started in my chest. Annie was on the Board of Directors? Annie, who had pretended that she understood my “situation.”
I turned and stared at Luke. “Are you serious?”
“Why?”
I was shaking my head. “I have to go.” I started to sneak along the periphery of parents to get Charlie.
Luke caught up with me in the lobby. The foy-ay. “Emily, what’s going on?
The alcohol that had made me feel giddy and sexy earlier was now making me sick and confused. “Did you know what she was doing?”
“Annie?”
“Yes! Did you know that she and the Board are trying to kick Charlie off the team?” I ran up the stairs.
Charlie was still playing hard, chocolate all around his mouth, on his shirt and on his new tie, too.
“Charlie, we have to get going. Come on.”
“Aw, Emmy!”
“Right now!”
Charlie shot me a wounded glance, but followed me downstairs. We went by the library doors, now wide open, and I heard Luke’s voice echo off the marble floors. I should tell him goodbye.
“…Yes, she’s a waitress and she works in a grocery store,” Luke was saying. “Her sister was a tramp. What do you want me to say?”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I backed away from the door. That was what he thought of me? And I had let him touch me, I—
I had to get out of here.
Diego was still at the windows in the living room. “Could you give us a ride home?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he answered. “Where’s Luke?”
Probably busy denigrating me with his cold father and witch of a sister. “I’m not sure. Are you guys leaving now?”
“Yeah, Tara went out to get a jump on the valet line. Let’s motor.”
I felt dizzy and disoriented. I didn’t wait to find my coat, just hurried with Charlie into the chilly night. I was so dumb. How could I be so dumb?
The lights were off in the house when Tara and Diego dropped us off. Charlie had fallen asleep on me in the car. My phone had dinged and vibrated with messages and calls, but I turned it off halfway home.
“You ok?” Tara asked when I opened the car door and tried to rouse Charlie.
“I’m great.” Just dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb.