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“I can see the wheels turning in your head,” Chloe observed. “I know you’re not usually one to jump into a situation without thinking it through, so I get it, but consider this … The more you try to make him off limits, the more tempting he is. Maybe, instead of fighting the attraction we know you have for him, you should just let him take you to bed and get it out of your system.”
Eloise opened her mouth to object before slowly closing it again as the idea began to take root. It wasn’t something her mother would ever have approved of, but it did have a certain appeal. Not that she had to jump into bed with him, of course. Surely, just spending more time in his company would be enough to rid her of this fascination. Men tended to reveal their worst selves pretty quickly, and it wouldn’t take long for his irritating habits and demanding ways to take some of the shine off of his physical appearance.
“Chloe has a point.” Sarah was already looking around, joining Chloe’s hunt for their missing waiter, but she paused long enough to pin Eloise with a stern look. “Think about it, okay?”
Eloise found that she couldn’t think of anything else as the meal progressed. She was lost in thought as they left the restaurant and barely remembered the conversation where they all decided to stay at her house that night, hoping to get a glimpse of the mystery man that was causing her so much trouble. They were disappointed when they got to Eloise’s house—tumbling out of an Uber to giggle and shush each other in the driveway—to find out he wasn’t home.
“I can’t believe he’s not here.” Sarah was already rummaging through Eloise’s kitchen drawers for a corkscrew, bottle of white wine in hand.
Kim had gone straight to the pantry and now was trying to hit the popcorn button on the microwave with one eye closed. She had started leaning precariously to the left but she was determined. “He probably would have been asleep anyway.”
Chloe had gone straight to the bathroom to change and emerged with her hair in a loose bun and dressed in Eloise’s pajamas. She headed straight for the couch, reaching for the remote as she tried to peek out the living room windows. “If he’s not here now, that just means he has to come back sometime, right?”
Sarah finished unscrewing the wine and started pouring it into glasses. “Right.”
They were still awake, wine drunk and laughing at the romcom playing on the TV, when he came back hours later. Everyone rushed to the window, all peering out at him with bleary eyes as he parked the bike and turned toward the front door.
Sarah whistled softly. “Tall, tattooed, and very hot? I’d let that man dick me down in a heartbeat.”
Eloise choked on her wine. “Sarah!”
He stopped suddenly, narrowing his eyes as he stared at the window, and they all squealed and ducked down. Eloise was the first one to have the nerve to peek back above the sill, her heart hammering with a mix of humiliation and thrill. He was still standing in the same place, waiting. When he spotted her again, he winked, not at all bothered.
She wished the floor would open up and swallow her.
* * *
Her head was pounding when she woke the next morning, bright light streaming in through the window announcing that she had slept in far too late. An unfamiliar weight on her legs had her lifting one eye open cautiously, but it was just Chloe, sleeping sideways across the foot of her bed, arms thrown wide, and face pressed heavily into a stolen couch pillow.
Eloise winced as bits of last night’s memories flitted across her mind. Ethan had caught her—them, all of them—staring at him at 3 am. He had winked at her, that smile that made her knees unsteady and her pulse hammer flashing languidly at her in the darkness.
She wiggled out from under Chloe, whose right arm had been thrown haphazardly over her face, and wandered downstairs. She found her phone on the floor of the hallway, a new voicemail from that morning, reminding her that she was overdue to call her mother. “Eloise, are you ever going to pick up this phone when I call …” She deleted it, ignoring the guilt that twisted hard in her stomach. Dealing with that would have to wait until later, when she wasn’t hung over.
She’d moved a thousand miles away, traded in hard northern winters for sweltering southern summers, and the sound of mother’s voice always sucked her right back in. She was ten again every single time and there was no escape. It was hard enough to deal with without a dry mouth and a headache hammering away behind her eyes.
The kitchen counter was littered with empty glasses and several open wine bottles, and she shook her head a little when she found Kim curled up on her couch, one foot peeking out from under the living room’s throw blanket and snoring softly.
She checked the rest of the downstairs—the bathroom, the little reading nook with built-in bookshelves—but there was no sign of Sarah.
The porch creaked under Eloise’s feet as she stepped out, glancing around to search the yard and finding Sarah sitting on the porch step with a bottle of water in her hands.
Sarah glanced over her shoulder with a wide smile when she heard the front door open. “Finally! I thought you were never going to wake up.”
“Is everything okay?” Eloise wrapped her arms protectively around her middle and glanced nervously at Ethan’s house. He’d gotten home late, and was likely still asleep, but she felt exposed with her unbrushed hair and baggy pajamas.
“I’m fine. Just had a few words already this morning with your neighbor’s big, broody friend. Dylan? He was out here at an indecent hour with that bike of his, trying to wake the neighborhood.”
Eloise narrowed her eyes. “He didn’t give you a hard time, did he?”
Sarah shook her head, lips twitching. “I don’t think he quite knew what to make of me, so he left.”
“Good.”
“But not before he hit on me,” Sarah said with a laugh, her eyes full of mischief. “He’s cute, maybe I shouldn’t have run him off.”
“There’s something off about him,” Eloise cautioned. “Apart from what Ethan said, he gives me the creeps.”
“But he’s hot,” Sarah said, her grin entirely too wild for that early in the morning, even one without drunken antics the night before.
