Chapter 9 #2
Leo throws his head back and laughs, and the DJ switches to I'm Sexy and I Know It by LMFAO.
As Leo gives it everything he's got, spinning and thrusting his pelvis and making the song all about him, I can’t help but laugh, too.
When I look up, Eli is grinning at me. He points to the seat next to me. “May I?” he says.
My eyes widen slightly as I nod. Don’t get too excited. He’s stuck talking with you, and moving closer will make it easier to hear.
He sits next to me and takes a long drink of his cider. I get a brief whiff of his cologne, all woody and masculine. My legs cross and I squeeze them together involuntarily for a little relief from the heat blooming there. That causes the most delicious tingle, so I stop quickly.
“I didn’t know Leo was such a dancer,” I comment.
One corner of his mouth tips upwards. “Yeah. Total show-off. And Steve - the DJ - he’s an enabler. Plays whatever he feels like, and Leo will dance to a fire alarm given half a chance.”
I laugh at the thought.
“I’ve been meaning to ask him where he got that awesome scar,” I mention, running my finger along my own eyebrow.
Eli’s lips tightens very briefly, and he looks a little sad. “Um...probably best you don’t ask him if Dean’s around,” he says.
“Oh...OK,” I reply, sorry for bringing it up. “I just thought, Leo being Leo, there’d be some cool story about wrestling lions, or something.”
“Nah, he saved a mermaid from sharks,” he deadpans. “You should see the shark, though. He’ll never play the piano again.”
I laugh; Leo sure is built like Aquaman. “Well, maybe he can still be a piano tuna,” I joke, hoping Eli’s not a pun hater, and I’m more than a little gratified when he laughs back. Land sakes, that’s a sexy laugh. Deep, rich, and lighting up his face like Christmas.
He looks towards the dance floor and rolls his eyes with a smirk, pointing. “Here we go,” he says, shaking his head knowingly.
I follow his gaze. There’s a gorgeous woman wearing her chocolate brown hair in a retro cool Rosie the Riveter updo having serious eye contact with Leo.
He’s still doing his thing, strutting his apparently funky stuff, but there’s a spark in his eyes as he looks at her, and she’s moving closer to him, as though he’s magnetic.
Which, in many ways, the charismatic bastard is.
I may be hung up on Eli, but I’m not blind and can absolutely see Leo’s appeal.
Especially when he can dance like he’s in a damn music video.
“Next up, he’ll take her hand and give her a twirl,” Eli murmurs in my right ear as we watch in amusement, and oh boy…
My ears are one of my most intense erogenous zones, always have been, so his breath tickling over it is…
Unnnnnnnnfffffff. I squirm slightly and watch as Eli’s prediction comes true, and Leo takes the woman’s hand and twirls her until her red skirt swirls, pulling her back to him and giving her an intense look and a smile that promises the hottest sex of her life if she carries on down this path.
From the way she looks at him, she’s gonna.
“Nice,” I say approvingly, and turn my head, nearly bumping noses with him. I catch my breath a little at the proximity, but then he moves slightly back as he holds up his hand for a high five. “Called it,” he crows.
I return the high five, but my angle is off, and our ring and pinkie fingers are the only ones really involved. I wince and laugh. “Sorry, that was really bad - ”
“Mmm, ya gotta align the elbows,” he tells me, holding his hand up again.
“Redo.” I hold my own hand up, and he pulls my arm closer to his until our elbows touch.
I look, and then my eyes travel up to his face, mesmerised.
Leo is by no means the only magnetic man here.
“See?” He gently taps my hand with his own once or twice to demonstrate how much better our hands line up.
His hand stays put for a few brief seconds.
Our eyes meet, and I could swear…
I could swear there’s at the very least awareness of me as a woman in his warm gaze.
And I’m pretty sure he looked at my mouth for a split second.
I bit my lower lip self consciously and - yeah, he looked again, and this time, I think his eyes darkened a little.
My insides warm with this new information, even as my stomach plummets with nerves. Careful now.
Our hands are still touching. It’s been around five seconds, which is actually a pretty long time to touch hands with someone, especially when you’re into them the way I’m into Eli.
My nipples tighten, and I hope like hell this dress is thick enough to hide them. Because of the underwire, this dress did not require nor allow for any bra.
“So,” he clears his throat, “again.” Looking each other in the eye, we high five, and this time it’s perfect.
“Nice,” he grins. “Good job.”
I grin back, thankful that I’m too scared to dance so that I can have this one on one time with him.
He’s a really nice man, and great company.
He comes off as a little forbidding at first glance, but that’s just because he’s six foot five and built like a brick shithouse, and doesn’t smile at the clients as much as Leo and Dean both do.
But when you get to know him, he’s such a warm and gentle soul.
He’s rapidly becoming my favourite person to be around.
I remember something I found boxed up at the back of the store room earlier, and I feel myself smiling cheekily.
“What?” he asks.
“So I found something interesting today when the delivery showed up, and I was putting the new inks away,” I say, trailing off mysteriously.
He raises an eyebrow, and the familial similarity between him, Dean, and Leo is never more pronounced than when they do that.
“There were these boxes tucked right at the back…” Understanding dawns, and he closes his eyes, chuckling in embarrassment.
“I swear, they were Sadie’s idea,” he groans, shaking his head slowly. “I was against it from the start.”
“What? They’re good t-shirts,” I tease, “100% cotton, good quality, good cut...and the printing is high standard. No cracking or - ”
“I still want to burn every single one of mine,” he admits. His eyes light up. “Any chance I could persuade you to ‘accidentally’ drop a match in the - ”
“None whatsoever,” I say with a laugh. “They’re too awesome. I think I might take one of each. Team Leo. Team Dean. Team Eli.”
His eyes flick to me as I say the last one.
The Team Eli shirts are black with writing a similar shade of blue to his eyes.
The Team Leo ones are a gingery red with black writing, and the Team Dean ones are purple with a darker purple writing.
All of them have doodles in the style of each artist covering the front underneath the script.
“So, want to tell me what happened?” I ask, holding back a giggle at the cringe on Eli’s face.
He sighs. “One hundred percent Sadie’s idea,” he sighs, “and y'know Leo would do anythi - well, he, er, gives Sadie free reign for a lot of things,” he says quickly, “and apparently she thought a lot of the women who come to the parlour would go for it, because, well…” It’s his turn to squirm uncomfortably.
“Because the three of you are obviously as hot as hell and it made sense to cash in on your fan following?” I finish saucily.
He gives me a look that makes my clit jump to attention. I swear the wretched thing salutes him. “Hot as hell, huh?” His wide mouth spreads in a slow grin, and I feel myself going pink.
“In other news, grass is green,” I crack back at him trying to cover my tracks, and he laughs, never breaking eye contact with me.
I’m the one to break it, in the end, taking a sip of my drink to have a quick breather from how much I want to launch myself at him and bite his bottom lip.
“And you’re forgetting, I monitor the social media accounts.
I see how many phone numbers and tit shots are sent for the attention of one or other of you. ” Every. Single. Day.
He rolls his eyes good naturedly. “Yeah, that can be, ah...a lot.” His eyes twinkle.
Yeah, he definitely knows how many lewd offers are addressed to him in the inboxes.
“So, yeah, Sadie ordered the shirts, and it's fair to say they sold well. But it just got embarrassing. Some of the women who bought them got a little...forward. very reluctant to take 'no' for an answer, y’know? And then Leo got wind that Dean’s were selling quicker than his, and he wanted to start a sweepstakes on who would sell the most each month, and…” He grins. “I don’t know if you’ve known Leo long enough to see his competitive streak, but I could see him coming up with ideas on how to charm people into buying more of his, and then he started talking about a spreadsheet, and I just threw them all into the back of the store room and told him if he did anything except sell them casually on our website, I’d quit and take Dean with me.
Every now and again Sadie wears one of them while she’s working, and to be honest they still sell pretty well online, but there’s no way I’d let that spreadsheet shit happen. Over my dead body.”
“Well, maybe I should start wearing them, too.” He gives me a Really? look. “Hey, it’s good advertising,” I protest, laughing.
“Which one would you wear?” He asks, looking me straight in the eye with a challenging smirk.
It makes my pulse race a little, and I bite my lip.
To buy myself some time - and, if I’m honest, to keep from blurting, “yours, and only yours” like a total wingnut - I glance back over to Leo, who is now bumping and grinding with Rosie the Riveter.
I incline my head towards them. “I dunno.
Probably all of them on a rotation so they'd all get a good airing," I reply, squirming slightly. I look towards the dance floor to deflect, and joke, "Well, we all know which one she’d be wearing.”
When I look back, he looks slightly disappointed for a brief flash, and then grins. “Probably.”
I try to think of something to say to change the subject, so I don’t end up fangirling all over him. “So, no Dean tonight?”
He shakes his head. “No. Not his scene. And because of what happened, sometimes this sort of environment, or the wrong song playing, can trigger off his PTSD, and that's not good.”
I frown. “God, I’m so stupid, I didn’t think…”
“Hey,” he says firmly, reaching out and gently tilting my chin towards his, making sure I’m looking at him, “don't say that. You are not stupid. At all.” His face is deadly serious, determined, even a little pissed off.
But not with me, for me, and not in a way that I find intimidating. In a way that makes me feel...valued.
He lets my chin go, and I probably imagined the short, light stroke of his thumb.
“I mean, look how much ASL you've learned in such a short time,” he remarks.
I give a tentative smile. “Thanks. I found a decent course online that you can complete at your own pace. I do a little every night. I still flub it a bit sometimes, but I’m getting there.”
His smile is soft. “So if I signed this…” He signs, Same again?
I grin. Yes please, I sign back. No I-C-E. I have to spell sign ‘ice’, as I don’t know the sign for that word yet, but Eli’s smiling face tells me it’s not a problem.
He wanders away, and I take the opportunity to check my reflection in the compact Sadie loaned me.
I touch my lipstick up lightly, to make sure the darker colour stays even, and lift my hair a little with my fingers.
Good enough. Thanks to Sadie’s mad skills and good quality make-up, I’m actually not looking half bad.
My mobile buzzes on the table in front of me. Crap, I forgot to let Sadie know I arrived OK. I fire her off a quick text, and then check my messages.
Huh. That’s a surprise. It’s a text from Kayleigh, an old mate from back in Suffolk. Well, she’s Gav’s mate, really, but she and I always got on well.
Kayleigh: Hey, lovey. How are you? Thought I’d check in and see how things are now - where have you moved to? Xx
Hmm. I have nothing against Kayleigh - she was always sympathetic to me - but Gav is one of her oldest friends. Her loyalties will always lie with him by default. I don’t want to tell her where I’ve moved to just in case she lets slip, accidentally or on purpose.
I tap out a quick response.
Emily: Hi! Lovely to hear from you :) I’m fine thanks, moved to the coast. Settling in really well. How are you? Xx
The response comes very quickly.
Kayleigh: I’m fine thank you xx how are you after everything?
I purse my lips.
Emily: You mean after the split?
Kayleigh: Yeah
I’m a little surprised she’s asking. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she was a really nice person - raucous and good humoured - and we were friendly enough when we saw each other, but we were never particularly close. She might just be curious.
I decide to tell her the truth. I’m not going to stress about that whole situation anymore. I’m out of it. She’s asked. I’m telling her. And if she feeds it back to Gav… I realise I don’t care one way or the other. His grip on me has significantly loosened.
Emily: Honestly? I’m 100% happier. Life is good :) x
Her reply to this takes a bit longer to come through.
Kayleigh: Good good. Pleased for you. x
I put my phone away and look up to see where Eli is at the bar, but he’s actually already on his way back with the drinks.
He sets mine down in front of me, and I have to hide a happy smile when he sits back down, still next to me.
He smiles back, and he looks a little nervous. I’m intrigued, and more than a little charmed by this unexpected version of Eli who seems to be casting around for the right words. “So I was wondering - ”
“Hey, handsome.”
We both look up to see a woman with blue hair, fishnet tights, and possibly the very coolest LBD I have ever seen smirking down at him. It takes a couple of seconds, but then I recognise her.
She’s the person Eli was tattooing when he and I were first introduced. I can see the brightly coloured Disney tattoo on her thigh through the fishnet. Eli’s work. The place he spent hours touching her.
My heart starts to sink as I picture him ditching me for her, because she’s probably way more fun than me, and will almost definitely at least be willing to dance with him.
“Hi, Melissa,” he says.