My fingers mindlessly roll over the strings of the guitar as I play through the lingering pain from my fight the other night. That’s the best thing about fighting. The high of drugs and the buzz of alcohol wear off. The endorphin rush of sex fades. But the pain after a fight lingers. It might not create the same feeling as when adrenaline rushes through your body when you hit and get hit, but it still creates a chemical release that keeps my mind from drifting for too long. At least for a little while.
Although, where my mind has drifted since that night has been different from the usual bullshit. They say once is happenstance, twice a coincidence, and three times a pattern, but there was no rhyme or reason to encountering her three days in a row. Each time under very different circumstances. Circumstances that created a bevy of questions.
Thoughts of a feisty redheaded ballerina continue to plague me. I won’t deny it’s not a welcome reprieve from the usual shit tormenting me. Not to mention the oddest thing. When I’m with her, my past, my mistakes, they don’t seem to matter. Probably because she doesn’t know about them, but it only makes me want to be around her more.
I’m so curious about her. Ballerina by day and waitress by night. I know it’s not unusual. Unless they’re part of a very select few, professional dancers aren’t rolling in money.
Which makes me think about seeing her in The 7th Circle. That she was there is proof she needs more than a few shifts at a four-star restaurant can provide. And that makes my mind circle back to wondering if she works the upper level of Inferno, too.
Her shocked reaction when I crossed the invisible line between fighters and staff makes me think no. But her mouth was made for sin. And how her body writhed over mine. It’s unusual for me to allow a woman on my lap—on top of me at all—but after having her so close while she tended to my bloodied face, the need to feel her against me felt compulsory. She was close, too, trembling on my lap, breathing shallow, eyes blown. She wanted it as badly as I did.
And then the next night when I followed her to the restaurant…Maybe I should’ve let her off the hook and told her I knew it was her, but watching her pretend she didn’t know was amusing.
Then I fucked up and offered to take her home. The car ride seemed innocent enough at first. But the tension was thick. When we finally got to her building, lust and desire swirled like a tangible thing.
I tried hard to think about Casey and how much it would upset her if I hooked up with her friend, which I now knew was an absolute fact. But even when Poppy brought it up herself, my dick had other ideas.
When she invited me inside as a thank you, I knew I was about to get laid.
Then the picture on the wall changed the mood in an instant.
I knew Renee had a sister, but what are the odds that the girl who kept falling into my path would be her? Their last names weren’t the same, then Poppy explained she uses her mother’s maiden name. They didn’t look alike. Surprise! They’re goddamn fraternal twins. Poppy was pint-sized, had hair the color of copper, and was built like the dancer she was. Renee—Phoebe—was tall and curvy, and she kept her dark locks in a pixie cut. They couldn’t be more different if they tried.
Which fucked with my head. The image I had of the sister Renee told me about didn’t match what I saw. Renee told me she was an ice queen. A narcissistic manipulator and a traitor, whatever that meant. She said her sister was selfish and self-centered. That she didn’t care about anyone or anything but herself.
She also said she was perfect. Or that’s how everyone saw her. The overachieving twin that she couldn’t live up to. Herversion of Graham.
If any of it were true, I wouldn’t still have a raging boner days later because an ice queen wouldn’t have been all over me two nights in a row. And a selfish bitch wouldn’t have worried about hurting her friend or her sister.
Maybe I need to consider the source. Renee was prone to drama and overreaction. Though I may have underplayed our relationship to Poppy. We weren’t exclusive, but it was more than sex. We were friends. Kind of.
Renee knew things about me I wish she didn’t. Things that made me keep her around for longer than I should have out of fear she’d say something. But I finally had to put an end to it, because Graham was right. We were toxic.
If anything, I’m the asshole in this scenario between Poppy and me because if she would’ve given me the green light, I would’ve had her bent over in a second.
I still would. And it goes deeper than attraction. The way she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes when she called out my shit? It was as if she saw right through the act to my soul.
And I’m clinging on to the distraction like a life raft, choosing to let my curiosity consume my thoughts instead of everything else, appreciating the reprieve from all the other bullshit I’m usually trying to kill with drugs or whatever else is on the menu that day.
It seems I can’t have her, but I can hang on to what the thought of her offers me, right?
The foot I have resting on the coffee table gets kicked. I shake off my wandering thoughts and glare at the asshole, but he’s glaring right back. “You’ve played the same five notes on repeat for the last half hour,” Maverick, one of my closest friends and an artist at Sin Records, tells me. “I didn’t come here just to hear D, F, and E on repeat.”
“You said five notes. That’s only three.”
He rolls his eyes and leans back against my pale gray sofa, stretching his arms across the thick, cushioned back. “You know what I mean, asshole.”
I scoff and lean over to grab my drink off the table. Arguing would be pointless because he’s right. We’ve been sitting in the living room of my apartment since I returned home from a visit to my dad’s house earlier. When he arrived, the sun was high in the sky. Now it shines through my floor-to-ceiling windows, casting shadows from the building across from mine over the papers scattered on my glass coffee table.
“Are you going to tell me what’s up with you?”
I lift a brow over the rim of the glass, questioning his intelligence because he already knows the answer to that question. I don’t discuss shit with anyone, and I don’t plan to start now.
The remainder of my drink slides down my throat in a single swallow, and I set the clear tumbler back on the table. Gripping my chin, I twist my head, applying pressure until I feel the satisfying pop of my joints. I nod at the papers in front of us. “Let’s work.”
He leans forward again, staring at the sheets on the table with a less-than-subtle scowl at my avoidance. The drumsticks in his hands tap out three against the table, and I run my aching hands down the strings until I reach the frets I want. A few notes in, I pause to write out another lyric to the half-finished song.
“Sing it,” he orders.
