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It looked a lot like the Riverside suburb where Mom lived, but it was so much more picturesque. Not to mention cooler. It’s probably ninety-five degrees in Riverside today. With the beach breeze, the seventy-something weather isn’t just comfortable. It’s perfect.
And, here, in this small coffee shop, with all the windows open, we’re basically in paradise. If paradise is a Mediterranean climate and a bunch of suburbanites who think they’re slumming it because they bought a three-year-old car.
As a kid, I marveled at the money everywhere. I’d seen it at my grandma’s place, sure, but I was never there long enough to notice the Ray-Bans or wander the outdoor mall with the koi pond.
At thirteen, I loved and hated it in equal measure.
For a long time, I wanted to fit into the big, beautiful world. Lexi Huntington was my role model. She wore designer clothes, but she never called attention to them. She kept her hair and makeup perfect, but she never looked like she cared about them. She charmed guysandaced classes.
Deanna was too much like me. Sure, she always looked perfect, and she never showed effort, but she always stuck out like a sore thumb. She was the only girl in glasses at the beach. The only girl in black at the park. The only girl reading at the pool party.
She readStar Warsnovels, too. She loved video games, too. She sat on the sidelines, too.
Then, she got older, and she learned how to fake it—or maybe how to remove herself from the situations where she didn’t belong—and I stopped noticing.
No, I stopped looking.
The signs of her oddball nature are obvious. She’s wearing a black cover-up in a room full of white and turquoise, and she stands with confidence and poise completely out of place in the pretend laid-back atmosphere.
Maybe that’s it. She doesn’t look like she belongs here, but she doesn’t look like she gives a shit, either.
More like she’s ready to make the world belong to her.
She looks fucking gorgeous.
No. Not just gorgeous.
Sexy.
Is that sheer black thing designed to drive me insane or is it a lucky side effect?
The thin fabric flows over her chest, stomach, hips, ends mid-thigh. It’s just sheer enough I see the outline of her bikini, the shape of her chest, waist, hips.
Thankfully, the barista saves me from my dirty thoughts. From Deanna’s, too, it looks like.
She finally manages to pull her eyes from my tattooed arm to order an English Breakfast for herself and an iced tea for Grandma. Then she goes right back to staring.
She’s obsessed.
It should annoy me. It does sometimes, with other women. I’m the same person I was before the makeover. Why am I suddenly interesting, now that I wear snug jeans and rock an arm of art?
When I put the art on paper, no one cared.
Now that it’s on a bicep, it’s fascinating.
Not that I can fault her. The work is beautiful. A mix of classic tattoo scenes—an octopus wrapped around a ship, a sparrow surrounding a heart, a rose wrapped in thorns—only with a pop art style instead of a traditional one.
And, well, I love her stare. I love the intensity of her green eyes, the focus in her posture.
She wants me.
And I want her to want me.
The realization is strange, absurd, but I can’t deny the desire thrumming in my veins.
“Sir?” The barista clears her throat and taps her seafoam apron. “Did you want anything else?”
“An English Breakfast,” I say.
