Not until that night six months ago, when everything came to a head and I found out the truth. When I had to watch him get all beaten up and bloody.
Before I can think about it, I reach up with my hand and cup his jaw. It’s hard and rough with his perpetual stubble, and I don’t think my fingers have ever encountered anything more wonderful. I rub my thumb over his scrape-y jawline, hoping to cut myself on his razor-sharp stubble. “You didn’t deserve that. Not after everything you’d been through, everything you’d done for her.”
“Yeah, you know a lot about what I deserve, don’t you,” he says, his voice low, almost threatening.
I wince slightly and take my hand off his cheek, wrapping it around my tray once again. “I just know that you’re in pain, and getting a lap dance from a stripper isn’t going to help with that.”
“And what do you think is going to help?”
“I don’t know, talking about it?” I say.
He watches me a beat. Then, “What helped you?”
“What?”
“With your pain,” he explains. “Over me.”
“I—”
“Ah, my bad,” he cuts me off, his eyes flashing hard and his lips twisting in a sneer. “You’re still not over me, are you. You weren’t when you got so broken up over my fake engagement that you had to leave the room to go catch your breath outside. And you’re still not over me now, when you saw a stripperdancing on my lap and spilled your drink on me in a pathetic attempt to catch my attention. So I don’t think I should be taking advice from a desperate schoolgirl with a bad crush, like you.”
I want to smack him again. And then I want to punch him in his smirking face. But I won’t. I don’t want him to know how much he affects me. He already knows more than he needs to about how attuned I am to him.
So I steel my spine and say, “If you think turning into a raging asshole is going to make me regret being kind to you, then you’re wrong. I’m not going to apologize for being a decent human being. In fact, I’ll go ahead and tell you that maybe you should try it sometime. And just to remind you, I’m not a schoolgirl anymore. I already graduated. With yoursister,who happens to be my best friend, remember?”
He studies me for a few seconds before moving his gaze up and down my body. “And now you’re a stripper.”
My skin heats up despite everything as I protest. “A muse, remember? Not a stripper. I just serve the drinks.”
“When you manage not to drop them, that is.”
“Hilarious.”
“Let’s change that up tonight, shall we?”
“What?”
Something flickers through his features, something mysterious but no less heart-pumping. “I came here to be serviced.”
“You—”
“But you ruined that for me.”
Embarrassment heats up my cheeks once again. “And I apologized for it.”
He hums as if in assent. “But apologies don’t make for a happy ending now, do they?”
“What happy ending?”
He takes his time replying as he stares at my flushed cheeks, my hair, my halo, the tray I’m still holding against my chest. My short skirt, my bare thighs, all the way down to my heels. Once he’s satisfied with his perusal, he lifts his eyes, dark and glittering, and drawls, “The kind that a half-naked girl writhing on my lap leads to.”
I’m still frowning. “What does that…”
My words trail off when I finally grasp what he means, and his mouth pulls up in a tiny smirk. “Ah, so the Little Strawberry finally catches on.”
My heart skips a beat even as anger warms my chest. “Is it because of my red hair? The nickname.”
“No, it’s because you wear your little red heart on your sleeve.”
