Page 37 of Best In Class
I look down at my beer. Warm now. Tasteless.
“I miss her.”
“Have you told her?” Gabe asks.
“More or less.” I groan. “Less than more. Okay, I get it, but if I tell her I love her, she’s going to kick my ass. I’m playing the long game here.”
“Looks like you’re playing yourselfoutof the game, bud,” Lev remarks. “Ah, look, another Savannah Lace beauty is here.”
We turn to see Zahra Delacroix, who is a new architect working for Luna, coming into the garden with her fiancée, Lawrence “The Loser” Rockwood.
“What is she doing with him?” Gabe rises. “I can’t stand that motherfucking asshole.”
“There’s no accounting for taste.” Lev looks pissed.
Lev had been in love once, some years ago, and since there is no accounting for taste, as he says, said girlfriend (whom I could not stand) cheated on Lev with Larry. That’s the problem with living in a small town like Savanah, it’s incestuous as fuck.
Gabe leaves to welcome the new arrivals.
“He’s cheating on her.” Lev throws back his beer and sets the empty bottle on the table in front of me with a thud.
“Who is?”
“Larry the Loser. He’s fucking Anthony Reggiani’s daughter…whatshername. I saw them at the tennis club. She was giving him a blowjob. Now I can’t unsee the fucking thing.”
I lean back into my chair. “Does Zahra know?”
“I don’t think so. Don’t you think she’d have dumped his ass if she did?” Lev’s eyes are on the Persian beauty.
“I don’t know her so can’t say.”
We watch as Larry the Loser plays cool with being invited to a Rhodes family get-together, and I bet the only reason he’s here is because of Zahra.
“Maybe I should tell her.” Lev rubs his jaw, looking at the couple like this is the plot twist he’s been waiting for.
“None of your business,” I tell him.
He licks his lips as if thinking pleasant thoughts. “On the one hand, it’ll be some tribal justice for what he did with Reba.”
“Your girlfriend cheated on you with him—he didn’t do anything by himself,” I remind him.
He takes a moment, as if thinking it through. “So, back to your business.” He looks away from the Persian beauty and turns to me. “She freaked out because of the kiss.”
“Yep.”
“And?”
“Nothing. I tried talking to her yesterday after the Minton project meeting, and she said something like, ‘Let’s keep it professional.’”
“How’s that working out for you?”
“She’s killing me,” I grind out.
Lev doesn’t respond.
He sits next to me, letting the silence settle while the party rolls on.
Kids screaming in the pool, music humming low, ribs being passed around, and the woman I love flirting with another man, while I pretend I don’t still look for her in every room I walk into.
