Page 42 of Revolve
We scramble to our feet, standing a foot apart and completely stiff. You’d think we were strangers, let alone two people who nearly dry humped.
Lidia notices, and whatever she sees makes her clap twice. “Okay, that’s enough for today. The walls are melting.”
So am I.
My shoulders drop on an exhale, but I don’t protest. I can feel Dylan’s gaze stuck to the side of my face, but I don’t dare look back. A rash of embarrassment makes my skin itch. I don’t know what hewas going to say before Lidia came in, but it sounded and looked a lot like rejection.
I swallow against the dryness in my throat, my top clinging uncomfortably to me. I’m out the door before I’m tempted to even look at Dylan. Outside, the cool rain sizzles against my heated skin.
SIXTEEN
DYLAN
I THINK Ineed my brain checked. Because I must be insane to pull away from a girl who kisses better than most people fuck—and trust me, that’s saying a lot. After Sierra sprinted out of the room, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Lidia just squinted at me until I grabbed my stuff and left.
But when Sierra pulled away and those green eyes settled on mine, I realized this wasn’t just some girl I could sleep with and never talk to again. It’s Sierra. Mypartner.
I can’t mess this up, not even if her lips were pink and plump and parted with moans I’d hear in my dreams. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never wanted someone this badly, that too, completely fucking sober.
“This one’s perfect!” Kian says, pointing at the cardboard box off the shelf.
How did I end up at the hardware store with Kian picking out a bookshelf? I have no clue. All I know is that I can still feel the phantom movements of Sierra’s hips against mine. She felt so right wrapped around me, straddling me,rockingagainst me. I swear I could feel the scattered pulse between her legs. She had that look onher face. The look I’ve gotten from women more times than I care to admit. It’s all heat and impulsive decisions, the kind of unspoken desperation that makes you do reckless things. Anyone else, and I’d have dragged her mouth right back to mine and let the sweet wet heat of her mouth consume me until we didn’t care where we ended up—my car, hers, against the wall.
But nothing about Sierra Romanova is like anyone else. She’s the most determined, hardworking, and impressive girl I know, and I’d never take this chance away from her. I wouldn’t fuck this up because I can’t keep my dick in my pants.
“Do you need any help?” the worker asks. Her eyes are on me, smiling like she knows me. “Hi, Dylan.”
Okay, she definitely knows me. “Hey,” I say, though I can’t recall her name.
Kian starts asking her a hundred questions about his bookshelf, and I back away because instantly I remember who she is. A Beta Phi sorority girl. I relive flashes of the night I “married” her at our frat wedding. No one really recalls that night, and I’m glad for it, because the flashes I do recall—my reception striptease and consummating with the wrong girl—are better left unearthed.
Girls on campus greet me with sugary smiles, whisper my name to their friends, or flirt with me at parties with bright, eager eyes. It’s flattering, I guess. It’s also meaningless. It’s made my college experience what it is, but after four years, I look back and realize none of it was real. Not one girl I’ve been with twice, none have stayed the night—not that I wanted them to—and none I’ve had a single conversation with sober.
Even when I see my friends in happy, loving relationships, I don’t feel envy. I see the effort, the balancing act, and it seems exhausting. Love is messy—I’ve seen enough of that with my parents—and it demands more than I’m willing to give. Lust, though? Lust is simple. Unattached. It doesn’t ask for anything beyond the moment. It doesn’t cling or linger. It’s exactly what I needed it to be. Until now.
“Looking to redecorate?” The woman at the paint desk starts telling me about the sale. All I can think about is how I can still taste Sierra. My mind keeps looping back to that look in her eyes just before it happened—the hesitation, the heat, the way her breath faltered. Did she see me at that moment? Or the charming, cocky guy who can get a girl into his bed without trying?
There’s a boulder pressing into my chest that tells me it’s the latter. She can only want the Dylan I’ve shown her and everyone else. The other one doesn’t even exist.
I DON’T KNOWwhat came over me, but after dropping Kian off to hockey practice, I drove to Manhattan. Now there’s no escape as the elevator climbs to the penthouse floor.
For the first time in months, something pulled me to visit my mom. It might be the slight existential crisis I’m having, but I needed to take my mind off all that.
The elevator doors have barely opened before I hear my mom’s voice. “You’re here!” My mom is tall, but when she hugs me, she only comes up to my neck. Her familiar rose scent envelopes me and takes me back to smelling it on her as a kid.
“Hey, Mama. It’s been a while.”
“Too long,” she says, pulling me inside. “I madehelva, you used to love it as a kid.”
The smell of melted butter and the sweetness of dates from the Turkish dessert is in the air. My mom does everything to make this cold, sterile penthouse replicate the warmth that came from our house in Connecticut, but this was never where she was meant to end up. Never what our family was supposed to be like.
“Where’s Dad?” I ask.
She tenses as she plates thehelva. “Work. But he’ll come as soon as he’s free.”
I want to believe her, but our reality hangs in the air like a thickfog. We both know that at seven p.m. on Friday there can’t be anything productive he’s doing at the office, but I let the words go unsaid. Every time I’ve brought it up, it’s only hurt her.
She slides me a bowl. “We have lots to talk about. Anything you want to tell me first?”
