Page 8 of Never Date A Player
I squeeze my eyes shut and huff out a breath. “Mom, sex appeal is overrated.”
“Oh, honey, I’m going to pretend those words didn’t come from a child of my flesh.”
“Stop talking about flesh and sex. Was there something else you wanted, or can I go back to sleep?”
“Still a grumpypants in the morning. Go to bed. I’ll call you later.”
Hours later I obsessively swivel my head like a psycho, looking from the Zephyr Cove beach to the picnic tables near the parking lot to see if Nessa, or, more importantly, Lewis has arrived.
Cali is on her stomach, arms cradled under her head. “Told you we shouldn’t have come,” she says with her eyes closed.
After I returned from the dinner party last night, I explained what had happened with Lewis. Cali’s sage advice was to stay away from him. Her boyfriend had stood her up for their Skype date, so she wasn’t exactly on her game in the advice department.
“I already said yes to Nessa. That stuff with Lewis happened on my way out. It would have been weird to cancel on her last-minute. I didn’t want to come across as a flake. And there’s a chance Lewis might not come today. Nessa said she and Zach were barbecuing. She didn’t mention the others.”
Cali yawns. “True. He might not show.”
I glance back once more, suddenly less confident than I was a second ago. Even if he comes, I’m not avoiding Nessa to avoid her friend Lewis. That’s lame.
I force my gaze to the lake in front of me. Some of what happened last night was my fault. I stared at the guy; of course he would look at me. I’m probably overreacting.
Brushing coarse Tahoe sand from my calves, I give myself a mental pep talk. This is no big deal. Nothing happened. He didn’t say he wanted to hook up. I mean, the tall athletic-looking guy could have lost his balance and swayed—toward my lips.
Or not.
He didn’t say anything with words, but something happened between us that had nothing to do with spoken language and everything to do with body language and sexual pheromones. I usually have to convince myself that sex is the right thing after I’ve carefully selected a guy. This time, I didn’t select Lewis—just the opposite. My body was all on board while I mentally waved the wrong guy flag.
Cali raises her head and blocks the sun with her hand, her mouth twisting. Damn, I thought she was asleep. “Don’t rule out Jaeger and Mason. They are both totally hot—and available. That’s a key factor right there.”
Mason is a bartender from work who has flirted a little with me. Cali and I have hung out a couple of times with him and his friend Jaeger Lang, who turned out to be an old buddy of Cali’s brother. Cali didn’t recognize Jaeger at first, because he put on, like, sixty pounds of muscle after high school.
Seriously, though, Cali needs to simmer down with the matchmaking. I was depressed during our last month of college, and okay, I didn’t leave my apartment for a solid week, but I’m over the betrayal of the A-hole. Mostly. I don’t need a guy to make me complete.
And why is Cali throwing Jaeger my way? She’s the one who flirts with him when we’re all together. I think she has a little crush on him. Cali should replace her crappy boyfriend with?—
Cali’s gaze snags on my book. “My Troubled Vampire? Jesus, Gen. What is that crap?”
I shake a bit of sand from the pages, which is exactly why I didn’t bring the Kindle. I’d have a coronary if anything happened to my all-access source of smut. “What? This is one of the best books I’ve read all year. The vampire has OCD. He’s compelled to swab the skin of his prey with an antimicrobial three times before he bites. The guy has issues.”
She sits up, her weight on her elbows. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Cali, there’s some deep stuff in here. The vampire’s habits tip off his prey. The poor guy is malnourished because of his psychological problems.”
She stares in stunned silence, then points—“Literature intervention. Tonight. Your books are garbage.”—and flops onto her stomach.
Not good. The last time Cali gave me a literature intervention, she forced Faulkner on me. I fell asleep before I finished the first page. For two weeks straight.
“Look, if I want to read for intellectual stimulation, I’ll pull out a psych text. Don’t you ever want to escape into a fantasy world?”
She looks up in confusion. “Why would I want to do that?”
Right. Cali didn’t grow up with financial stability, but she had a dedicated, supportive mother. Not that Chantell was the worst mom in the world. She was just…different. Cali knows more than most people do about my mom, but not everything. No one knows the whole story. Not even me. “Books were my escape growing up and they still are. I like to be swept into a world of happy endings.”
Cali mumbles something about quality books, then goes silent. I think she has finally fallen asleep, which is good, because I could really use my fantasy world right now. Real life is too stressful.
So much for hoping Lewis wouldn’t show. Nessa arrived thirty minutes ago, along with everyone else from the dinner party. I’ve managed to avoid Lewis, and Mira has helped. She hasn’t left Lewis’s side for more than five minutes and grips him like he’s her personal life preserver.
Does he like that sort of thing? Seems clingy to me. I’m not jealous. In fact, Lewis appears to be avoiding me as much as I’m avoiding him, which is great. I haven’t caught him looking at me once. Which means I’ve been looking to see if he’s looking, and I need to stop.
