AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Let me know when you break eighty,” I joke. “Willow, what do you do?”
Maren and Tripp smother a laugh as Willow says, “I’m a musician.”
My brain thuds. “Oh,” I chuckle, “right.”
Willow is… Willow. The same Willow who Blake went to see in concert last year. Who sells out stadiums and plays during the Super Bowl halftime show. Who I have absolutely never slept with (why the hell did I think that?), let alone met, because I’m not in the same stratosphere as her.
“This is one of those times I wish I paid attention to the internet,” I add.
Willow laughs and waves a hand toward me. “I don’t blame you.”
“Willow!”
We collectively look up to see an event photographer decked out all in black, her brown hair piled high on her head in a messy bun, looking back at us hopefully.
“Do you mind if I take a picture of the table?” she asks.
“Of course,” Willow says. “I’d be happy to.”
“Oh, god,” Maren says under her breath at the same time, laughing into my neck. “Is this how you feel about me?”
I kiss her temple and say, “Not anymore,” just as the photographer’s flash goes off. A warning would have been nice.
And as all four of us stand and smile for the camera, mine a little less wide than everyone else’s, my mind is only on Maren’s, hoping like hell she’s not thinking about what will be all over the internet tomorrow.
I’m taking a picturewith Willow, and Locke called me his girlfriend.
I’m not even sure which one I should be freaking out about more.
Locke called me hisgirlfriend. I don’t think he’s said that word since he was a teenager. And I doubt he even said it much back then.
When I wake up tomorrow morning, the internet will be right for the first time in months. But whatever opinions they formed about me before won’t change.
I’ll never get any chance to explain myself, and if I did, they wouldn’t care anyway. It’d probably have the opposite effect and dig myself into a deeper hole.
The fleeting moments where I think I should put myself first always get overridden.
One night. I’m going to give myself one night.
“Dance with me,” I tell Locke when the photographer finishes her mini photo shoot.
Willow and Tripp fall back into their seats, voices hushed, smiles playing around on their lips. Both of them enjoying each other. And they probably deserve some time because they probably have very busy schedules.
Locke narrows an eye as his hand glides down my back and stops to rest on the top curve of my ass. “And what if I don’t dance?”
“I don’t give a shit.”
When I drop my face into mock surprise, a low hum comes from his chest. A smirk crosses his face without his lips moving. His eyes spark then go black again. “That was so sexy,” he rumbles, picking me up an inch off my feet.
“Locke,” I giggle as he floats me to the dance floor.
“I have an internal crisis every time you do that, because I love it when you push back.” His voice lowers, and it travels across my skin like tires on gravel. “But then I just want to push you even harder to your knees and fuck that bratty mouth until you gag around me.”
My breath catches in my lungs. Or they just forget how to work. My pussy is in overdrive though, the thong Locke dressed me in dampening.
We stare at each other, mind-reading.
The band is in the middle of one of those songs you can choose to slow dance to or break out in full awkward body quivering.
