Page 15 of Ella Gets the D
“She won’t be back until late tomorrow night.” A man wearing a wide grin replaces the scowler who stomped through the room minutes ago. The heat in his gaze for his wife still needs a parental advisory label, but his upturned face chips away at his don’t-eff-with-me armor he wields. Mateo pulls out his wallet to give Grier a black card. “Tonight is on me, ladies.” He lifts her chin again to take a kiss. “Call me when you’re done. I’ll pick you up.” His eyes shift to me. “Ella, I look forward to seeing you again.”
Grier calls to him when he reaches the door. “It might be late, and I don’t want to wake you. I’ll take a car home.”
Mateo looks over his shoulder at Grier with enough passion in his eyes to make nuns repent. I might say two Hail Marys, and I’m not even Catholic. “Who said we were going home? I’ll book us a room at your favorite hotel for the night.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “Pace yourself. You’ll need your energy later.”
I don’t know how long Grier and I stare at the door after Mateo’s exit, but I can tell you it has satin finishes and the same egg-white color as the trim around the room.
They have good sex, I know they do. The sweaty kind where you keep a water bottle nearby and need Megan Thee Stallion knees for extra bounce.
Seeing Grier and Mateo reiterates how comfortably miserable I was with Charles. There was no passion, no heat. Yes, that stuff comes and goes in waves over time, but I’m not sure we liked being around each other.
These two?
They can’t keep their hands off each other, even after nineteen years of marriage and a seventeen-year-old they call The Tyrant.
If I ever date again, I need to set the bar higher.
“That was…wow,” I say through a breath.
“Yeah.”
We’re still staring at the conference room door. Neither of us has moved a step since Mateo turned this room into a sauna.
“Is he always that—”
“Intense? Yes.” Her eyes flick to me. “I really am sorry for the PDA. We’re usually able to contain ourselves until the clients leave.”
This door is quite exquisite. It’s nowhere near as entertaining as Grier and Mateo, but the thick hardwood barrier pivots. That has to be why we can’t take our eyes off of it.
“Sorry, what?”
Grier laughs and breaks our trance. “We need to go. There’s a rooftop bar a short walk from here that has every handcrafted cocktail your heart desires. Let’s get this separation agreement signed and enjoy our Friday.”
Right. Charles is still here.
“Let’s do it.”
Chapter 5
Ella
“When I tell you that you missed ashow.” I dodge the fleet of cocktail straws Grier hurls my way with a laugh and steal another sip of my mojito. It’s my second, and it’s hitting the spot.
Grier rolls her eyes and tosses the orange spiral on the side of her glass into her cosmo. “There was no show, Morgan,” she says through a sigh. “The only thing you missed was a front-row seat to watching Ella take back her power. I’m a bulldog, but this one?” She points at me. “Ruthless.”
“I took a page from the Santiago book of Try Me If You Want,” I say with a wink. A hand curls over my mouth as I whisper-yell, “But theshow”—I jerk my head toward Grier—“was her and her husband.”
Morgan’s chestnut eyes widen, the same way her son’s do when he finds a Pokémon card that does “good damage.”
The advantage of a round bistro table is that Morgan and Grier are close enough to hear without my having to yell. The disadvantage of a kid-free night with drinks is that you yell regardless.
Over the next ten minutes, Morgan fans herself at the play-by-play of Mateo’s attempt to swallow Grier’s soul through her mouth and tonight’s hotel plans.
The sun’s glow dips into the lavender horizon to the beat of soft jazz. The rooftop is full of patrons in their Friday best. Tea light candles twinkle along the scattered tables next to the bar.
“I don’t know you well, but I wish you a lifetime of happiness and mind-numbing sex,” Morgan says through a hiccup that morphs into a giggle.
“Hear, hear!” I raise my empty glass to Grier, whose face is now the same color as her blush. “Please don’t be mad at us. We don’t get out.”
