Page 44 of A Sin So Pure

“Hey—”

“I’m kidding. I love your lectures, Joze.”

“Well, if you love them so much, why don’t you listen to them?”

My grin somehow grows wider, my body buzzing with pride, happiness, and love for my friends. It all swirls together, a mix of emotions that bubbles up into tears. I swipe them away before anyone can see, Nora and Josie still bickering like an old married couple with me in the middle.

“You okay?” Josie suddenly asks.

I nod. “I’m just happy.”

“Good,” she smiles.

“Your brother around?” Nora asks.

I narrow my eyes at her. “Why? You want to ask him to dance?”

Her nose scrunches. “No. More like I want to make sure he knows he’s not stopping me from dancing with you.”

An excited shiver runs down my spine. Nora and I have this tension between us, one that’s only grown stronger since the fateful night we first kissed. We’ve been tiptoeing around it ever since, having been pulled apart by our House duties.

Even so, a collision feels inevitable.

“He and my mother won’t be back until later,” I say. “So, you don’t have to worry about him for the time being.”

Nora and Josie share a glance, dual devilish grins spreading across their cheeks.

“Excellent,” Nora says.

“Then it’s time for you to stop working and enjoy your success a little,” Josie says, reaching a hand out for me. Then she adds with a wink, “We already cleared it with Leo.”

“He gave me a hard time. The man got two bits out of me before I realized he was playing us,” Nora grumbles.

I let loose a cackle. “He made you play cards to give me the second half of the night off?”

“Yeah, I should have known better, given how good he was in college. But he knows how to push my buttons,” she says. “He always planned to force you into some fun at the end anyway. Thoughtful little fucker.”

“Either way, let’s go dance,” Josie says. She taps her fingers on the bar top, a nervous tendency I’ve noticed when we’re in public places. “And maybe grab a drink first.”

We each down a shot of liquor, and then I follow them through the throngs of people, falling into the elation around me.

And when the clock strikes one, then two, and my family doesn’t show, I don’t even notice, because I’m wrapped in Nora’s arms.

They don’t come home.

They didn’t even make it to the party.

When I’m finished cleaning all the glasses, my staff promptly kick me out from behind the bar. They did it politely, handing me a glass of water and pointing to the empty barstool at the far corner of the u-shaped counter.

I grumble about being able to help with stock in the back, but they shake their heads and remind me that I’d already done that yesterday.

They’re trying to help, in their own way. They know I’m tired of sitting in my apartment, sulking. But they also know I’m not ready to be working the room.

So, I sit at the bar, my finger circling condensation around the rim of my water.

I’m so consumed by my thoughts that I don’t notice her presence at my back until her arms are reaching around me on both sides.

“Lust.”

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