A moment later, Lawton was at my side. "You okay?" he asked.
I nodded. "Yeah, sure."
"Who was the guy?"
There were so many things I could've said. He's Brittney's second-choice squeeze. He's a pig. He's one of the worst customers I've ever had the displeasure of waiting on. But what I did say was. "He's no one. Just some guy who's had too much to drink."
Like I was in any position to talk.
Lawton's eyebrows furrowed. "So you don't know him?"
"Not really." Sure, I'd met him before, but honestly, I didn't even know his name. And hopefully, I never would. Besides, I didn't want to talk about him. I wanted to be with Lawton.
I wrapped my arms around him and said, "I looked for you earlier." I smiled. "You weren't trying to run off on me, were you?"
"Never, baby," he said, pressing his lips to my forehead.
"Then where'd you go?" I didn't want to be nosy or anything, but the whole thing did seem kind of odd.
"I ran into someone." He frowned. "No one you'd want to see."
I had a pretty good guess who that someone might be.
Brittney or Amber. Probably both.
From what I could figure, Lawton had somehow hustled them off to avoid a potentially awkward scene. It was thoughtful, really. Or at least that's what I told myself, in between wanting to give them a piece of my mind – or worse – for all the trouble they'd brought me over the past few weeks.
Lawton pulled me close and whispered in my ear. "How's my birthday girl?"
I liked being his girl. Somewhere in the foggy recesses of my brain, I realized that things were moving scarily fast. Somehow, in the span of just a couple weeks, I'd gone from being his friend or whatever, to his girl, or his baby.
I loved it. And it scared me half to death. This wasn't me. I'd never been one to get carried away. Too late for that, I thought.
"Wonderful," I said, pressing close to him, half because he looked so delicious, and half because, well, I wasn't exactly steady on my feet. "But you know, I still haven't shown you my birthday suit."
Five minutes later, we were heading out the door.
Inside the limo, I tumbled back onto the leather seat, laughing as one of my shoes slipped off and fell somewhere on the floor. Suddenly, I stopped laughing, a horrible thought occurring to me. "Oh my God," I said, turning to give him an intense look. "I'm not one of those girls." I gripped him by his jacket. "I'm not, am I?"
I might've been slurring, just a little.
Lawton was grinning at me. "What kind of girl?" he asked.
"You know," I said. "The sloppy drunk kind who laughs too loud and isn't half as cute as she thinks she is. I hate those girls." Brittney was one of those girls. As for me, I wasn't. Or, at least I wasn't usually.
Lawton studied my face, one eyebrow raised. "Well, you do appear to be drunk," he said, a grin flashing across his face as his gaze dipped lower. "But baby, you're anything but sloppy."
I glanced toward my shoe, lying on its side next to my little black beaded purse. "I'mkind ofsloppy," I said, giggling just a little.
"Come here," he said, pulling me into his arms for a long, deep kiss. When we came up for air, he whispered in my ear. "If this is sloppy, I think I can suffer through it."
I gave him a mock shove to the chest. "Suffer through it? Just for that, I'm not picking up my shoe." I gave him a lurid smile. "Or," I said with the tiniest lick to my lips, "the rest of my clothes either." I gave a quick glance to the glass that separated us from the driver. "He can't see us, can he?"
Lawton shook his head.
"Hear us?" I said.
Again, he shook his head. "Not unless we press the intercom button."
