How I’d fucking love to push my hand under her dress. I want to watch her bite her lip and get embarrassed when she can’t avoid coming on my fingers. I bet it wouldn’t take much.
We’ll get to that point. But not yet.
Instead, I push my soda in her direction. It’s filled with crushed ice and will help with the fire in her throat. She throws me a grateful look and takes a sip with no clue that I’m thinking her next taste of whiskey ought to be the one I spit into her mouth.
“Do me a favor,” she says when she’s able to talk again.
I’ll do anything she asks. “Name it.”
Cecilia pulls out her phone and holds it up. “Say cheese.”
Okay, I lied. I won’t be doing that shit.
I sit back, cross my arms over my chest and glare into the phone’s camera lens. I’m about as fond of getting my picture taken as I am of shoveling a hill of manure.
Cecilia snaps the photo anyway. She lowers the phone and smiles at her handiwork. She turns it around for me to see.
My resemblance to Getty is strong in this snapshot. I look like I’m plotting the cleanest way to whittle an enemy’s heart out of his chest.
“She’ll love it,” Cecilia says and starts tapping a message with her thumbs.
“Who?”
“Alice. She begged for a picture of you.” Cecilia finishes typing and returns the phone to her handbag. “She’s my best friend. I can’t remember if I’ve told you about her.”
Alice would be Alice Dreyfus. Cecilia’s roommate for all four years at Arizona State. She was once arrested for running onto a baseball field in the middle of a game while wearing an inflatable unicorn costume. The charges were dismissed. She now teaches fifth grade in a suburb west of Phoenix and is Cecilia’s only close friend.
But none of these details came from Cecilia so I can’t reveal them.
“I think you might have mentioned her,” I say. “Why does your best friend want to see a picture of me?”
“Oh, she was just curious.” Cecilia fidgets and drinks more beer, suddenly too nervous to look me in the eye. “I mean, I told her about you. Not just you. I told her about all of you. And the ranch. And, you know, everything.”
She’s adorable when she babbles.
“Then shouldn’t you take pictures of my brothers too? I can call them over here.”
She looks behind her and sees Fort sitting at a nearby table and getting slobbered on by two girls at the same time. Tye is loudly ordering more drinks with his arm slung over the shoulders of the girl he’s been making out with.
“They look busy,” she says. “And it seems like one of them already escaped.”
“Getty didn’t escape. Look to your right. He’s giving lessons over at the pool table.”
More accurately, he’s bent over the table and pressing into the ass of a cute blonde who giggles the entire time as he guides her hands on the cue stick.
Cecilia takes note and raises her eyebrows. “You’re good at keeping tabs on them.”
“I’ve had a lot of experience.”
“I know.” She nods. “You were always the captain of the crew.”
“Still am. Can’t really run from your birthright.”
“Not even when you try.” She winces. “I tried. I wasn’t allowed. My grandfather was always watching and interfering and getting Angelo to do his dirty work. I didn’t even know. Why didn’t I know? I was kidding myself, thinking I was on my own. They’ll never let that happen.”
Maybe the alcohol is responsible for loosening her tongue. I wasn’t joking when I warned what a straight shot of whiskey will do to a girl who can’t even finish a glass of wine.
Cecilia rubs a hand across her forehead. The shoulder of her dress drops another inch. Dirty thoughts gallop through my mind.
