Just You

Jane Lark

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

I Found You

Contents

Copyright

Praise for Jane Lark

Chapter One

Portia

Justin

Chapter Two

Justin

Portia

Justin

Chapter Three

Portia

Justin

Portia

Portia

Justin

Chapter Four

Justin

Portia

Chapter Five

Portia

Justin

Chapter Six

Portia

Chapter Seven

Justin

Chapter Eight

Portia

Justin

Chapter Nine

Portia

Portia

Chapter Ten

Portia

Portia

Justin

Chapter Eleven

Portia

Chapter Twelve

Justin

Portia

Chapter Thirteen

Portia

Justin

Portia

Justin

Chapter Fourteen

Justin

Chapter Fifteen

Justin

Portia

Bonus Material

Chapter One

Jane Lark

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

HarperImpulse an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014

Copyright © Jane Lark 2014

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Jane Lark asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

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written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © May 2014

ISBN: 9780007562237

Version 2014-09-30

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Praise for Jane Lark's debut New Adult romance, I Found You

"Jane Lark has proved what a writing talent she really is. This is an engrossing and telling read…. Be prepared to have your heart squeezed!"

BestChicklit.com

"An amazing book. It is dark and edgy yet flirtatious and even made me laugh. Its such a combination that made me not want to put my kindle down at all."

After the Final Chapters

"Dark, gritty and wholly mesmerizing, I Found You is a haunting and compelling read you will not easily forget!"

Bookish Jottings

"Emotional, romantic, and heartbreaking."

Imagine a World

Chapter One
Portia

My head hurt. It was like someone was firing a nail gun into the back of my skull. I must have drunk buckets last night.

The weight of my forearm lay on my forehead. I opened my eyes. I could see the sky through the skylight. The day was bleak. Gray. Miserable. Like I felt.

Memories flashed through my thoughts as if someone had switched a PowerPoint presentation running in my head, just images popping up, then sliding out. Shit. Justin. I sat up and my brain rolled forward like a ball of rock, hitting my skull… I felt ill.

I held still for a moment. I was going to throw up. I dived out of bed racing for the bathroom.

It was on days like this I missed people. Anyone. It would just be nice to have someone around who gave a shit sometimes.

Ten minutes later, with an empty belly, and a brain that didn’t belong to me, I came out of the bathroom and headed for the sink by the burner. I poured myself a glass of water, then reached to get some Advil from the cupboard beside it to kill my headache. I drank some of the water, swallowed the pills and then washed them down with more water. My brain throbbed steadily, still protesting about the amount of alcohol I’d drunk the night before.

I sat on the bed, with my feet on the floor, and let memories and images, play through my head. Oh my God. I tumbled back, lying across the mattress, with my hands gripping my forehead and partly covering my eyes––as if I could hide from the pictures, like a stupid kid playing peek-a-boo. The images kept telling me the things I’d done.

Shit.

Did I have sex with Justin?

I didn’t even like Justin like that.

“Oh my God, Portia. What have you done now?” I could remember him kissing me. I’d definitely kissed him. It was after we’d got in the pool. Jason had just disappeared. It was Jason my lonely brain had been interested in for weeks, though the guy was unavailable…

But Justin…

He wasn’t bad looking, but he was no Jesse Williams, and he was a joker, and a bit of a douche. He always hung around the girls at work, too much––so much it was kind of creepy. He was one of those guys who worked so hard at being nice it made you want to back away…

More images paraded in my head. We’d gone through all the clothes and stuff in Mr. Rees’s room looking for bikinis to wear in the pool… Yes, I had definitely been wearing one because there was an image in my head of his fingers slipping it aside to touch my breasts, and I could feel his fingers touching me too.

Shit. I shut my eyes, then opened them again as more pictures piled in.

His hand had been in my bottoms.

My palm gripped my forehead. When would I learn not to drink so much? Well it was January 1st; the day for resolutions.

I think I’d suggested looking for the pool too, but there had been four of us in it, not just me and Justin. It had been us and the other girls we sat near in the office, Crystal and Becky. Surely I wouldn’t have let him do stuff if the others were there. Please tell me, even out of my head, I had better morals than that.

His friend Jason had been locked in the bathroom earlier in the night, during the part of the night I could remember, I’d offered to go in there and hung around to talk to him on the terrace later while he’d texted someone. That was when he’d reminded me it was his “wife” he was texting.

I had to give up alcohol––it made my judgment too bad.

Shit. I bet Justin just spotted an easy chance.

I sat up again, reaching for my cell. There was only one way I was going to find out. I flicked up the messages, then texted: ‘Hey Becky. Happy New Year’s! Is your head as bad as mine? What the hell did I do last night?’ I tapped send on the text praying it wouldn’t come back with a hideous acknowledgement that, yes, I’d entertained them in the pool with a live porn show. But they’d have stopped us long before his hand had got in my bikini bottoms, wouldn’t they?

I had obviously been too drunk to stop it myself though.

My cell vibrated in my hand.

‘Happy New Year’s! We left before you. You were with Justin in the pool. I don’t know. What did you do? ;)’

‘Not much then probably. But I don’t remember.’

‘You’ll have to ask Justin?’

‘Think I’ll pass.’

I threw my cell on the bed beside me. I couldn’t even remember how I got home. Let alone if I got dressed after getting out the pool––and what did we do with the wet swimming stuff. Mr. Rees didn’t even know we’d snuck into the pool. My dad would go psycho if someone had done that in his house. Maybe that’s why my subconscious had thrown the idea in when I was drunk.

Maybe that was why I’d got in too deep with Justin––pay back. My dad would hate that too.

But why did I have to do it at the work party? That was really going to impress my boss. What if I’d stumbled back into his living room wearing his girlfriend’s bikini, dripping water, and puked on his polished marble floor?

I’d get the pointed finger tomorrow. You’re fired.

Dad would go super crazy if I told him I’d done something so embarrassing. He’d think it would impact on his reputation.

But I wasn’t telling him because I wasn’t going to lose my job, there would be a way to convince Mr. Rees to keep me on, if I had to. I’d worked out a hundred wiles for manipulating people in my years of growing up.

British boarding schools were full of stuck-up––get me I’m rich––bitches. You learned to be loud and stand up for yourself or you ended up the school dupe, laughed at and constantly bullied. I had got loud and I’d learned to win attention. Manipulation was an art I’d learned from my daddy though, not just school. But I wasn’t proud of that.

Well, New Year’s Day or not, it seemed to me the miserable weather, and my hangover, called for a day spent in bed watching any movie that didn’t take much brain power to follow it. I leaned over and picked up my laptop, then lay back down and flipped the lid open.

I went into Netflix, ignoring Twitter and Instagram, and everything else. I didn’t want to face any malicious office party pictures; I’d deal with them tomorrow. Today, I was all for pulling the bed covers over my head and hiding.

I scanned through the lists.

Justin

Fuck. My head felt like someone was banging it against a wall. Fucking free champagne. I wished I hadn’t indulged so aggressively. But then, hey––it was free.

An image of Portia flowed into my head––Portia in an emerald green bikini. All the girls had looked hot, but she’d looked the best, and she’d felt pretty hot in the pool too––when the others had gone.

Shit. My head.

“Justin! Justin!” My eight-year-old kid brother rushed into my room, thrusting the door aside, and then jumped on my bed. My head spun, and my belly did a full roll, as pain pierced through my forehead and out the back of my skull like someone fired a gun through it.

“Go steady––you pain in the butt.”

“It’s New Year’s, Mom’s cooking lunch, it’ll be ready soon. You’re lazy.”

“Cheers bro, but––get off, Dillon.”

He climbed off me with a huge grin and then ran away again.

“You getting up, man?” I looked up. Another of my brothers, Robin, stood in the doorway, his shoulder resting against the doorjamb.

We shared this room, but he looked like he’d been up and dressed for ages.

Robin was seventeen. Then there was Jake who was fourteen.

“You were in late last night.”

“Yeah.” I sat up. My brain rolled around in my head like a pinball. I needed food and coffee. I pulled my T-shirt on.

“Mom’s checked your cell.”

“Great. I’m twenty-two, why the fuck is she checking my cell?”

“For the same reason you check ours. ‘Cause she don’t want you getting into trouble.”

“Like I’d have a chance.”

Robin twisted his lips in a grin that mocked me. I screwed up my face at him, saying whatever, as I stood and pulled my jeans on over my boxers, then ran my fingers over my hair.

“You look fucked.”

“Don’t copy my bad language. Mum ’ll smack you ‘round the ear for it. Do as I say, not as I do…” But I wished I had got fucked last night. Nearly.

I got another twisted smile.

Robin had grown out of idolizing me long ago, but we still got on, and we talked a lot, about everything. He rarely talked to Mom. But I kept him talking to me ‘cause I didn’t want him falling in with any of the gangs in our neighborhood.

I think if he did have any trouble, he’d tell me.

I did look out for them, my brothers. All my brothers.

When I walked into the kitchen, I saw my cell on the counter next to Mom. She was mashing potatoes to go with the chicken that stood on the side. Lunch smelt good, spicy. My belly rolled over––hunger giving it a bite. That was all I needed to cure my hangover––food.

“Justin.” Mom looked up at me turning her cheek.

I leaned down and kissed it. “Morning, Mom.”

“Afternoon,” she corrected, “And where were you, child?”

I rolled my eyes. “At Mr Rees’s party, like I was last New Year’s Eve. I told you where I was going. I told you I’d be late.”

I knew why she was asking––for the same reason I checked up on Robin, Jake, and Dillon. ‘Cause she didn’t want me caught up in trouble––but she ought to know, I looked after myself. I’d got to twenty-two and stayed out of it.

“Mom, give me a little line, I’m not a kid. Trust me why don’t you…”

She smiled, still smashing the potatoes. I caught up my cell and shoved it in my back pocket.

Jake was sitting on the sofa watching Dillon’s cartoons, with his arms crossed over his chest. He was in a bad mood––but then the kid was always in a bad mood. It was a rite of passage for boys his age to be shitheads. A rite I hadn’t had chance to claim. But Robin had gone through it and come out the other side… I had my fingers crossed for Jake.

He didn’t talk to me much, but he talked to Robin. I figured if I kept Robin safe, Robin would do the same for Jake.

I hoped.

Mom started dishing up. “Wash up and sit at the table.”

Dillon ran off to the bathroom to wash his hands, and Robin followed, to check he did it. Jake didn’t move.

“Come on.” Mom urged. She turned with a pile of cutlery in her hand. I took it from her and laid it out on the table. Jake still hadn’t moved as Dillon and Robin came back.

I glanced over my shoulder at him. He was staring at the TV. Dillon sat down and Robin moved to collect the plates, as Mom finished them off with corn. Jake still hadn’t moved. I went over and knocked his leg with mine. He looked up.

With my gaze and a nod of my head I told him to get the fuck up, asshole. Mom worked hard for us. She’d been on her own for years, since before Dillon was born, but we’d never gone hungry or not had clothes. She deserved respect––even if she was like a bloody stalker some times.

I wasn’t gonna lie and say it didn’t annoy me. It annoyed me.

But she was like that because Dad had messed her around for years. He was a waster, a woman beater and a drug addict. She’d kicked him out when I was a little kid. He’d been released from jail for the fifth time, and when he’d crawled back and knocked on our door she’d pointed a finger at him and told him where to go, then slammed the door in his face.

Now her single-minded mission in life was that none of us would turn out like him.

That’s why I gave her leeway ‘cause out of all of us, I was the one who knew most about the things Dad had said and done.

For the last few years I’d spent my life trying to make it all up to her, and make her life easy––and that was why I was on the same mission as her––to make sure my brothers stayed out of trouble––and turned out nothing like the man who’s DNA ran in our blood.

Jake moved, finally, ‘cause he knew I was getting pissed off, and there was no point in messing with me. I’d lose my shit if he pissed me off.

I wasn’t letting any of my brother’s grow up like Dad. I didn’t accept any of their bullshit. At least Robin had hit the point that he understood that. Jake? I didn’t know about Jake… He was the odd one out, but only ‘cause he was at that obnoxious teen stage. He didn’t know any better. It was just instinct at his age to think of himself first.

I wished I’d had that chance.

Chapter Two
Justin

When I walked into the office my gaze honed in on Portia. She was sitting at her desk, with earphones in, typing up some dictation. Or maybe listening to her latest favorite song and pretending to type up dictation––I knew she did that. I walked past her. She didn’t acknowledge me, but I caught the color of her skin shifting up several levels of pink.

I smiled. Maybe if I’d been looking in a mirror it would have come out looking leery, but she didn’t look up at me, just stared at her screen, like two days ago her tongue hadn’t been in my mouth, and my fingers…

I walked over to the rack to strip off my jacket. Was she embarrassed about hooking up with me?

I turned and looked at her again. She was still staring at her screen with her fingers flying over the keyboard, but her face was nearly as red as the takeaway Starbucks cup sitting by her elbow. I wanted to laugh.

It looked like she was feeling awkward.

I wasn’t suffering. I had no complaints. I was super happy with the opportunity she’d given me… The girl was awesome, if a bit arrogant. But, shit, I’d never really had any expectation I could hook up with a pretty, money loaded, white girl like Portia.

On my way back, I swiped the usual no-nonsense ponytail she had her blonde hair confined in. One of her hands lifted off the keyboard. But then it fell and she didn’t look around.

Whenever I saw her outside work, her hair was always down. It had been down New Year’s Eve.

Her pretty red lip-gloss painted mouth, that had a natural perfect pout, stayed closed. Her lips were held tightly together as she focused on her screen, like her screen was the savior of the world.

She was hiding from me, without actually hiding. She didn’t want to face up to what had happened at the party. Clearly she did regret our little interlude.

Well, whatever. Who gave a shit?

I sat down––ignoring her too.

If that’s the way she wanted to play it––that’s the way we’d play it.

I had two pages of the magazine to pull together today. Vacations always had to be paid for, I’d be short of time today.

My mate Jason rocked up twenty minutes after me, just before nine, drawing a fine line between being on time and getting caught up in a pile of shit; especially as he’d had a bunch of time off with short notice before Christmas.

He threw his stuff down under the desk and glared at his computer, starting it up. He seemed in just as bad a mood as Portia.

“Where’d you go to New Year’s Eve, you just disappeared?”

“I had to go.” He looked up at me. “Rach texted.” That didn’t have a ring of truth, it stunk of an excuse.

“Wife-y got you on a ball and chain already?” The guy had got married about a week ago. I mean he was twenty-two and the girl was already knocked up, and he’d only met her two months ago. Fool. But then I’d never seen the girl, maybe she was that hot.

My screen pinged to say I’d got an email.

‘Can we get a coffee at lunchtime?’ It was from Portia.

I glanced over at her desk, but I couldn’t see anything other than her arm.

‘Okay. What time?’

‘12.30. Meet me in Starbucks.’

‘Ashamed of me, baby?’

There was no reply. I had a feeling the conversation was gonna go something like––don’t tell anyone I hooked up with you.

Well we were from different leagues. The girl was arrogant and preppy and she liked to stick her pretty little nose up in the air.

Her tastes had turned to Jason, she’d had her eye on him for weeks. Me… I was just the one who’d been there when she’d got drunk… When she was sober––I was way below her standards.

I said something about the party to Jason. He ignored me and glanced at Mr. Rees’s office. The boss wasn’t in yet.

Jason looked over to the door into the office.

I gave up trying to talk and focused on getting my pages done. The whole place was in a bad mood today.

At eleven-thirty, not that I was clock checking, Portia got up and headed for the restrooms. She was slender, but she was slender with hips. The girl had some junk in her trunk for sure, Beyoncé style, and she had a pencil skirt on today that exaggerated the movement of her hips as she walked across the open plan room weaving between desks. The movement thrust the image of her ass in an emerald bikini into my head. My temperature soared.

I got up, without even thinking about it––and followed.

When I got in there, I found myself hovering outside the women’s like a pervert.

I leaned against the wall, slipping my hands into the back pockets of my pants.

She took a couple of minutes to come out, but when she did her pretty pouted lips parted in an ‘o’ and she turned pink… tipping up her chin, and her pretty little nose, with a look that implied disgust, like I smelled bad.

I shifted off the wall and stepped forward. “Portia, we need to talk.”

“We’re going to talk, at lunchtime. Away from the office.” Her words were a sharp, crisp rejection; spoken in her slightly British––perfectly rounded and toned, I’m-up-here-and-you’re-down-there––accent. Then she just walked past me, her body expressing her usual demeanor that said: stay away from me, you’re worth nothing.

Shit. She was definitely regretting what had happened––awkward.

I went into the restroom but didn’t use it, just stared at myself in the mirror over the basins. I wasn’t that bad looking, was I? I ran my hand over my hair. I kept it buzzed short. I really didn’t think I was that bad?

Bad enough to regret.

But then I wasn’t rich and I wasn’t Jason––white, Mr. handsome and nice from-out-of-town. Nope. I was straight out of the ghetto. Not Portia’s type at all.

I was seriously surprised she’d gone anywhere near me if I was being honest with myself.

But dishonest… I wasn’t that bad, and persistence and a bit of charm usually paid off.

I washed my hands and went back into the office.

Mr. Rees came in a few minutes later. That would lift the mood. The man was a tyrant and as arrogant and ignorant as Portia. Really, what the fuck had made me want to kiss her… Oh yeah, her in a bikini.

I started talking to Jason, about the party again––about everything other than me and Portia in the pool. But I’d lay hot odds she was sitting at her desk listening, fearing I’d throw in that little fact. Then all of a sudden Jason got up…

“Hey, I’m talking.”

“I got something to do.”

Well, I knew when I wasn’t wanted. I was getting a lot of messages like that today. Lucky I had thick skin.

A few minutes later he came back with a look of thunder on his face and started shoving stuff in a box.

What was up with this day? “Where you going?”

“I just realized that this job’s not for me. Bye…”

Nice fucking knowing you! I glanced over to see Mr. Rees watching Jason.

Well, what the hell was that about?

The girls were watching too. I could see Portia. She’d turned her chair to face Crystal and, having seen Mr. Rees, they were all pretending they hadn’t been about to start gossiping, but any moment now, there was going to be a gossip fest…

Jason walked out without a “thanks”, or, a “nice knowing you”, or, “see you”, or anything, and he looked pretty crazy with his cardboard box of stuff tucked under his arm, and an angry face.

I watched him go, feeling like my hangover from the other night had come back. Seriously, what the fuck was going on today?

And now it was nearly twelve-thirty.

Mr. Rees shut the door on his office. Normally I’d have gotten up and gone over to the girls––when the ogre had gone back in his cave––and they all began whispering. I didn’t. I figured Portia wouldn’t want me there. ‘Course I could go over anyway, to wind her up, seeing as she was so embarrassed over having had a thing with me. But that was the sort of game my dad used to play; I wasn’t that guy. If she regretted the stuff we’d done, that was fine. Let her regret. I didn’t, and there were dozens more women out there to be fished and hooked.

When the clock in the left-hand corner of my screen rolled over to twelve-thirty, an email message flashed up. I opened it.

‘See you there.’

Showdown time.

She got up, threw a red scarf around her neck and pulled on her coat, then threw her purse over her shoulder and walked out.

Here we go. I gave her a few minutes head-start so no one would think anything of me following, then got up too, and went to get my jacket. The shock of Jason going rattled through my nerves. The guy was there, then gone.

Mr. Rees came out of his office as I walked past, and I heard him speak to Hilary, our sub-editor, asking for Jason’s contact details to forward a letter of notice.

Jason had been sacked.

Shit. The guy had done nothing wrong. I’d better watch my ass. I was nowhere near as focused as Jason had been. Keith was always having a quiet word with me. Usually it was, “Don’t talk so much,” or, “You’re too loud.”

Shoving my hands deeper into the pockets of my jacket, I walked out.

When I reached Starbucks, a block away from the office, Portia was in the line.

I walked up and joined her.

“Hey.”

She looked at me and turned red again. “Hey.” She looked away, like she was looking at something else. Anything else––as long as she didn’t have to look at me.

“You eating?”

She shook her head, her chin and her nose tilting up, like I was a bad smell, or something else disgusting.

The girl was not a great eater. She was always on the latest celeb diet. But she wasn’t overweight.

Whatever, I decided to buy her a ginger muffin. I knew she liked ginger. For the last three weeks, the smell of her seasonal ginger latte had hung around the office when I’d walked into the office in the morning.

The guy looked over to take my order. She must have given hers already. “Black coffee, two ginger muffins, and one of those pepperoni things, heated.”

The guy nodded at me and headed off to put it all on, to cut the line.

We moved along, not speaking.

When we got to the cash register, she reached for her purse …

“I’ll get it.” It was the manly thing to do, but when I took my wallet out, her fingers rested over my hand.

“No, it’s okay, you don’t have to.”

“It’s okay. I want to.” My answer was probably sharper than it should’ve been, but I was starting to get a little pissed. I may have a millionth of the money her family did, but I could afford to buy her a coffee.

I really didn’t think I was so bad. Maybe I was thick skinned––but I did have some pride.

She picked up her drink and left the rest for me to carry on a tray. She moved right to the back, probably to avoid anyone in the office seeing us together through the window.

Such a glowing assessment of my performance New Year’s Eve. She obviously hadn’t had as much fun as I had, although she’d seemed to be enjoying it at the time.

I slipped into the chair opposite her and lifted one of the muffins off the tray. “For you, eat it or don’t eat it, whatever.”

Her blue eyes, that were mid-gray in reality but reflected blue, glanced down at the plate and then up at me. She bit her lip then opened her mouth as if she was going to speak, her expression hardening. She shut it again, turning pink, saying nothing, and then gripped her cup with both hands and looked down.

The girl looked meek. When had I ever seen Portia look meek before? Never. Her arrogance was cringing. Her blush no doubt expressed the shame this preppy, society girl felt over slumming it with me.

“Portia, you asked me here to talk?” My pitch rang with sarcasm and impatience.

“Justin…” she said to her coffee, in a voice that told me off for my being cutting. It sounded a little more like the Portia I was used to.

“What?”

She looked up again and stared at me, appearing anxious. That was another new look for Portia, as far as I was concerned.

“I… we… did…?” She bit her lip, and then she came right out with it suddenly, “Did we do it? The other night… I mean… Shit… Did we, you know? I was so drunk I don’t remember.”

So that was what all the blushes were about. I started laughing, I couldn’t help it. Really I should be insulted; she looked so terrified, like it would be a scene from a horror movie if we had done it. “No. We didn’t, Portia.” The air swept out of her lungs and her breath brushed my cheek before she looked down at her coffee again.

I leaned back in the chair, trying hard not to feel insulted… “We kissed, and I made you come, and you never returned the favor.”

That had her eyes and her color back up, along with her chin and her nose tilting. “Justin.” It wasn’t a shout, it was a hard whisper. “That would have been disgusting in a pool anyway.”

“Nice to know you got your priorities right, Portia…”

She screwed her face up at me––she even looked pretty when she screwed her face up.

“I take it you regret it?”

“I don’t remember it. Well, only in the form of a few patchy images. I can’t remember getting dressed, or getting home. How did I get home?”

I hadn’t realized she was that bad. “I helped you get dressed and you were unsteady on your feet but you weren’t out of it. We came back on the subway, and I walked you to your door.”

“You did?” Her gaze was boring into mine, like she was looking for a lie.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Thank you.” Those words were reluctantly said, and she looked away, but as she spoke she reached out and picked a piece off the muffin I’d bought her.

“You’re welcome.”

She glanced up again.

I picked up my muffin and took a bite, watching her as she watched me. So what now? Did I want this to be something, or was it just a hook up.

I didn’t say anything, nor did she.

Then eventually, after she’d nibbled a couple more pieces of her muffin, I said, “Do you regret it?”

One of the staff set down my toasted pastrami thing.

Portia took a breath as they walked away.

She did regret it.

“I––“

“Forget it, Portia. We hooked up at a party, it’s nothing big, it probably happened a ton of times all over New York. Two people had too much to drink, end of, no headline.”

Portia

End of. Justin was right. I was embarrassed, and I felt awkward as hell, ‘cause I couldn’t remember exactly what we’d done, but I believed we hadn’t gone the whole way. I hadn’t had any flashbacks of that, and as soon as he’d said he took me home, I saw an image of him next to me in a subway car.

“Sorry.” Embarrassment led me to say it.

He shrugged. “So anyway; what the frick went down with Jason?” There was a sudden glint in his brown eyes.

Wicked and funny. That was Justin.

He always joined in with the gossip but we never knew if he was making fun of us when he did. Crystal’s theory was that he was a douchebag and he was joining in with the hope of getting lucky. Well if that was true, his moves had worked on me. I was staying sober from now on. Resolution.

“What the hell you gonna do, Portia? You won’t have pretty boy to stare at every day… Shame. You’ve got no chance of pulling him loose from his girl now…”

“I wasn’t trying to.”

He lifted his dark eyebrows. “Yeah, right. Whatever. You aren’t fooling me. If he’d have offered, like I did…”

Crap, he had to go and bring that back up. My skin heated. I was tired of blushing. I’d spent yesterday with my head under the pillow, too embarrassed to even face myself. “Don’t talk about it.”

“Was I that bad?” He was joking but he wasn’t joking. I’d kicked his ego in the balls.

I gave him a lopsided smile and narrowed my eyes, “Justin, I told you. I don’t even remember!”

His eyebrows lifted higher. “Great. That bad.” His wide lips tilted. He wasn’t unattractive. I’d never really looked at him like that before. But he was okay. I mean his eyes were nice, dark brown and glowing like treacle, with that wicked and humorous glint, and he had a wide smile that came in flashes. His short black hair, that he kept cut close to his head, suited him because he had a nice shaped head… That sounded stupid. But he did. I wanted to reach out and touch him, run my fingers up his cheek and then over his hair. Maybe that was how things had got started in the pool.

He was talking about Jason again. I wasn’t really listening.

“… so you girls are going to miss the eye candy.”

I smiled at him, and just nodded. I wasn’t going to lie. Jason was hot. I could just watch him for hours.

“We oughta get back.” He stood. “Otherwise we’ll be the next to be fired.”

I got up.

When we reached the office, he held the door open for me. Crystal was wrong. He wasn’t a sleaze. He was just a normal guy––girl hunting. He was nice in a way. He’d made this whole thing with me easier. He could have been really horrible.

He whispered in my ear, “We better go back separately, seeing as we’re incognito… You can go up first, I’ll hang back.”

I smiled at him, “Thanks,” then walked on ahead.

I glanced up when he walked into the office five minutes after me, and watched him take his black Parka coat off on the other side of the room. His body wasn’t that bad either, I remembered. He had abs. He’d looked pretty good in the pool.

Another blush raced over my skin and I looked down at my screen before he caught me watching. But ten minutes after he’d sat down I sent him an email, giving him my cell number, with a message saying… “Why don’t we be friends outside of work? If you want? What’s your number?”

A second later an email came back from him. It was just his number and nothing more.

I looked up and leaned ‘round my screen to see him, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at his screen, like he was totally focused on work.

Justin

“Justin!” My kid brother, Dillon, hurtled out the school gate, right into my belly, with his backpack falling off his shoulder and smacking me in the thigh.

“Hey Dillon, woah. What’s up with you, kid?”

Having hugged me, he pulled away, laughing. “Nothin’.” His eyes were shining with a I-love-my-big-brother look of idolization. That look got me in the chest every time, with a sharp bite of affection.

“Did you have a good day?”

“Yeah.” He liked school but he hated the after club he had to go to when Mom was working and I had to pick him up.

“Dillon!” A pretty little girl with braids shouted over, taking her mom’s hand. She did a huge exaggerated wave, the way young kids did.

My already super cool and chilled little brother just lifted his hand. “Bye Miah.”

I laughed. He looked up at me, taking my hand. “Are you working on the ladies already little bro?”

He laughed. Then he said, “She does like me but it’s annoying. She hangs around all the time when I just wanna play.”

I gripped his hot, sticky hand tighter, looking up the street watching the traffic and getting ready to cross. “Well, one day, you are gonna be begging girls to just hang out with you.”

He made a disgusted sound, and I glanced down laughing at him. “Urrgh, no way. I don’t wanna play with girls … ”

For now. The day will come Dillon when you will love playing with girls… I didn’t say that. Just smiled at him, wishing I’d had a childhood like he did.

He may have to go into after-school club but he never had to comfort Mom like I did at his age, after her and Dad had fought, and he’d knocked her about, or after he’d had a run in with the cops and ended up in jail.

When we’d crossed the street, Dillon let go of my hand and started telling me about his day. Telling me all the eight-year-old-kid gossip from his school. I loved it when he did. He made me laugh the way he talked with a blazing fire of excitement, at a hundred miles an hour, and the flames of the excitment in his belly flickered over his facial expressions and in his eyes too.

Along the street I saw Jake, waiting on the corner of the sidewalk, where he always met us. He turned the corner and walked on as soon as he knew I’d seen him.

Met us––was a loose term. He never actually bothered waiting for us, or spoke to us, but walked two hundred yards ahead of us, pretending he didn’t have to walk back home with his fricking annoying older brother and the baby of the family.

Dillon chatted on. He didn’t care… Jake only stirred me up, no one else… and he knew it.

How the fuck had I ended up being treated like our frickin’ shit Dad? I didn’t know. But Jake treated me like I was his parent and not his big brother. He had an inbuilt button that said––do everything the opposite of what I said.

My cell buzzed, vibrating in my back pocket. I pulled it out. A message from Portia. Dillon kept talking.

It was a stupid picture of some weird dressed-up dog in a park. I laughed. Then another text came in.

‘Thought I would send you that to make you laugh. Did it?’

‘Yeah, it did.’

She could have punched me when she sent me her number. I hadn’t expected that, and I’d played it cool, just sending her my number back. But now she’d sent the first text too. What did that say?

The girl had my attention whether she wanted it or not.

“What did you laugh at?” Dillon’s brain finally caught up and overtook his mouth…

“Here.” I showed him the picture of the Jack Russell dog wearing a red and white wooly hat, sweater and scarf… He laughed too.

I slipped my phone back into my pocket, then rubbed a palm over Dillon’s hair as he started up with his eight-year-old bullshit again.

Jake was at the end of the block and about to turn, heading for home. I wished he’d wait. Our neighborhood was one of the worst in New York; kids ‘round here always claimed they didn’t have a choice about being in a gang. Gangs were what people did. But not me. I’d stayed in school, kept my head down, paid my way through College, working in a Mackie D’s, and now I was doing my best to keep my brothers out of all that shit.

My heart thumped steadily like it did every day when we walked back and Jake disappeared out of sight. Dillon kept talking, and I commented, laughed, and said all the things I was supposed to in reply, but my mind was on Jake.

There were loads of drive-by shootings in our neighborhood. Stabbings. Fights. For no better reason than people just wanted to show they were frickin’ tough. That wasn’t tough, that was cowardice. Tough was fighting against a life, and hood, that tried to hold you back.

My mom was tough. She’d escaped one of those guys. A guy who used to bring all sorts of crap back to our door and beat her up––and he’d slept around.

In a hood like this, she was bringing up four boys alone––working her ass off to do it.

Dad had thought himself tough. He’d grown up in a gang. He’d ended up leading it. But Mom was the tough one.

Maybe sometimes it made her seem like she didn’t care but she cared her heart out about us. Dad had just beaten all the softness out of her. Our mom cared with venom. She fought fiercely to do the best for us.

Respect.

I loved her.

We got as far as the street corner Jake had turned. When we turned it, there were a few kids in a car near him. My heart played an erratic base-beat against my ribs.

I settled a hand on Dillon’s shoulder, and drew him close against my hip as we walked on. He kept talking, oblivious to the tension that rattled about inside me. My eyes were on Jake. He kept moving, but the car slowed down near him. Shit. Come on… I was too far away to do anything. If the barrel of a gun appeared out the car window, Jake was a corpse, there was no way I could cover the two-hundred yards between us and do a single thing to stop him getting wiped out.

The car crawled along beside Jake, and a kid in the back seat wound down the window. I was walking faster without even thinking about it.

Dillon started half-running to keep up. “What is it?”, he said as he looked up at me, sensing my tension and realizing I hadn’t heard a word he’d said for five minutes.

I glanced down at him. “Nothing.” I kept my hand on his shoulder, so he couldn’t run off and get anywhere near the car.

Something was said to Jake, but as far as I could tell, he didn’t answer, just ignored them and kept walking. Good boy.

The car pulled away speeding up, and then the wheels screeched as the back window got wound up, and it accelerated away up the street.

This was our walk to and from school. It was like stepping through a field of landmines. We regularly past burned out cars some kids had crashed joy riding the night before, then torched. As well as kids standing on street corners with their hands inside their jackets or their jeans, like they had a knife to flick at you any moment… They just wanted us to be scared.

I wasn’t scared for me. I was beyond the reach of gangs. I had my education. I had my job. And I had a decent life. And, yeah, I stood out in this neighborhood like a beacon, ‘cause going to college had made me speak different and act different, but I kept my head down and my nose out of the gangs business and they left me alone.

But my brothers… It was my brothers I worried over.

Jake’s movement was a little stiffer and his stride a little longer. He was trying not to give away a single sign he had been rattled by whoever had been in that car, but he had been rattled.

I’d tell Robin and get Robin to ask him what was said. If I asked Jake, he wouldn’t answer. But then if I told Robin Jake would know the question had come from me anyway… Maybe I just had to leave it and trust him. He’d probably been just as scared as I was that the barrel of a gun was gonna come out of that rolled down window.

Chapter Three
Portia

When Justin walked into the office my gaze got stuck on him. I had been looking at the door waiting for him to walk through it. I smiled, my cheeks heating as he caught my gaze and smiled too.

When he smiled he was actually pretty good-looking. I liked his smile. I liked his relaxed way of moving too. Justin was the antidote to me. He was soooo laid back he was horizontal, and he had New York swagger. Justin was the polar opposite of my last boyfriend Daniel. Daniel had been rich, upper-class and up-himself.

I realized I hadn’t looked away. I’d been staring at Justin, watching him walk along the office, probably with a dumb besotted look on my face. The more I looked at him, the more I liked the look of him, and of course in my subconscious, memories of a certain New Year’s Eve night in a pool still hovered. My opinions about Justin were shifting at a rapid pace.

When he got nearer, I turned to look at my screen, that was still a spinning wheel, with a message saying ‘Welcome.’

His fingers touched my neck, they skimmed over my skin, a light slide of his fingertips along the inside of the collar of my blouse. I shivered, and the sensation ripped right through my middle to my belly, making me ache between the legs.

Heat burned my cheeks. I picked up my cell, feeling the need to say something to him. Anything…

‘Did you have a good night?’ I sent the text and heard his cell buzzing in his back pocket as he hung up his coat.

He didn’t reply straight off, but he took his cell out just before he sat down, then smiled over at me, nodded a little and winked.

Shit. Even that stupid little gesture flipped my belly.

‘I did. Did you spot any more dumb dressed up dogs in the park? I fancy something to laugh at.’

‘:-) Sorry, no.’

‘:-) No matter then, but if you think of anything to make me laugh…’

‘I’ll text you :D’

‘Yeah.’

Why did it feel so good talking to him? I had this warm sensation in my belly.

Probably because I was sad––in the pathetic sense of the word––and I was heading toward becoming one of those old women with a cluttered house and a hundred cats. I was friendless and lonely. Yeah, I had Becky and Crystal at work, but we didn’t get together much outside work. We were not BFFs, we were just girls who got on okay in the office. I didn’t even know if they really liked me…

Whatever, I’d been on my own for a year, I could cope with being on my own.

‘What are you thinking about?’

I looked up and saw Justin standing, diagonally to me, on the other side of our block of desks. He lifted his phone a little. Probably to tell me to answer.

I smiled, then looked down to text.

‘My boring day in the office.’

‘:-) Cool as long as there is nothing wrong.’

‘There’s nothing wrong.’

The guy had a sweet streak. How come I had never seen that before? I’d watched him befriend the new starter, Jason, back in the summer, and while Becky, Crystal and I were on good terms, he and Jason had been really thick… Like always talking…

He went over to the kitchen, probably to get a coffee. I watched him again. I loved the way he walked. Was that a crazy thing? To like the way a guy walked…

Watching how he walked had the quivering feeling tickling in my belly too.

‘Do you want a coffee?’

He texted me. I couldn’t see him. He was in the kitchen.

‘Yeah, thank you.’

‘It’ll be with you in a moment. Ma’am.’

‘Fool.’

‘:D Just thought it might make you laugh.’

My lips lifted in a closed lip smile and a chuckle of amusement tickled in my throat. I really liked him now. How come that had happened?

Justin

I set Portia’s coffee down on her desk. It was the fourth day I’d made her coffee. She looked up at me, giving me one of those tight-lipped smiles of hers that implied she still knew I was way beneath her on the social ladder but she was thinking about letting me climb up the rungs a little. I went back to the kitchen for Becky’s and Crystal’s coffee.

I had started making them all drinks, so it didn’t stand out that I made Portia one. They thought it was my New Year’s resolution; to suck up and make them coffee. ‘Course they hadn’t actually picked up on the fact that I always gave Portia hers first. ‘Cause she was the hottest girl and the one I was chasing. Mildly. It was no big deal if our texting and coffee-making went nowhere at all––but equally, if it went somewhere… I’d welcome another New Year’s Eve pool moment with her.

And she did keep texting me, only about stupid stuff, but she wasn’t cutting me.

“Hey, did you see this?” I caught sight of Becky dropping a magazine on Portia’s desk, folded back, to show Portia something on a particular page.

When I came back with Becky and Crystal’s coffees, all of them were clustered around Portia’s desk, jawing in catty voices about some celebrity gossip in the magazine, cutting some poor famous woman down to shreds for having put on a few pounds, laughing at the before and after picks.

I don’t know. I mean, I liked Portia, physically. She was seriously attractive. But her bit-of-a-British accent and her tipped-up-chin-and-nose, saying I’m-better-than-you-back-off, gave her a hard edge that was sharp. Maybe there was something there or maybe there wasn’t. She was brittle really. She had a personality that was like stone. If she was really interested in me? Would I be interested in that?

She glanced up before I could turn away and caught me staring at her. There was a really tiny twitch at the edge of her lips. Then she looked back down.

Shit, that little twitch in her lips had a little twitch shifting in my dick. It ran up my nerves and lust gripped like a sudden punch that knocked the air out of me.

I guess I could overlook her similarity to stone. Maybe it would be fun to go up against such a hard edge in a bed anyway.

Portia

I caught Justin’s eyes widening, and his lips tipped sideways just before he turned away. The smile that had involuntarily lifted the edge of my lips spread.

There was something going on.

I was sure he was making a play for me.

Every day he made me coffee, but he made it for Becky and Crystal too. Yet he always brought my cup over first, put it down, and then went back for theirs. He was up to something.

Becky said something and Crystal laughed. I laughed a little too, though I hadn’t heard what she’d said; my eyes and my attention were on Justin, watching him as he walked around to his desk.

I loved the way he moved. I mean, he had this relaxed way of walking but as he walked, you could see the strength of his character coming through. It was the way he carried himself. Justin was confident––comfortable in his own skin. He wasn’t afraid of being judged. He didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of him. If someone didn’t like him; I think he would just shrug it off. He wasn’t interested in impressing anyone. He was just who he was. No complications.

The main editor walked over to talk to him. It gave me more time to watch as he stayed standing.

While he talked with Keith, Justin’s hand came up and gripped the back of his neck. Something trembled low in my belly as I remembered those long fingers touching me.

I still liked the shape of his head, the curve of his jaw. I don’t know. Justin was just perfectly proportioned; it was like he’d been airbrushed in real life.

Keith said something and Justin nodded, his hand falling. Then Justin turned as Keith walked away. Justin’s gaze didn’t lift, he didn’t catch me watching. He was looking at his screen as he sat down, his lips parting to let out a short sigh as he sat.

That meant he was working on something complicated. I’d started really noticing the sound of his little sighs that drifted across the desk. It meant he was thinking, working something out in his head.

The thought of his broad lips parting to let out a sigh had my blood heating and sensation tingling in between my legs. Someone must have turned up the heater in the air-con, I wanted to strip.

“Hey. What do you think?” Becky hit my shoulder with the back of her hand.

I didn’t know what she was asking; I hadn’t been listening to them.

“Girls!”

Keith saved me anyway. He’d seen we were just talking. Becky and Crystal immediately turned away.

I sat back down; my mind spinning with unvoiced questions I wouldn’t admit to as my mind fixated on Justin’s lips and his hands.

I don’t remember fixating on anything about Daniel, my ex. Daniel had always just been Daniel. We’d known each other for years before we got together. Our parents were friends. They’d pushed us together.

At the time, I’d thought I wanted that.

I looked up, but I couldn’t see Justin around my screen. I thought about the way he moved; his confidence, his simplicity. No secrets. No games. No disguises and false fronts.

God how refreshing was that.

Daniel had been too like my dad in personality. But then I hadn’t known what Dad was really like at the time I’d started with Daniel. I’d been blind still. Seriously, it was as if I had never opened my eyes until the night everything had gone wrong.

How had I not known Dad was cheating; and how had I not seen how self-centered and pathetic Daniel was? I wasn’t even sure he’d loved me at all. He’d loved himself, and he wanted to look good, and have the sort of influence my dad had. I was just part of that package. The girl who would look right on his arm. The girl whose inheritance would help fund the political career he was aiming for. The girl who knew how to act in that world… Except, I wasn’t going to play any part in it. I hadn’t even known everyone else was acting until my eyes had been ripped open.

I’d had to wake up and grow up quick. I’d cut my ties with my parents’ wealth and their world and just walked away.

Dad hadn’t cut me off. My trust fund money was still sitting in an account. Untouched. It felt like blood money. I didn’t want it. I was making my own mark on the world. Doing what I wanted, not what they wanted. As far as I was concerned, I had no obligation to them. They’d lied to me, pretended they were something they were not. Just like Daniel.

Not like Justin.

There was another whisper of a sigh from the other side of the block of desks. I saw Justin’s arm lift and his palm settled on top of his head as he stared at the screen, clearly trying to work out in his head how he was going to do something.

Justin was different from any guy in my world back home. The world that now seemed like a nightmare I’d dreamed up.

I’d arrived in New York alone; determined to do stuff my own way. I’d armored myself with the sort of confidence Justin had naturally. It had not come naturally to me. But I think I’d managed to convince everyone that I could do this––that I could make it by myself.

Yet beneath the person who’d conned everyone into believing I was thick-skinned, not-knockable and independent––was still that girl who had arrived in New York, alone and terrified of how she’d cope.

Justin was just Justin…

I was starting to really like him.

I looked down at my cell, my fingers itching.

I picked it up.

‘Stop sighing, you’re distracting me.’

I saw his hand fall from his head. Then there was a little amused grunt.

‘:-) I’m concentrating.’

‘Well concentrate quietly :D’

‘Ha. Ha.’

I had on the sort of smiley face I’d texted as I looked back at my own screen, and tried to get my brain to focus on work again, not on the guy across our block of desks.

Portia

I sat on the bed looking at Justin’s number on my cell for about the twentieth time. I was so bored––and lonely. I was fed up of my own company Crystal and Becky weren’t free and… and it was my birthday. Mum and Dad hadn’t rung but then they were in Europe.

They were in Europe every winter, and always too busy to remember the day they’d had me. But why did I care?

Because a part of me was still the child they had rejected for half my life, and then scarred irreparably when I’d discovered why.

My thumb hovered over the call icon again. Should I call him? What would I say if I did? I’d sent him a text first, after we’d swapped numbers, a picture of a stupid looking dressed up dog in the park that I’d seen as I walked home, just to break the ice. We’d sent a few texts since, all just conversational. It was a huge leap from that to calling and saying do you want to come over. But I needed some company.

I slid the call screen off my cell and selected messages, then typed: ‘I’m bored.’

I sat waiting for five minutes, holding my cell in my palm, staring at the thing. It vibrated.

‘Are you :-)’

Shit, what did I say? ‘I want someone to talk to, and no one’s free.’

‘Are you hoping I’ll be that person?’

I breathed out, not even realizing I’d been holding my breath. Anyone would do today. I just wanted some company. ‘Maybe? I want someone to come over.’

‘Portia. Are you asking me over or what?’

My stupid stomach did a somersault. Did I care that much if he came? No. It wasn’t him. I just needed someone to spend my birthday with. ‘If you want to come’… I didn’t finish the sentence, I just sent it.

The reply came back immediately. ‘If you’re asking me’…

I didn’t reply; my courage failed.

A moment later there was another text. ‘Are you? Or aren’t you?’

I took a breath. My fingers were actually shaking as I answered. ‘I am. Will you? I’m lonely.’

‘Ha.Ha. That, I do not believe.’

My hand was still shaking and I didn’t know what to say.

At work they all thought I was a stuck-up bitch. I knew I sounded like that. I could hear myself… But… they didn’t know me.

My thumb lifted and hovered over the letters. I wanted to type, please come. But that sounded too needy. Sad and needy was the bit of me I hid from people. ‘Are you coming over or not? I’m not asking again. Do you want to watch films here?’

‘I’ll come. Yes to films. I remember where you live. I’ll be there in about an hour :D’

‘Okay.’ God, I couldn’t believe how much lighter the pressure on my shoulders was, or how much my heart lifted, when it had no business giving a shit whether Justin came over or not. But I was twenty-two today. I deserved some company.

He arrived almost an hour dead from our last text, and even though I was expecting him, when the buzzer rang, telling me he was down at the front door. I jumped and then my stomach quivered with anxiety. God, this was madness. But it was Justin’s company or no-one’s, and no-one’s was a far worse choice.

I had no idea where he’d come from––where he lived.

My fingers were stupidly shaking as I pressed the intercom. “Hi.”

“It’s Justin.”

I pressed the button to free the door. “Come on up, I’m in the attic apartment.”

Shit I didn’t even know if he knew that. Maybe he knew that? Maybe I’d let him up here New Year’s Eve.

My heart was going mad, I was so nervous––it pumped away with the pace of one of those crazy house music baselines like it was going to leap right out of my chest any moment.

I twisted the lock and went out. I’d rather be in control of this––this time.

On the landing, that was decorated in a modern eclectic style of peeling paint and mold, I leaned over the banister, looking down. “Justin!” He was on about the third flight of stairs. He stopped and looked up.

“Portia! What’s up?”

I smiled. God, it felt so good to have someone here, I was such a sad case. My fingers gripped the wooden rail as he looked away and started jogging up the stairs again. I’d worked with him for a year, I’d never considered him anything other than a work colleague before a few days ago, but now my eyes seemed to be seeing something else.

He didn’t look any different though. His hair was cut dead short so he could hardly style it a new way, and he always had such a relaxed manner at work, he wasn’t going to be suddenly more laid back. Justin was Justin. But I liked what I saw. I mean, he didn’t have the obvious looks his friend Jason had had but he wasn’t at all bad looking and as he rounded the corner of the flight of stairs that would bring him up to my landing, his brown gaze caught mine. The guy had really nice eyes, like light shining through a glass of cola. He was kind of close to a young Will Smith when he smiled and definitely Jason Derulo standards when he didn’t.

I straightened up, smiling too. “Hey.”

“Hey. So this is your space then?”

He hadn’t been up here. That was good to know. “Yep. Come in.” He was carrying some shopping. I turned and went back inside. He held the carrier out when he came in.

Justin

“This is for you.” I held out the stuff I’d got in a store along the street, offering it to Portia. Arriving empty handed would have been lame. “There’s M&Ms, vodka, cola and popcorn. All we need for a few hours of Netflix.”

She looked uncertain but she took the carrier from my hand and checked inside it.

She was different outside the office. Her hair was down, and she was only wearing a sleeveless tee and a pair of skinny jeans that clung like a second skin. She looked like a different girl, a girl who might actually play a game of tonsil hockey in a pool with a guy about thirty steps below her on the social scale.

I knew she came from money but shit, you wouldn’t know it from the place she lived in.

She unpacked the stuff from the carrier and put it onto the tiny square of space she had beside a two plate burner.

I glanced about her room.

It was just a room, with a single bed, a few cupboards, the burner and a basin all-in. I’d researched her family in a bored moment when she started at the magazine and I knew her parents were loaded.

I didn’t say anything as she tossed the packet of M&Ms and toffee popcorn on her bed. Then she looked up at me with those blue eyes that always seemed to judge people. “Thanks for coming over.”

“You’re welcome.”

She made a face at me, a cute face, her nose wrinkling, I’d never seen her wrinkle her nose, or look cute, ever. Sexy? Always…

“Shall I put a film on now then?”

“If you want, unless you want to change plans and go out somewhere?”

“No, I’m happy to watch films, if you are? It’s my favorite thing, getting lost in films.”

When I’d got her text asking me over here, I’d been at the table with Mom and the others. We’d just finished lunch. Mom had seen my face. I think my expression had probably said: What the fuck?

“I’m bored.” What the hell had that meant? My mind had run through the fuck-buddy idea in my head. I mean, I’m young and I’m a guy. And after the party, there was reason to hope keeping her company might come with benefits.

Mom had fired questions at me as I’d left the apartment. But I was twenty-two. I didn’t want to be entirely tied to her. There had to be some get-out time in my life.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Portia asked, throwing a look over her shoulder at the bed as she turned away from me.

It was kind of intimate sitting on her bed. Maybe this seriously was a fuck-buddy thing, not just my wishful thinking.

I perched on the edge, my hands clasping together as my elbows rested on my parted thighs and I tried to keep a firm hold on my imagination––and my libido.

“You can take your coat off. You’re staying aren’t you?”

She was laughing at me internally; it was in the movement at the corner of her pretty pouting lips and it caught in the blue in her eyes and made it brighter. I smiled at her, giving her a look that told her not to tease me but I stood again to take off my jacket and hung it from a hook on the back of her door.

It must be weird, just having a bedroom to live in. It was about the same size as mine although I did share my room with Robin. But at least I had a living room to walk into and a couch to sit on. She just had a bed and on the other side of the room, a cupboard, counter and basin.

She poured the vodka into glasses and then added the cola and held one out for me to take before I sat down again. “Do you think it’s too early for this?”

For a minute, I thought she meant me being ‘round here when we’d only just started something, but then I realized she was referring to the drink… And besides, we hadn’t really started anything. As I’d told her before––we’d just messed around in a pool at a party.

“At two? No way.”

She put her drink on a chest beside the bed and picked up the laptop. I watched her face as she opened it.

She glanced at me. “What do you want to watch?”

Her eyes were definitely more blue than gray today. Maybe cause she had a blue sleeveless tee on. I shrugged. “You can have what you want. I’ll even suffer the Notebook or the Break up; your call.”

She smiled.

Beauty literally shone out of the girl when she smiled like that. I don’t think I’d ever seen her smile that openly at work. She always looked sly when she smiled at work, like she was being coy when she was anything but.

“You’re saved, I hate romantic stuff. What about a Final Destination marathon, we’ll start at number one.”

I grinned at her. “You’re on.”

This was weird. I was sitting in Portia’s room, by her invitation, talking about watching horror movies. Had I slipped into a parallel universe? She wasn’t only thirty steps above me on the society ladder. She was about the same in looks––a whole mile out of my league. I’d pitch myself at eight, maybe scraping nine, but she was a full on ten.

She went back to concentrating on setting the film up. My gaze dropped to her chest, the tee she was wearing clung, tucking beneath her breasts. I remembered the feel of her breasts in my fingers. They’d looked pretty awesome in a bikini, the perfect fit for the heel of my palm to press them up, so my thumb could rub her nipple.

Beneath her tee, I could tell she wore a thin cotton bra. The shape of her nipples pushed through the layers of her clothing.

I shifted a little, moving out of her way so she could sit down, trying to distract my brain from the threat of a hard on. It definitely seemed, so far, that the undertone of ‘I’m bored’ had not been a bootie call.

She put the laptop up on the side as the film started playing and sat down on the bed, slipped her shoes off and curled her legs up as she slid to the back of the bed, then leaned against the wall. Her body was illuminated by a beam of sunlight that suddenly pierced the cloudy day and shone down through the skylight above us.

The sunlight disappeared.

She reached forward for her glass.

I watched the opening scenes, feeling awkward again, like I didn’t know where to put myself with her so close.

I didn’t get why she was here though, I don’t mean why she’d asked me, but why the rundown room? Her parents were rich.

I sipped my drink as she sipped hers.

“Err! This is so violent!” her nose screwed up. It had a perfect tilt to its tip. How could the girl look so sexy with her nose screwed up? She did.

“You picked it.” My tone came out flat as I fought an urge to kiss her. It had been her who’d kissed me in the pool.

Her gaze spun to me, and a smile broke those perfect pink lips. She hadn’t any make up on today.

“I don’t dislike the violence and gore, it’s just like OMG when it happens.”

I smiled and shook my head at her, then threw the M&Ms over. “Open them.”

Still smiling she did and took a handful for herself then passed them back to me. “You can take your boots off and sit on the bed properly with me…”

Shit, something lurched in my gut and gripped at my cock.

I leaned forward and unlaced my boots, then moved back on the bed with my knees bent up and my thighs parted while I rested my head against the wall. My forearm leaned on my bent knee as I still gripped my glass.

We watched the movie in silence eating M&Ms.

When actor number four met a vicious end, her cell started vibrating on the side by the laptop, ringing out Counting Stars. She picked it up and looked at the screen but didn’t answer, her whole body hesitating as she took a breath. Then her thumb touched it to take the call.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes.”

“I’m fine.”

“Working.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Say, hi, to Mum.”

“Yes.”

“Goodbye.”

Her pitch had changed when she was on the cell. It got more arrogant, and British. Her dad was British. I knew that too.

She colored up a bit as she leaned over and put her cell back on the side, saying nothing.

God, I had to ask. “Portia, your parents are rich, right? Why the hell are you working at the magazine and living here?” My free arm thrust out to highlight the inadequacy of the shithole she was in.

She turned an even brighter red when she looked at me. Sirens blared on the film to mark another victim’s death. Taken down.

“The money’s my parents, not mine.”

Well, yeah, but I’d have thought they’d have sorted her out somehow so she lived a little better than this. If I had money, I’d want to help my family. Our gazes held for a moment, but then she looked back at the film and her lip caught in her teeth for a second.

“You, okay?”

She nodded but she wasn’t.

“What did he say?”

She turned back and smiled at me. “Happy Birthday.”

I was moving forward without thinking, and I gripped her arm. “It’s your birthday? Why didn’t you say? I’d have got you something. No wonder you were bored alone. We should do something. Go out…”

“I want to watch films.” That pretty pout was back.

“I could have bought you cake.”

“You didn’t have to buy cake and you did get me something, you bought M&Ms, popcorn and vodka.”

I ignored that. She was just changing the subject. “Are you seeing them?”

“No, they’re in Switzerland.”

“Really? Were they here for New Year?”

“No.”

“You didn’t see them the whole of the holidays?”

“Nope, nor Thanksgiving. I see them in the summer when they come over to LA.”

“In the summer?”

She looked at me with a flat gaze that said, so. It wasn’t abnormal for her.

If this was a rich kid’s life, I was glad all those wishes I’d made on birthday candles as a boy hadn’t come true. “What about when you were a girl?”

“I was in boarding school, I stayed there.”

Her expression said she didn’t care. But she’d grown up on her own. A frown crushed my brow––I’d got her wrong in the office. But now she did look like the girl I’d worked with for a year. Her lips had pouted and her chin was up, in that aggressive bitch like expression I knew well.

“How much did you see them?” My hand ran over my hair, back and forth, as I said it. I was still knee deep in shock.

“A few weeks every year.”

A few weeks? Well that had probably been as much as I’d seen Dad when he was meant to be with us, but that was because he didn’t give a shit and was in and out of jail––what about her parents then….

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