Page 84 of Obey

We’re going for dinner with Kenzie and Austin, to some fancy steak place in town. Jagger’s on his way to pick me up, and I’ve managed to stab myself in the eye with the eye liner stick. You’d think having done something since I was a teenager would make me proficient at it, however, you’d be wrong.

When the doorbell rings, I look like I’ve had a fight with someone, but only on half my face. My eye is red and watering, and when Jagger sees me holding a Kleenex against my face, concern flickers in his eyes.

“You okay?”

“I had an incident with my eye liner. Gimme a sec?”

He nods, a small smile playing on his lips as he watches me disappear to fix my makeup. I don’t have time to procrastinate, he’s here, and he hates being late. If I don’t get my shit together he’d probably come pick me up and haul me away half-dressed.

Okay, he wouldn’t do that, would he?

“Five minutes.” His announcement rings around the house, and the passing thought turns into a legit fear.

My hair looks like I stuck my finger in a socket, but I’m ready to go with thirty seconds to spare. When he sees me appear in the doorway, he holds up his hand to stop me, then spins his index finger in a circle like he wants me to turn around.

The low whistle he makes as I rotate, makes me beam. My bedroom floor might be covered with every dress I’ve ever owned, but I made the right selection in the forty five seconds I had left to choose.

“Ready?” He holds his hand out to me.

“Austin is scary.” The words are out of my mouth before my hand glides into Jagger’s palm.

“I don’t think he’s scary, but I can see why you do. He’s seemingly cold and unapproachable, and my warm ball of emotions doesn’t know how to handle that kind of person.”

He’s not wrong. And while usually I’d take it as a personal challenge to break his walls down, what if he just doesn’t like me?

“Don’t let your mind convince you he doesn’t like you, Half-Pint.” Jagger’s stern voice draws my attention to his face from the floor. “I can see your brain working. He likes you just fine, but he hasn’t known you long. I know you like and imprint onto people when you first meet them, but for some people it takes longer, like weeks, months, heck even years.”

He cups my face before sweeping his lips against mine. “Austin likes you. Give him more than a week to get to know you, and you’ll find he’s not scary at all. Some people take longer than a finger-snap to make friends. We don’t all have your super powers you know.” He smiles like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. I’ve never thought about the fact I can talk to people easily as being a strength, but I guess when he puts it like that, it makes sense.

I have flurries of nerves in my stomach as I approach the table in the restaurant. Austin stands up, stiff and formal, butsmiling. And Kenzie, seemingly not at all concerned with the gentle ambiance of the restaurant, bounds up off her seat and launches herself at me with a squeal as we approach.

It’s a quiet place, mood lighting, white linens, and exceptionally well-dressed, discreet servers who seem to know exactly when to step into our space. The food is to die for. Kenzie and I draw stares from around the room as we make yummy noises during our meal, and the guys take a back seat to our inane prattling.

By the time dessert rolls around, even Austin’s asking me questions about myself. It’s not bestie territory yet by any means, but my gut says I’ll win him over eventually, I need to see where I can go buy some patience.

“Do you have to leave? Can we go somewhere to hang out?” Kenzie loops her arm through mine.

I glance at Jagger to see if I can get a read for his all-peopled-out meter, but he seems okay. I’m not sure I’d know to look at him yet if he wasn’t though, so I nibble my lip and stare at him. “Jagger?”

“I’m good with whatever you’d like to do, Half-Pint.” His answer seems genuine. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to do something to please a crowd, especially when it comes to having his precious peace disrupted for any length of time.

Kenzie leans close to my ear. “Do you want to go to the club? Thor and Adi are there. We could go to the bar for a drink, or...” She squeezes my arm. “We could go downstairs and see what’s going on in the dungeon.”

Jagger must see something on my face in reaction to that suggestion because he nods. “We can head to the club.”

It takes less than twenty minutes for us to get to Protocol. We stop to get our wrist-bands from the attendant at the door.

“Should I get a green one, Jagger?” Green means I’m available to do whatever I’d like with whoever I’d like. I give him wide, clueless doe eyes as I look up at him while Kenzie giggles to my left. While the place isn’t too crowded, there’s a healthy stream of people coming.

Jagger simply grunts at me like the question is too dumb to warrant a response, but I want one. I need one. There’s a steady thrum of electricity in the air, the pulse matches the throbbing between my thighs. I haven’t had time to get myself worked up and anxious about watching people downstairs, or what people might think of me.

Addison strides toward us, she’s wearing a sparkly silver shirt. I mean, I think it’s a shirt, it’s a collection of strings of chain dangling one under another to form a shirt. It’s gorgeous, but I don’t know how she got into it, how she’s getting out of it, or how it hides everything it needs to.

It’s a halter-style top, there’s a chain that leads up around the back of her neck and down the other side to connect the shirt. If that was my top I’d end up tangled in it. They’d need to cut even my short hair off to be able to get my shirt off, or I’d have to figure out a way to live in it forever.

Addison pulls it off, though. It’s stunning. The bright silver shine contrasting against her long, auburn hair is breath-taking. She’s pulling me into a hug before I can say anything. “You might want to close your mouth.” She giggles. “But thank you.”

“It’s... I can’t figure out how the dang thing works, but you look amazing Addison.”

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