Chapter Eight
Marisa
“Dangerous Woman”- Macy Kate
I’m sitting in Starbucks, staring at the text Justin sent me at 1AM.I miss you.Not I want to fuck you…no, he misses me because he’s falling. I didn’t respond though, because I need to keep him on his toes. I’ve been sitting at this table for three hours. Waiting. I’ve had four coffees. I’ve watched people come and go, and I’m about to give up that Justin will show up today. I’m just about to close down my computer when he strolls in without Cobain, his laptop tucked neatly under his arm. He smiles when he sees me and makes his way right over to my table. He sets his computer down and opens it. “Imagine seeing you here.” He laughs.
“Well, isn’t this the most cliché place an aspiring author can write? I mean, after all,Harry Potterwas written in a coffee shop.” I smile.
His brows scrunch. “Was it?”
My jaw ticks and I fight a twitch in my left eye. How can he possibly be serious about writing and not know that? I laugh it off. “So,” I drum my fingers over the table, “when does your next book release?”
“September.” He types something over his keyboard, then leans back in his chair. “Want to be the first to read it?”
I swallow. Of course I want to read it. Of course I want to bethefirst. I stare at my computer screen as I sip my coffee. “Sure.”
Laughing, he shakes his head. “Man, you are the most unenthusiastic person I have ever met.” He reaches across the table and brushes his fingers over my cheek, and this volatile heat sears through me. Fighting to not lean in to his touch, I close my eyes and I imagine him fucking me right here on this table, people watching from the window, that damn blonde barista bawling because she can’t have him. “Damn I want you,” he says with such conviction it tugs at my heart. “I want to finish what we started the other night.”
Dear god, I want to know what it feels like to have him inside of me. Deep inside of me, burying himself hard and fast, his fingers digging into my hips. “We’re just friends, Justin,” I manage through my tightening throat. I’m lying. We are so much more than that. So, so much more than Meredith and Lucas were.
“Oh, I beg to differ.” He leans out of his seat, wraps his hand around the back of my neck, and drags me across the table to him. His soulful eyes search mine as he holds my face inches from his own. “Tell me you don’t feel that?”
“What?” I swallow. “You’re hand on the back of my neck.”
He rolls his eyes. “That connection. That... ” Closing his eyes, he barely brushes his lips over mine and my traitorous body flushes with heat. “That tension that’s like static electricity buzzing in the air between us. This,” he breathes against my mouth, “tell me you don’t feel this.” He releases his hold on me and I fall back in my chair, breathless and drunk on his words. “But, if you want to play cat and mouse,” he tosses his hands in the air and smirks, “fine by me.”
“So sure of yourself.”
“Not with you, Marisa. I have no idea what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours.”
“Hmm. Shame... ”
His phone dings and he glances down at it, groaning as he types out a response to whoever it is. “Fuck... ” he throws his head back and drags his hands down his face. “I’ve got to go, I forgot about a meeting.” He slams his laptop close and grabs it as he stands. Heat creeps over my neck. “I’ll call you later,” he calls as he walks away. The bell jingles when the door to the coffee shop opens and he slips out. I grip the edge of the table so hard my knuckles wash white. I stare at the empty seat—the seat he neglected to push back under the table. That chair is a glowing beacon that I was just abandoned. My gaze darts over to the barista. She’s not looking at me, but I know she saw him leave. I bet she’s laughing to herself, calling me a stupid whore. Well, I’m not!
I take a sip of my coffee. I pretend that it doesn’t bother me one bit that he left like that. It shouldn’t bother me because we have that connection, that pull, that magnetic draw that few people ever experience. I can feel it. He can feel it.We’re static electricity… My heart is pounding, rage attempting to bubble to the surface, but I can’t let it, so I keep writing:Anger beats away at me, like a rogue wave against a battered pier. Over and over again, the relentless surf pounds until the wood splinters and everything crumbles to bits. Sometimes the only atonement comes through bloodshed…My fingers pause over the keyboard. I pull up one of the many pictures of Justin I’ve saved to my hard drive over the past year and I stare at it. I tell myself it doesn’t matter who he went to meet. That it doesn’t matter if he went to meet Tori or some other dumb girl because soon enough, it will only be me.
