Page 29 of Sweet Chaos
He shrugged one shoulder. “It was just another Friday night in my world.”
And now look at him. King of the world. He didn’t have to fight for money or deal drugs or clean swimming pools anymore. I’d always been curious about his life, what it was like when he was growing up, but whenever I’d asked questions, he had shut me down. I didn’t even think Sienna knew much about it. She used to complain that he never told her anything.
“Are you sure you have time to set up this website for me?”
“Wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t.”
I slid my laptop out my messenger bag, typed in my password and set it on the desk in front of us then folded my hands in my lap, all prim and proper. I thought meeting him at his office would make it feel less intimate than if we’d met at my apartment or his house. But we were in our own little bubble, the blinds drawn, the glass soundproofed to cancel out the noise outside these four walls. And with every breath I took, I inhaled his heady scent. So, it wasn’t less intimate at all. But luckily, he was focused on the website design, all businesslike and brusque when he asked me questions about my brand, questions I was able to answer readily. My designs were one of the few things I didn’t second-guess. Ever since I was a kid, it was the only thing I’d wanted to do with my life.
Dylan listened carefully to every word I said and let me talk without interrupting or injecting his own views, then implemented my ideas in the design. It was ridiculous how easy he made it look to set up a website. It was a side of Dylan I’d never seen before, and it was clear that he knew his stuff and was good at what he did, although I knew that the apps under his name were where his real money came from. Not from designing websites which he said he didn’t do anymore. So I guess this was a special favor.
“How did you learn to do all this?” I asked as I scrolled through the site he’d created for me in just a couple short hours. I loved it. It was exactly my aesthetic. A midnight blue, jungle green, and metallic gold color scheme with a dash of dusty pink. Dylan had insisted that I needed photos of myself on the website, so I’d handed over my phone and let him scroll through my photos. I had nothing to hide. He’d chosen one of me on the floor of Firefly Surfboards painting a board. Another of me painting a jungle theme on Ollie’s van. In the third one, I was at the beach and the camera had caught me mid-laugh. I was wearing oversized sunglasses, a plain white T-shirt and short white shorts that I’d painted giant palm leaves on.
“My senior year of high school I took classes at the community college. They taught me coding. Finally, a language I understood,” he joked.
I laughed. Only the really smart kids in the Gifted Program had taken classes at the community college. I hadn’t realized he’d been in that program.
I shut down my laptop and slid it into my bag. “Thanks for doing this for me.”
“No problem.” He stood and pocketed his keys and cell phone and was already halfway out the door when he said, “Let’s go. I’ll drive you home.”
Like it was an afterthought.
Sighing, I shouldered my bag and took my sweet time walking to the elevators. If he was going to bolt ahead of me, the least he could do was wait for me. He punched the down button twice like that would make the elevator arrive more quickly. My ringing phone cut through our silence and I checked the screen as the elevator pinged and the doors slid open. Ollie. We hadn’t spoken since my party.
“Planning to answer that?” Dylan asked as we stepped into the empty elevator. It sounded like an accusation, like I’d personally offend him by answering Ollie’s call.
Truthfully, I had no intention of answering. I’d call him back later. It would be too awkward trying to talk to Ollie in front of Dylan so I’m not sure why I said what I did. “We’re friends. Why wouldn’t I answer?”
My back hit the silver wall and his arms caged me in. “Just friends? Like us?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. His mouth hovered only inches from mine, those pouty lips—lips I’d kissed only six nights ago—taunting me. My heart hammered against my chest and I felt slightly dizzy. Oh God, I needed air. Or something.
His knee wedged between my legs and nudged them apart. I bit back a whimper as he skimmed a hand down the back of my thigh and lifted my leg, wrapping it around his waist. His hard length pressed against my groin and I resisted the urge to grind my body against it.Just barely. As he drugged me with kisses that left me breathless and desperate for more, my short fingernails dug into his shoulders. I’d barely had a taste of this forbidden fruit and already he’d turned me into an addict. The elevator doors opened, and he pulled away, looking down at me with a smirk on his stupidly handsome face.
“Do friends do that?”
“No,” I croaked out.
“Hmm. Guess we’ll have to change the rules then.” With that, he waltzed out of the elevator and left me gritting my teeth and balling my hands into fists.
“Coming?” he called over his shoulder. For someone who claimed he didn’t play games, this was definitely starting to feel like one.
* * *
“What are we doing here?” I asked when he parked in the lot by the marina nowhere near my apartment.
“I’m hungry.”
“I’m not.”
“That’s why your stomach is growling? Because you’re not hungry?”
My traitorous stomach growled again. When was the last time I’d eaten? It was hard to put up a good fight when you were starving. He circled the hood and opened the passenger door for me, holding out his hand for me to take in a show of chivalry. As if. “I don’t bite. Unless you want me to.”
I ignored his hand and his remark and breezed past him. Even though I had no idea which restaurant he was taking me to, this was my pathetic attempt to assert power that I clearly didn’t have. He ushered me inside Sapporo, the Japanese teppanyaki restaurant, his hand on the small of my back like we were a real couple on a date. It was my favorite restaurant at the marina. I hadn’t been here in years because, well, going out to dinner was a luxury I couldn’t afford. We were seated side by side on high-backed stools with a view of the long silver grills and the chefs in white wielding their machete-like knives.
They were putting on a show, juggling eggs in the air and cracking them with their spatulas for the fried rice. It reminded me of the time I tried it. “For my twelfth birthday, I brought all my friends here, and I begged the chef to teach me the egg trick. No idea how I managed to crack an egg on my head, but it happened, and it was pretty hilarious. Nicola and Ollie laughed their asses off as the raw egg dripped down my face.”
