Page 114 of Dirty Like Me
Shit. What was it with club bathrooms and confrontations?
I met her gaze in the mirror again as I dried my hands, thinking I’d say hello. But the look she gave me as she touched up her lipstick couldn’t have been more unwelcoming.
“Jesse’s girl,” she said. But it wasn’t with any trace of the affection or good-natured ribbing with which Zane had sung it.
“Hi,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I started to offer my hand to introduce myself properly.
“You won’t last,” she said. “They never do.”
Then she continued applying her lipstick like I wasn’t even there.
For a moment I just stood there, stunned, my hand frozen in the air. Humiliation, anger and hurt broiling up inside.
Then I dropped my hand. I found my voice. “You mean, because you didn’t.”
I looked at myself in the mirror and touched up my lip gloss the way I would have if she wasn’t there, because no way was I about to go scurrying out of here with my tail between my legs just because Jesse’s ex-girlfriend was a rude, jealous bitch.
I felt the cold prick of her stare, but I ignored it as I tucked my lip gloss away.
From the corner of my eye I saw her turn to leave. Then she paused and said, “At least when we were together, it was real.”
Then she walked out, leaving me standing there alone.
CHAPTER 32
KATIE
I didn’t see Elle again until hours later, when the club was shutting down. The get-the-fuck-out lights were turned on and we’d gone out back to smoke up with the band and say our goodbyes. I’d managed to avoid her completely in the club, but it wasn’t as crowded outside and she was nearby, talking with Dylan.
Maybe some girls would’ve taken the opportunity to make out with Jesse and rub it in her face.
I wasn’t one of those girls.
Instead I took the high road and just went on with my night, at Jesse’s side, the way I would any other night. But her words had cut me deep.
At least when we were together, it was real.
And she was right. I felt like a fraud hanging out on his arm. Because I was living a total lie.
Not the lie I’d started living at the beginning of the tour, the one that said we were a couple when we weren’t. This was a worse lie. It was a lie to Jesse. It was a lie to myself.
Because I was totally in love with the guy, just like the world thought I was, but pretending to both him and myself that I wasn’t.
I went with him to put his sister in a cab, and after we said our goodbyes and she was gone, I told him, “She’s so beautiful, Jesse.”
I meant it as a legit compliment, but he didn’t smile. He just looked all tense and distracted like he had most of the night and said, “Yeah.”
While he was doing his final rounds I went over to thank Zane for the song. His ice-blue eyes lit up when he saw me coming. I didn’t know what it was, exactly; his drop-dead gorgeous looks, his crazy cool style, that charismatic smile? But the man had danger written all over him.
I let him scoop me up in his arms for a lingering hug, the kind I’m sure he gave most women, his entire body flush against mine. He didn’t even pretend to try to leave a respectable distance between his groin and mine the way most guys, and friends of Jesse’s, would. “Katie,” he said, and I swore he smelled my hair.
Suddenly Maggie’s advice to me at the beginning of the tour came back.Really, the only useful thing I can tell you about Zane Traynor is keep your distance.
I decided to ignore that warning, trusting Jesse’s friendship with the man in my arms. Plus, the man had sung me a birthday song, I was pleasantly content with my champagne buzz, and since I wasn’treallyJesse’s girl I could hug whomever the fuck I wanted to.
“Zane,” I said. “That was the best birthday present a girl could get.”
Other than the one Jesse gave me when he flew my family out to surprise me, but I didn’t feel like going there with Zane.
