Chapter 25
REID
Everyone meets in the lobby for tonight’s outing, including Brooke and Graham, who stand inches apart, speaking quietly. I take Emma’s hand and lead her to the first taxi, Bob following us, everyone else taking the two remaining cars. Not many photographers out tonight—they probably didn’t know I’d come back from New Braunfels since we got in so early and I didn’t leave the hotel today.
Emma’s wearing a little black dress, straps criss-crossing over her shoulders and meeting the dress halfway down her back. Her shoes look like funky heeled Mary Janes, very schoolgirl, totally hot. Continuing that theme, her hair is swept into a high ponytail. I have a weakness for ponytails—something about the bareness of the nape, the innocent feminine look of it. “You look adorable tonight,” I tell her, and she smiles into her lap before glancing up at me. When I hold my hand out, palm up, she takes it. Her hand is small, delicate, absolutely feminine, and this awareness makes me want her even more. “Cool ring. Princess cut diamond—I like it.”
“Me, too.” Her finger brushes over it. I get the feeling there’s a story behind that ring, but for whatever reason, she’s not ready to share it.
The club has a VIP area in a loft overlooking the dance floor. We commandeer the space, pushing the low tables together in the center with four sofas surrounding them. Brooke plops next to Graham, across from Emma and me, leaning into him to whisper something. I keep a peripheral eye on Emma to see if she’s watching them. She was definitely tense this morning after I kissed her in the hallway in front of him. Did it feel like I was marking my territory? Unfortunately, yes. Did it feel necessary at the time? Also yes.
My arm rests behind her now, and we’re sitting close enough that our thighs brush with the slightest pressure. Everyone orders drinks while Tadd, Quinton and I talk about the parts of our trip we can discuss in mixed company.
“Look at this.” Tadd pulls up the leg of his jeans to show a huge purpling bruise on his shin. “Stupid invisible underwater branch.”
“Dude, I thought the Guadalupe had an alligator,” Quinton says. “You screamed like a little girl until you saw it was just a stick and started cursing like a strung-out ho.”
Tadd smoothes the fabric over his leg carefully and points at Quinton. “Like you didn’t launch yourself outta that tube like a rocket when that fish bit your ass.”
My hand moves to Emma’s bare neck, massaging lightly as she laughs with everyone else.
“No one warned me there were carnivorous fish in that damned river!” Quinton says.
“Reid and I didn’t get so much as nibbled. It was all Quinton,” Tadd says.
“You’re just jealous that none of them wanted a piece of you.”
“Yeah, that’s the reason.”
A new song comes on and I stand up, taking Emma’s hand. “Let’s dance.” She allows herself to be pulled up, and Meredith and Tadd decide to follow us.
“You sure you can hit the floor after that life-threatening injury?” Quinton quips.
Tadd flips him off and keeps walking.
*** *** ***
Emma
I don’t look at Graham as Reid and I move to the stairs and start down. Even with the dim lighting, descending the staircase is like entering a debutante’s ball. Practically everyone downstairs looks up to see who’s coming down. At least half of them seem to recognize Reid. One bodyguard shadows us, and another waits just off the dance floor.
Reid is either oblivious or faking oblivion; more likely the latter. Clad in a blue t-shirt that exactly matches his eyes, a pair of jeans that fit him like they’re custom made, and worn-in cowboy boots, he’s a living breathing incarnation of male beauty. He’s every bit the guy in an Armani suit on the cover of GQ, with a spread inside in which he sports a tight black tank, doing pull-ups on a tree branch, showing off his enviable biceps and shoulders.
He pulls me into his arms on the floor, ignoring the fast tempo of the song and swaying slowly, dragging my arms up and around his neck. Bending to my ear, he says, “Don’t be scared, I’ve got you.”
“Do I look afraid?”
“Mm-hmm.” He smiles down at me, resting his forehead on mine, his hands on my lower back, pressing me closer. “Positively terrified.”
“I’m more brave than I look.”
“That’s good to know.” He pulls me deeper into the crowd, which parts for us. The bodyguards look nervous, but Reid acts as though we’re the only people on the floor, and everyone else allows it. This boy could charm just about anything out of anyone, and he’s quite conscious of that fact. Just another reason for my apprehension.
I try not to think of Graham upstairs. I’m convinced he left my room the other night because of Brooke. They’re probably already involved, possibly they have been for a while. Maybe they argued, maybe he just slipped—our kiss was a mistake and nothing more. He’s become a good friend. I like talking to him and running with him, the way he teases me, the way he seems to look out for me. Trying to turn it into anything further will ruin it.
That’s what I tell myself, locked in Reid’s arms, dancing within a crowd of people as though no one else exists. But Reid and I will never be invisible, as much as we might pretend it, and I never feel like everyone else disappears. I feel them staring, the whole time we’re on the floor, like they can see right through me.
***
“Let’s go to the café, get some coffee. I’m not ready to go up yet,” Reid says quietly to me as we enter the hotel hours later in groups of two and three. We’re last in.