Page 32 of Shade
Do you see that girl standing in the hallway, her back pressed up against the wall and her face flushed with the adrenaline pumping through her veins still?
You’re asking yourself, how’d she’d get so worked up?
Or maybe you’re not. Maybe you know. Maybe you’ve been obsessed with a superstar before too. Hopefully not Justin Bieber. If that’s the case, we can’t be friends anymore.
You’re wondering how my night turned out like this?
How’d I go from hoping to spend the night in Shade’s suite to standing outside Mila’s office staring at the red walls of the hotel?
I’ll tell you how. I’m a pussy. I had my chance and I blew it when I should have been blowing him. I should have closed the door on us, let him lay his restless head on my chest, and he would have confided in me and we could be having sex.
Do you see the woman approaching me? The one in the long black dress with the frizzy hair and sad blue eyes?
That’s Mila, my best friend. I know you already met her, but look at the poor girl’s face.
“What’s the matter, love?” I ask her when she approaches. She looks worse than me after a long day of cleaning people’s bathrooms. “You look kind of awful.”
“Thanks.” She opens her door, motioning me inside. “I never got to call 911 tonight. I was up in Shade’s room, and it was just weird.”
Shade? My Shade? She was in his suite?
First of all, lucky bitch. But. . . she wouldn’t. . . you know, fuck him. . . or would she?
Do you hear the way my heart stops beating? I think I stop breathing for a moment at least. “I swear to fuckin’ God, Mila, if you slept with him, I will cut your head off and set you on fire.”
I’m not lying. Best friend or not, I’ll cut a bitch if she sleeps with him.
Thankfully for her, Mila’s quick to assure me otherwise. “No, I wouldn’t do that.”
She’s right, she wouldn’t. Mila’s loyal when it comes to friends. She’d never ever fuck your man.
Smiling, I toss my arm around her bony shoulder as we make our way into her office. “I’ll give you a New Year’s kiss. Might even give you tongue if you play your cards right, babe.”
“Though I appreciate the offer, I’ll pass.” She motions to the cupcakes on her desk from Cupcake Royal. “I got us some cupcakes to wallow in our misery of being alone on New Year’s Eve.”
My eyes light up thinking of her twenty-first birthday in college. One of the best nights of my life. “Are those red-velvet infused tequila cupcakes?”
“I think they’re just regular red velvet.” She opens the box and hands me one. The bursts of lights outside her office window catch my eyes, the city below celebrating the New Year. “I had to call in a favor for Shade, and Trevor gave me these as a perk.”
Trevor, the owner of Cupcake Royal, has been trying to fuck Mila for years. It’s actually kind of sad the lengths he goes to land her when he’stwiceher age. That’s just creepy if you ask me. “You mean an ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ type of gift?”
“Yeah, but Ididn’tshow him.”
Mila Wellington is fucking beautiful. Think exotic island beauty meets New York runway model. If I were the jealous type, I’d be jealous of her simply for the fact that she fills out her jeans way better than me in the booty department. She’s not only got the body to kill for, she’s pretty too. And funny as shit. I never laugh as hard as I do when I’m around her. From her golden complexion to her dark hair and blue eyes, she’s got the cutest face ever. “I can’t believe how men around this city are drooling over your perfectly tan ass.”
Mila frowns. “Sadly, not the one I wanted tonight.”
Since Mila slept with a firefighter on Christmas Eve, she hasn’t been able to forget him. I don’t remember much about him orthatnight, but I can understand wanting someone you can’t have. Hello, Shade ring a bell?
I watch the fireworks, each spark of light more beautiful than the next. I don’t like Mila being sad, especially not after her last breakup with Tom’s asshole of a friend, Judah Prince. It was ugly. She caught him banging their neighbor.
Now she’s sleeping on my couch because she has too much pride to ask her parents for a place to stay. And it was only a week ago, so yeah, the last thing I want is for her to be depressed. “How about we go sit outside his apartment for the rest of the night and see if he comes home?”
Mila sighs, finishing the last bite of her cupcake and then leans back into the couch and rolls her head to look over at me. “As appealing as that sounds, I think I’ll save my remaining dignity.”
Dignity? I’m not sure I have that. Although, if I didn’t, I totally would have locked myself in the elevator with Shade. So I’d like to think I still have a little left.
I eattwocupcakes. Clearly I don’t need them, but excuse me, rough night here. No one wants to spend New Year’s Eve alone, and sadly, though I’m with Mila, my chance with Shade didn’t happen, and I’m upset. But then I wonder why he wanted cupcakes? To smear the frosting on the Doublemint twins?
