Page 70 of Bourbon Deceit
“Why you’re an ass.”
“Aw, Goldie, you wound me,” he said while holding his heart and checking the non-existent watch on his wrist. “It’s only been half an hour and you’re already making assumptions about me.”
“Well, when you’re poking your head in places it doesn’t belong and teasing me about my nipples, I’m allowed to make such assumptions.”
“Teasing you about your nipples? I don’t remember teasing you, I remember saying they were little and pink. That’s a compliment if you ask me.”
“God, you’re infuriating. Do you have a comeback for everything?”
“Pretty much,” he said with a smile as he got up and rinsed his cup out. I couldn’t help but stare at his back and the scars that laced him, along with the now-deformed tattoo that looked as if it must have been pretty once.
He must have caught me staring, because he started to walk out of the kitchen and said, “We’re not that close yet, Goldie. Maybe someday you’ll hear my story, but not now.” He faced me and continued, “I’m going to hit the gym and then take a shower. The first room on the left down the long hallway has directions for what you need to do. You can start whenever you want. The place is yours, so make yourself at home.”
After his instructions, he left me to wonder how lonely I was going to be. Yeah, Diego was here, but he apparently had his own schedule, which made sense, but at the Lafayette Club I’d grown used to having people around me all the time. Not having anyone around was actually kind of sad.
I drank the rest of my coffee, rinsed my cup like Diego did, and headed to the room that he was talking about. I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and walked into the room.
I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the same long, cloth-like ribbons hanging from the ceiling as I’d seen in the circular room last night.
“What the hell?” I muttered as I walked toward them and questioned their texture with my fingers. There were multiple drop downs, with loops at all different heights. How did one person even try to begin to get into one of those things? That’s what I thought they did at least, get into them.
Taking a quick look around to make sure no one was watching me, I tested the strength of a rather large loop and noticed that it was bolted into the ceiling securely, so I took a deep breath and launched myself into the loop. Like Peter Pan on steroids, I flew across the room, locked into the ribbon-swing thing, and shot right into the other hanging ribbons. My limbs flailed about as I tried to catch my balance, which only caused me to get tangled up in the other ones even more as I tried to gain my balance.
“Fucking Christ,” I muttered. “This was a bad idea.”
I wiggled my foot to find out where it was caught, but couldn’t twist my body because my arms were stuck in multiple loops. Trying to gain any kind of stability to prop myself up was impossible since the damn things wouldn’t hold still so instead of fighting it, I stopped moving and finally came to a standstill. Looking around, I assessed the mess I’d gotten myself into and started to laugh. Only fucking me.
“You’re not even gone for a day and this is how I find you?”
I turned my head to see Pepper staring at me with a joyful look on her face. She was wearing normal clothes, which threw my whole life off, and she was carrying a small white bag.
“Can you help me?”
“Help you get out or help you get off? I’m not quite sure Jett would be too happy about—”
“Get me out, damn,” I said, struggling again.
Laughing, Pepper said, “Hold on one second.” She set the paper bag down and busted out her phone.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I said. I was really trying to get out now, but I’d only wound up swinging around.
“Listen, you can either hold still for a picture, or I can record a video of this mess you’ve gotten yourself into. What’s your poison, Lo?”
“Just take the fucking picture.”
Laughing, she pointed her phone at me as I flipped her off.
“God, I’m sending this to everyone.”
“I hate you.”
“Is that right? I guess I’ll just leave then,” she joked as she started to walk away.
“Get your skinny ass back in here and get me out of these damn things.”
As Pepper helped me get out of the ribbons, she laughed the entire time while asking, “What possessed you to get in these?”
“I don’t know, I wanted to see if they could hold my weight. Who knew they were going to be tricky little fuckers and take me for a tango I wasn’t ready for?”
