Cal knows exactly how I feel about surprises.
He walks me over to his car and urges me to get in, and twenty minutes later we’re at my place, Cal insisting I change into something a “little nicer.”
“Wren didn’t say anything about this to me.” I poke my head out the bathroom door and glare at Cal. Why would she set up a surprise without talking to me? She knows perfectly well how much I hate surprises, and that’s probably the primary motivation behind her cooking this up.
Whateverthisis.
“Dude,” he laughs, “did you forget what the wordsurprisemeans?”
When I’m out of my sweats and into a nicer outfit, wearing cologne and with product in my hair, Cal ushers me back out of the house and into his car again to head downtown.
And the moment we pull up, I see the others standing outside on the street, bouncing on their heels, clearly eager to go inside. Grayson stands with his arm around Astrid, and Ruby and Maverick are shoulder-to-shoulder, staring down at a phone together. There are a couple of other guys from the team and a few girls I don’t recognize, all jostling around to keep warm.
When we park and walk up to the door, the crowd shifts, and I see Wren right in the middle of them, wearing nowhere near enough clothing for the temperature out here.
“What are you doing?” I ask when I’m close enough that she can hear me. “It’s freezing out here. You need—here—”
“Aw, what a good boyfriend,” Sloane drawls, then she turns and whispers something to Astrid that sounds like, “Henevergave his jacket to Mandy.”
“Keep it,” Wren says, laughing and pushing my jacket back toward me, “we’re going inside, you goof ball.”
It’s when I’m folding and tucking my jacket over my arm that I reallyseeher. Wearing a tight little black dress, a leather jacket, and a pair of tall leather boots laced halfway up her calves. Herhair is different than normal, puffy and crimped, and her eyes are lined with thick eyeliner.
“Are you trying out a new look?” I whisper, leaning down and basically pressing my lips to her ear as we’re shuffled through the door. Cal holds up his phone, scanning something for entry.
“Why?” Wren asks, reaching up and grabbing my shirt to peck me on the cheek, her eyes shining up at me. “You like it?”
I don’t have a chance to tell her I do, because then we’re stepping through the tight entryway and a huge warehouse opens up in front of us.
“What isthis?” I breathe. I drop my hand from her shoulder and try to take it all in—rows and rows of vendors, layered food smells, laughter and talking echoing throughout the space.
“Milwaukee Fine Dining Fair,” Wren says, spinning around and fixing her eyes on me. Something runs the full course of me—from the very top of my brain all the way down to the soles of my feet, like I’ve been struck by lightning. Maybe she can see the effect she has on me, or maybe she can’t.
She just smiles and says, “Sorry, it’s a really late Christmas gift.”
“Didn’t know you were into this kind of stuff,” Cal says, slinging his arm around my neck. “But this looks like fun, man.”
Wren
Normally, a man showing interest in me doesn’t do a whole lot.
Growing up the way I did, jetting from country to country, I got my pick of the litter. As I got older and gained important assets—breasts, legs—I learned how to use them. There were very few eyes I wasn’t able to catch.
Normally, the way Luca is looking at me right now as we walk among the stalls and maneuver through the crowds would feel normal.
Except it’s not. I can still feel his hand against me in his parents basement, can still hear that sharp, quick breath coming fromhis lips—that half-closed look in his eyes. The intent way his hands gripped my hips.
As nonchalant as I forced myself to be about the whole thing, my body hasn’t stopped reminding me that I never got the thing Ireallywanted. That as much fun as it was to have his fingers inside me, and to touch his cock, there’s a deep ache inside me to be as close as possible to him.
And I still haven’t gotten that.
The Fine Dining Fair is even more fun than I thought. As we make our way through the warehouse—picking through offerings of oysters and clams, luscious burgers, Korean tacos and the best sushi I’ve ever had in my life—I feel Luca’s eyes on me.
I feel them when I take a generous bite of chocolate cake, running my lips along the fork. I feel them when Astrid insists on feeding me a bite of her curry. And I feel them when it’s finally time to leave, the group of us the last few stragglers to finally file out of the place after sitting in the beer garden and sipping together for hours.
Except I couldn’t make it through a full glass. And from the looks of it, Luca couldn’t, either.
“This way,” I say, when Luca and I step outside together. I had Cal nab him from the arena, so I’ll have to give him a ride home. He follows me dutifully, and though I know it’s not logicallypossible, it’s like I can feel the heat of him, his hands shoved in his pockets just a few feet behind me as I walk to my car.
