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But after I see her walking across the living room, I become more than an asshole.
I become something more along the lines of… a predator.
Because I’m gonna do it. There’s just no way I can’t. I’m gonna make sure I see her again so I can do all those things I fantasized about last night.
Maybe even more than once.
CHAPTER SEVEN – ARIA
I wake up on Sunday feeling no different than I did last night.
But you’re eighteen, Aria!
Hmmmm… nope. No different. Two nights. I’ve been here two nights and the only place I’ve gone is the co-op—secretly hoping to bump into Ryker, even though I’m pretty sure he never wants to see my face again—and the burger place half a block down on State Street.
I chatted with friends online and grammed my new place. But everybody knows I’m just cat-sitting for my sister and no one is impressed.
Ryker’s name never comes up in those convos. In fact, even though he got me all hot that night, the vibrator did the trick for me. Inviting him over was a stupid thing to do. I have a class starting on Monday. I’m going to meet college boys. I might even like one and go on coffee dates.
I’m pretty sure that’s gonna happen. I can feel it. Something exciting is gonna come out of this little city vacation and then when I get back to school in two weeks I’ll have all kinds of amazing stories to tell my friends and hey, maybe I’ll even keep in touch with that boy I know I’m gonna meet on campus tomorrow.
But the main thing is… I’m gonna have stories to tell in school. So maybe I won’t spend the last few weeks of high school being the smart, quiet girl who sits in front for every single class and never goes anywhere on the weekends except home or out with her parents. Maybe I’ll be that girl who stayed at her sister’s apartment in the city for two weeks and went all crazy and wild.
I walk into the lobby of the Corinthian Hotel still smiling about that. It’s ridiculous, I know. But this is what all not-so-popular girls dream about in their senior year. To be somebody people admire and want to hang out with.
My father is holding balloons and my mother is holding a small gift.
“Hi, Mom and Dad!” I say brightly.
“Happy birthday, honey! How was your weekend?” my mother asks. She’s very pretty for a mom. She’s only forty-two and she was just my age when she had my sister. It was totally a shotgun wedding, but no one cared because my father’s family is super-rich and her family wasn’t, so it’s kind of a miracle they’re still together. “Did you do anything exciting?” she asks.
“Nope,” I say. “Just hung out with Felix and ordered a burger from down the block.”
“You have to get out more, honey,” my mom says, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear.
Which I hate, so I swipe her hand away while my father says, “Leave her alone, Doris. She’s not into socializing.”
And he means well, but it kinda hurts. I would like to be outgoing and put myself out there. I would like to be a socializer. I’m just… not.
My father is older than her by fourteen years. Which is something I don’t think about much except… Ryker. That reminds me of him and how he’s practically old enough to be my father.
OMG. What if he’s the same age as my mom?
I giggle to myself, then play it off like I’m excited about the balloons and the gift as we’re led to our table for high tea.
I love high tea. And after this we’re going to a show together. I love musicals. We used to go a lot because April was always in the theatre club in high school but kinda grew out of it since she left home.
After we’re seated and we make our selections for tea and finger food, my mother hands me the gift. “Open it,” she says.
Even though my parents are loaded we only get one gift for our birthday from the both of them, and then two each on Christmas. Which sounds stingy, but isn’t, because their gifts are always huge.
Like April’s apartment. She got that the first Christmas she was in college as a reward for getting straight A’s that semester.
So I kinda know what I’m getting. A car, of course. And inside this little box is a key fob. And outside in the parking lot—or maybe waiting in the driveway at home, since my father probably wouldn’t want me driving in the city—is a shiny car. Probably something practical, like a Volvo. But maybe, possibly it’s a little convertible? Wouldn’t that be amazing?
I’m so sure of this that I’m already squealing when I lift the lid off and find… “A diamond ring?” I say, lifting it out.
