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Everyone seems to love the idea.
Everyone but me.
Please no, I silently plead with him.
No, no, no.
“I’m up for it if you are, Paul,” Hayden says, a smile in his voice.
And then he looks straight at me.
“I’m all for mixing business with pleasure. That is, if you don’t mind that we join you?”
My core clenches at his words.
I want to kill him. I want to kiss him. I want him inside me.
Pull it together, Ada. There’ll be a whole team of people there to babysit. How much trouble can you possibly get in surrounded by your colleagues?
I guess I’m about to find out.
20
Hayden
I’ve spent the past two hours trying to ignore Ada, who changed into a very sweet, very wholesome, andveryfuckable low-cut sundress with mini-friggin’ flowers all over it. We’re sitting on opposite ends of two pushed-together high tops, which isn’t enough to stop me from going over there to talk to her. I need to keep reminding myself of all the reasons why this shouldn’t happen. Even if Enzo gave me the green light to handle the situation (or not) as I see fit.
One day, when I was eleven or so, I was up past my bedtime, kept awake by a thunderstorm. I crept out of my bedroom, and I overheard my nanny talking on the phone to a friend.
That was the night I learned why I had no siblings. My mother had apparently had her tubes tied when I was three, having decided that a toddler was way more work than she’d bargained for.
I mean, it’s not like I ever was misguided enough to think my parents loved and adored the ground I walked on. They cared about me, sure, but they were always more than a little aloof. I chalked it up to my mother’s upbringing. It’s just what she knew. But to basically hear it confirmed that they’d regretted having me . . . it was a turning point. One I probably should have sought therapy for long ago. Instead, I covered up the hurt by doing everything, and anything, to get their attention. To test my theory that if they didn’t want another one of me, they didn’t want me either.
And then I met Enzo.
We clicked immediately, even though there was no good reason for us to get along.
One night, at the end of our freshman year, I came back to the dorm at three in the morning, my chin bleeding, drunk as a skunk. To this day I have no idea how I cut myself. Enzo was taking a piss in the dorm bathroom and found me sitting next to the toilet, door wide open.
He cleaned me up. Put me to bed. And even though we only had a casual acquaintance from that one class we had together, Enzo took it upon himself to chew me out the next day. He told me about his struggles with dyslexia even though hardly anyone else knew about them. Explained how hard he’d worked to get into Cornell and what a shame it was that I was wasting what was, to him, the opportunity of a lifetime.
Years later he told me that he hadn’t set out to save me or anything. It had genuinely pissed him off that someone he saw as a decent enough guy was well on his way to earning the title of biggest fuckup in our dorm.
I’d love to say I cleaned up my act, but this is no fairy tale. I continued to make stupid, self-destructive decisions. There was one difference: Enzo was on my side, and he called me out every damn time.
My other “friends” were all too willing to benefit from my parents’ wealth—who doesn’t want to fly to Switzerland for a long weekend on an all-expenses paid trip to their friend’s European house?—but Enzo never did, not in college anyway. He only let me lure him away once, just after we graduated.
I run through all of this in my mind, reminding myself why I can’t get Ada alone and crush her body up against mine. Why I can’t let her feel every inch of my arousal as I pull open those spaghetti straps and watch in glee as her dress falls to the ground.
Why I can’t let Ada know how much I fucking want her.
“Not to keep talking shop, but in all my years at the FDA, this is by far the most interesting product that’s come across my desk.”
I’ve mostly kept quiet, letting Randy and Paul discuss Angel, Inc., but they’re both looking at me now, and I feel some compulsion to talk. If only to avoid seeming rude.
“Thanks,” I say finally. “Does your interest and the possibility of it being approved align in any way?”
Randy laughs even though I’m not kidding. I’d love some insight into what they’re thinking.
