Shit, that got out of hand.
I step over Dominick and stalk around the corner to find the elevator. I can’t go back inside the party, not like this. The vein in my neck pulses, and my vision is spotty. I need air. Need to calm the fuck down.
Eva slips inside the elevator behind me just before the door closes. She leans against the opposite wall, surveying me as we descend.
“What are you looking at?” I grit out.
“You.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m curious.”
“About what?”
“About why you have so much anger inside you.”
I heave a sigh and rake my fingers through my hair. “I could ask you the same question. But I don’t ask questions I already know the answers to.”
Her eyebrow arches. “And what’s the answer?”
“Because we’re both stuck living lives we don’t want to live.”
Her eyes widen for a split second, like she’s surprised—surprised that I know how she feels, or surprised that I called her out on her bullshit.
“Then why are you here?” She pushes off the wall and steps into the middle of the elevator. “If you’re not happy in your life, then why not just walk away and go somewhere else?”
“What about you?” I counter. “Why bother going to these parties with uptight pricks? Why date someone like that Great Gatsby-wannabe piece of shit upstairs?”
Her mouth opens, then she clamps it shut.
“Exactly.”
The elevator opens and I leave her inside, not bothering to check if she’s coming with me.
Once the cool air hits my skin, I feel better. I roll my neck and start making my way back to Eva’s place.
“Wait, I don’t want to go home yet,” she says, running to keep up with my pace.
“So then go back to your little party. Have fun.”
She scoffs. “That party isn’t fun.”
I grind my teeth together and my feet stop moving at the corner. I can’t let her go off on her own. Her father would fire me, and my own would kill me.
“Fine. Where do you want to go?”
Eva unzips her purse and pulls out a bottle of Tequila. “Stole this from the party. Let’s go get fucked up.”
Eva
If this morning you told me that tonight, I’d be sitting in the stairwell of my building getting drunk with my bodyguard, I’d have laughed in your face.
Yet here we are. Life’s funny that way.
Big Guy snapped tonight. His composed, stoic façade dropped and I saw something in him, something real. I want to keep scratching at his surface, peel back the layers to get deeper. I have a feeling there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye.
I unscrew the cap on the tequila bottle and take a swig before passing it to him.
He tilts his head back and I watch the way his full lips wrap around the opening, the way his chiseled jaw flexes as it opens, the way his Adam’s apple bobs against his thick neck. I’m ogling him shamelessly, and I’m about to look away as he sets the bottle on the floor between us.
But then he pulls off his sunglasses and hooks them onto the neckline of his shirt.
Damn.
I’d assumed his eyes were dark like his hair, but man was I wrong. Striking green eyes stare back at me, and I’m sucked in. Everything else about him is menacing and mysterious, like the black ocean at nighttime. But his irises are as brilliant as the sun. They seize you, pinning you in place like a spotlight, illuminating your every flaw. When they’re on you, there’s nowhere for you to hide.
“What?” He shifts under the weight of my gaze.
“You should really stop hiding those eyes behind your sunglasses.”
He looks away, sliding his fingers through his hair.
Big Guy doesn’t like compliments. Interesting.
“You know, I don’t even know your name.”
He takes another shot from the bottle. “Does it matter?”
“It does if you’re going to be my giant-sized shadow for the next however long.”
He pauses, hesitating for some reason. “It’s Graham.”
Graham Carter.
That’s yummy.
“I like it.” I nudge him with my shoulder. “Still gonna call you Big Guy.”
His lips twitch. “Figured as much.”
“Look, I’m sorry I’ve been taking my shit out on you. It’s not your fault my dad hired you.”
He’s quiet for a moment, seeming lost in thought, before he speaks. “What you said to Deanna yesterday about your dad, I get that. More than you know. My father made me take this job, and I didn’t have a choice. I don’t want to be here just as much as you don’t want me here. But I can’t tell him no.”
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated.” He glances away. “At least your father cares about you. He’s scared that someone’s going to hurt you, worse than they already did. If my presence can ease his mind a little, then what’s so wrong about that?”
I shake my head. “It eases his mind to know he can control me. Don’t mistake that for love.”
“You have a fight in you that I admire. I wish I could tell my dad no as easily as you do.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice.” A humorless laugh escapes me. “I’ve been disappointing my father since the day I was born. He wanted a boy, he got me. He wanted me to play piano, I played soccer. He hates tattoos, I got three. He wants me to help run his business, I’d rather die.”
Why am I telling him all this?
I’ve said too much, but it’s too late to take it all back. So, I square my shoulders and brace myself for the look of pity that always follows.
But it doesn’t come.
Neither does the judgement.
Graham’s emerald eyes are only filled with understanding. “We want to please our fathers, but that means we can’t be who we really are. We have to choose: be ourselves, or be who they want us to be. You should take pride in the fact that you’re fearless enough to stay true to yourself, but that comes with a shitload of guilt.”
I’m rendered speechless.
Something fucked up in him reflects the something that’s fucked up in me.
He actually gets it.
He gets me.
I avert my attention to the stairs below us, breaking the pull those green orbs of his have on me.
“You said three tattoos.” He side-eyes me, arching an eyebrow. “I don’t see the other two.”
“Guess you’ll have to use your imagination then,” I say with a wink, earning me another one of his sexy smirks. “Do you have any ink?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve never loved anything so much that I wanted it branded on my skin forever.”
“That’s fair. And also kind of sad. There has to be something you love. Someone.”
He doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he leans back against the wall and silence settles between us.
So there is someone. Or there was.
“What’d you see in Dominick?”
His question catches me off guard. Nobody’s ever asked me something in such a blunt way before.