Page 85 of The Failed Audition

I already did with about fifteen emojis. My brother called me lame. But my parents have been proudly group texting photos of his project all night. And the buzzing won’t end. I thought about turning off the notifications but stopped after the guilt set in.

After I pocket my phone, I stir my straw in my tequila sunrise, a drink I’ve grown accustomed to, no more choking on the liquor.

“Everything okay?” He nods to my phone and then leans back in his wooden chair, red wine his choice of beverage.

I meet his gray eyes that seem to sayyou can tell me anything.He looks supremely handsome tonight: black slacks, black button-down, his hair pushed out of his face, the longer strands a bit higher than the base of his neck.

One of his arms stays on the table, his hand near me. Like if I reach up, he’ll thread his fingers with mine. It’s tempting to test the waters.

But I stay still, legs crossed and hands in my lap, more rigid than him. “My brother won a science contest. It’s a big deal for my family…” I trail off when his phone buzzes on the table, lighting up. “What about you?”

I stare at him for a long second, and he keeps my gaze. I can tell his interruptions don’t derive from good news. He lets me see that in his stormy grays.

“Timo,” he finally says, pocketing his cell. “My cousins are texting me about him. He’s…stuck on some three-card poker table. Down a couple hundred and won’t get off. I’d like to say this isn’t the usual. But it is.”

My heart sinks. I think I’ve known this all along about Timo. I just hoped it wasn’t true.

He reaches for his wine. “I’d take him out of Vegas if I thought it’d help, but he was this way in New York.” He takes a larger swig of his drink.

No holding back, I reach out and place my hand on his, beside my knife and fork.

He doesn’t seem too surprised, and I wonder if he was waiting for me to do it. He traces the lines in my palm, his eyes flitting to mine, a smile behind them. It warms my soul.

He says a few words in deep Russian, and he even kisses my fingers.

“What’d you say?” I ask with a growing smile, one I can’t suppress now. The pull between us is mellow, but hot, like magma that slowly rolls down volcanic rock.

“I said,you’re very beautiful.”

He could have his pick of any girl in Vegas. It’s hard to believe he’d fall for me. “What do you see when you look at me?” I ask in a whisper.

He’s quiet for a moment, soaking in my features.

And his expression only floods with more and more intensity, the kind that saysI am attracted to you on many, many levels.It shallows my breath.

“I can’t describe my demon,” he tells me with rising lips. “I just feel her.”

I scowl. “And I’d say you avoided the question, but I think I can read you now.”

“You can?” His brows rise in surprise. “What am I thinking then?”

His penetrating eyes descend to my lips, to my collarbones, to my breasts, creating a sweltering trail. All the way until the table blocks the rest of my frame.

My eyes widen.You want to fuck me.

It’s clearly the answer, but I struggle to say it out loud. I open my mouth, close it, open it, close it.

He smiles into his sip of wine, knowing the effect he has on me and possibly every girl he’s ever encountered.

“And now?” he asks, setting down his drink and looking at me with the most sincerity, the most genuine sentiments, traversing into me, like a gunshot that propels clean through.

I can’t put words to that expression. “I don’t know,” I say softly.

“I admire you.”

“That’s funny,” I say, “because I admire you.”

He tries to hide a smile. “Why is that?”

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