I fan my face to calm the rising color as Kelsey pops a french fry into her mouth.
“No offense, but you were impressively red. I almost went after you with the powder to calm your face down,” she says.
Giving up, I drop my face into my hands as my cheeks burn with embarrassment. My buzz is finally starting to fade, and I can’t believe what happened tonight.
“Let’s watch the video again!” Monroe grabs Harlow’s phone off the table and taps in the pass code she has apparently memorized. “Because, seriously, I think I could get myself off just watching the sexual tension between you two.”
I open my mouth to tell her no, but I want to see it again too. Before, it was dark and loud in the club, and Harlow’s hand wasn’t exactly steady as she held out her phone.
Harlow snatches her phone from Monroe’s hand, comes around the table, squats down between me and Kelsey, and cues up the video. As soon as it begins, I’m transported back into that moment, into his arms.
“His body washard.I didn’t know a man could be hard like that.”
“Oh, honey, that’s called an erection. It’s what happens when a guy wants to fuck you.” Monroe giggles with her witty reply.
“That’s not what I mean. Like his arms and his chest and his stomach. Oh my God, do you think he still has abs? I saw them on the videos of him.” As soon as my little admission is out, my lips snap shut as all the women at the table stare at me.
“What do you mean, you saw them on the videos of him?” Harlow asks as she leans toward me.
“On YouTube. He ... he was a fighter.”
Kelsey is nodding. “I watched them too. But I swear it was just to do research for you. I didn’t feel remotely turned on by the sight of him rolling around on the mat with another man. Actually, that’s a lie. I watched two fights and then had to go to Tumblr to find some hot man-on-man action to take care of business.”
As Legend spins me on the screen, I want to do the same thing. Well,almost.I don’t need any hot man-on-man action to get me there, but I could seriously excuse myself right now to gotake care of business.
Has that ever happened to me before?
Dumb question. Nope. Never. Ever. Not like this.
Stop, Scarlett. You heard the man. He wantsnothingto do with you.
The reminder kills the rest of my buzz as Harlow drops her phone onto the others piled in the center of the table.
But remember what Q said?my brain argues. “Maybe you’d be good for him. But God knows, he’d never let you get close enough to try.”Before I can dissect that statement further, Kelsey’s head jerks to the side.
“Oh my God, don’t look now, but isn’t that Meryl Fosse? Holy shit. What is she doing here?” Harlow says, and I thank God she can actually whisper at a safe volume.
Of course, we all look.
“It’s like spotting the elusive cheetah at the watering hole,” Kelsey murmurs without moving her lips.
I’m holding my breath, hoping Monroe doesn’t say anything, but she shockingly doesn’t and reaches for her phone.
“You should say something to her, Scar. Isn’t this the perfect chance to show her how wrong she was about you?”
I still remember the sting of Meryl Fosse’s rejection when I invited her to come to Curated.“The best lives aren’t Curated, Ms. Priest. They’re lived. What you’re selling is too perfect. Too ... fake.”
Fake. God, the word still has the ability to make me want to break out in hives.
I’m not fake. My life isn’t fake. It’s real, I swear it. And it’s definitely not perfect, even if I can’t post fun pictures of my rambunctious family using the hashtag #LifeIsMessy.
Meryl Fosse, a third-generation Fosse who still has all the money from her forebears, runs a charity for at-risk youth. Her husband and children often accompany her to events, and I have to admit I’ve spent way more time looking at pictures of her social media accounts than I should. She’s one woman who seems like she has it all. So, of course, because we move in similar circles, I reached out to her to see if she’d like to come to Curated.
That’s when she burned me with her low opinion of what I do.
“I hope you find meaning in your life, Scarlett. Because otherwise, what’s the point?”
I want to write her off as a bitch, but I can’t. Something about the self-possessed way she moves and her absolute certainty about what matters in her life is mesmerizing. That, and the fact that no one else has ever been bold enough to say something like that to my face. Except, she wasn’t mean about it. Just ... dismissive. And it freaking eats at me.