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“Nothing.” But a sob broke free, preventing me from sounding like I was really okay.
“Um…I don’t know a lot about women, but I know when you say nothing, it means there’s something wrong. Was it the hooker thing?”
I squeaked, trying to hold back, but the floodgates opened and tears poured down my cheeks. I hated when this happened. I always cried when I got my feelings hurt.
“It’s just…I…ought I looked…nice,” I cried, hoping he understood me through the tears and hiccups.
“You do,” he said quickly. “Beautiful! Don’t listen to me. I’m an idiot,” he rushed on. “Guys say stupid things all the time. You can’t listen to a word I say!”
“But—” Another sob was wrenched from my body, and the look on Eli’s face told me all I needed to know. I was freaking him out with my hysterics. This was not good. He wouldn’t sleep with me now, not when he saw what a lunatic I was. “Oh God,” I cried, looking up at the sky as I sucked in one giant breath after another, hoping I could calm the racing of my heart, which would in turn slow the tsunami pouring from my eyes.
“Uh…” Eli raced over to the bathroom, returning with a giant wad of toilet paper, shoving it in my face. “Here. For…the snot.”
“The what?” I cried.
He pointed at my face, wincing when I wiped my hand under my nose and came away with a giant snot ball.
“Oh, my God!” I started crying even harder as I shoved the toilet paper under my nose, hoping nothing worse came out. This was so mortifying.
“Hey, are we—”
I looked up at the familiar voice and saw the look of sheer terror on Kavanaugh’s face. That was it, I was officially the worst person to be in the Caribbean with.
He turned to Eli, shaking his head. “You know, this is not the reaction I expected when I went shopping for you.”
12
ELI
I stood at the bar waiting for my drinks when IKE walked over and took a seat on the bar stool.
“Heard you made Sarah cry,” he grunted.
“Fuck, I don’t even know exactly what I did.”
“You opened your mouth,” he said, signaling to the bartender that he wanted a beer.
“Yeah, but…I don’t get it.”
“Christ,” he muttered. “Another man that doesn’t know how to handle a woman. What did you do?”
“I…I may have said she looked like a hooker.”
He snorted in amusement, but it wasn’t funny. “Well, that’ll do it.”
“It just took me by surprise.”
“No, it didn’t. You didn’t like that she looked good, and you wanted to ensure she wouldn’t go anywhere dressed like that. Mission failed,” he said, glancing over at Sarah, who sat with the rest of the guys, drinking and laughing. At least she wasn’t crying anymore. I couldn’t take that again.
“That was not the point. Look at her.”
He grinned at me. “Oh, I’m looking, and so is every other man in this place, which is precisely what you didn’t want.”
“You’re getting this all wrong. This has nothing to do with me. You saw those men in the market. They were after her. I was hoping she’d come out with us looking slightly less…”
“Appealing? Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Have you bothered to look at her?”
If he even thought he was going to take her… “Of course I have. You’d better not.”
