Page 78 of Dirty Like Me
I didn’t absorb a word of what Mick or Raf or whoever was shouting on either side of me, or what anyone else at our table was saying, and our table was fuckingloud. All I heard was that laugh. I heard it in my head, because I couldn’t actually hear it over the noise of the club and the heavy, bassed-out version of The Weeknd’sCan’t Feel My Faceslamming against the walls and making Katie’s hips rock in that tiny skirt.
All I saw was Katie smiling up at that mohawked asshole while he smiled down at her thinking about how he was gonna get her on her back. And I could take him thinking he was gonna get her there. I could take him buying her a drink and hovering over her so close that his knuckles, wrapped around his beer, accidentally-but-fully-fucking-on-purpose brushed against her tit. I could even take it when he started introducing her to his friends like he knew her. Like he was here with her and I wasn’t.
But I couldn’t take that fucking laugh. That pure, unfettered Katie joy coming out of her perfect pink mouth.
He might as well have made her come right in front of me.
I slammed my glass down on the table, which Raf took to mean I needed a refill and sent another bourbon my way. I pounded it back and flexed my hand, taking a long look at the rings on my fist as Raf refilled me again.
Clearly, there were two moves I could make.
One, I could go over there and do something stupid like break this random asshole’s face with a fistful of metal. And see it all over the internet in about five seconds.
Two, I could sit here like a pussy and let Jude deal with it.
My best friend made the choice for me. Good thing, because I was about three seconds from making a major fucking scene I’d regret. But Jude, as always, had my back before I even knew I needed him to.
I watched him stroll over and insert his wide body into the narrow space between Katie and mohawk. Katie beamed her sweet smile right on up at Jude, but big fucking surprise, mohawk’s smile dropped right the fuck off his face like Jude had smacked it off. Then he backed the fuck out of there and turned his attention elsewhere. Not just a comedian, then; smart, too.
Jude ordered up some shots and Katie took the one he handed her. They toasted, shot back their booze, and headed back to our table, Katie apparently oblivious that some dude had just tried to get up her skirt and almost met with some broken teeth.
Jude deposited her in the chair next to me, where she’d barely spent five minutes in the hour since we’d arrived. Her smile vanished. A small frown appeared in its place when she looked at me, her eyebrows pinching together. She leaned in. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, sipping my drink. “Not a thing. Just watching my girl get a drink.”
She stared at me a moment, the little frown twitching at the corners of her mouth. Then she leaned back, settling into her chair as she looked out over the dance floor, tapping her heels to the music.
I leaned closer to be sure she heard me. “That dude know you’re here with me?”
She turned to me again, the frown deepening. “What dude?”
“Dude with the fucking mohawk.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened a bit. I didn’t know what the fuck that meant, but I didn’t like it. “He had this cool pattern up the side.” She made a swirly motion with her finger up the side of her head.
“Does he know you’re here with me?”
“I am here with you,” she said. Then she got up and wiggled her sexy ass onto the edge of my seat. She pressed up against me and peered at me over her shoulder. “See? Look at me, doing my job.”
She sipped her drink, her eyes never leaving mine, and there it was again. The distance, even though she was pressed so tight against me I could feel the heat of her bare thigh through my jeans.
I put my arm around her. She relaxed against me, her body wedged into my side, where she stayed for the rest of the night.
◊◊◊
“The fuck is this?”
I tossed Katie’s sketchbook at her feet. She’d just come out of the bathroom wrapped in a hotel bathrobe, her hair all glossy and wet. I stood there in my underwear, staring at her, half-hard at the mere smell of her all warm and moist from the shower.
She stared at the sketchbook, open to the most recent sketch—a dude with a mohawk and some twirly pattern shaved up the side of his head.
Then she looked at me, scanning me from head to toe with her big blue-green eyes, apparently unimpressed as shit with whatever she was seeing.
I was drunk. Pretty much because I was pissed off, for no real reason, and I was tired, and annoyed and fucking jealous, which was not a feeling I was well-acquainted with or fucking thrilled to be feeling at all. And yes, I fucking knew that drunk was not the way to approach a conversation that was sure to go down all wrong, unless I wanted to make it worse.
I didn’t want to make it worse. But I did want to fight. Or fuck.
No. Actually, I really, really, really wanted to fuck.
