Page 26 of Apparently, I’m A B!tch

Chapter15

Nikki

Sunday evening

Oh wow,that was a complete disaster.

After Uncle Henry and I left Tristan, I clutched his shirt as we walked onto the busy street and waited for a ride. The Uber driver looked me up and down and I let him know what I was covered with was already dry; I wouldn’t ruin his seats.

Sitting in that car, I hugged Tristan’s shirt tight to my chest and leaned back, letting my shoulders drop as I tried to relax.

“Do you still like him, agapi mou?” Uncle Henry’s voice was a soft, gravelly anchor, refusing to let me drift off into a world where I could pretend this afternoon didn’t just happen.

I sat up, straightening my back as I looked at Uncle Henry. “Tristan? I was angry at him before, Theios, but I still like him.”

He smiled and shook his head. “That is not what I mean. I mean, do you like him?”

I pretended to be confused at Uncle Henry’s question. “We were friends for a long time. Why wouldn’t I like him?”

He shook his head and stared straight out of the window. “He is a good man and he deserves a good woman. That should be you.”

I tried to hide my surprise. Uncle Henry thought Tristan and I could… no. Tristan didn’t want me that way, and right now he could barely stand being around me. I couldn’t blame him. He spent years hiding his talent from me because he was worried I’d be too honest and would verbally rip his paintings to shreds. I’ve proven him right once already, and it damaged our friendship.

I probably made all of it worse now, what with ruining his shirt today and embarrassing us the way I did. Oh, and I managed to harass him by pawing his chest like a deranged hormone-driven teen.

Sure, oh yeah, I could definitely see us getting back to our old friendship after that. Even if we somehow overcame this awkwardness between us, even if it was what he wanted, to think of him and I crossing that line and kissing?

It was pathetic enough that it was the thing I fantasized about for years while working with him. To think it could actually happen was insanity.

Day in, day out, opening the shop together, throwing coffee beans at each other in the backroom, eating the entire tray of baklava and telling Uncle Henry we sold them all. Through all of that, all I ever wanted was for him to reach over, pull me close and kiss me.

My face burned and I wanted to groan and bury into the shirt I ruined, but that would be a dead giveaway that I definitely thought my ex-friend-turned-art-teacher was unbelievably hot… I already sniffed it when Uncle Henry wasn’t looking.

I dropped him off and sank back into the car, and now that I was alone, I could let myself replay this embarrassing afternoon through my mind.

He pulled off his shirt in front of me as if he didn’t notice that I was struggling to hold back my drool. I hoped he didn’t notice. What if he did? How much more awkward would it be when I came in every afternoon for my snack?

I sighed and dropped my head back against the car seat. All our years together and I’d never seen him like I did today. Like I suspected, his whole upper body was a mix of taught, lean muscle. He had defined areas of delicious hardness along his darker, tall frame, and was as much a piece of art as the paintings he made. As he pulled on his tee, I had to clutch my fingers into a fist to stop myself from reaching out to touch him.

I bit my lip as I imagined running my fingers along the ridges of muscle, hands smoothing over his hard chest, down his ribs, onto his lower abdomen. A throb pulsed through me, and I wriggled against the seam of my jeans, completely aware of how he turned me on by that simple and innocent strip down, while hoping he was still totally unaware of my lusting over him.

“This you?” the driver asked, stopping by the sidewalk and gesturing to my building. I sat up, nodded and slid out of the car.

After I walked into my cluttered apartment, stepping over pizza boxes and soda bottles, I hung Tristan’s shirt on a hanger and stared at it.

Tonight at dinner, he’d be sitting across from the gorgeous brunette I remember him speaking to earlier this week, probably laughing over the embarrassing customer-slash-student who almost ruined his art class today. They’d live happily ever after, while I griped and moaned about how alone I was without my best friend.

I closed my eyes tight, forced in a deep, slow breath, and yanked off my clothes before heading to the shower.

That was fine, I didn’t care. So what if everyone thought I was a bitch? So what if Kelly and Jake, and even Harvey hated me? So what if Tristan couldn’t be my friend anymore? I couldn’t control how they felt about me, so why bother worrying about it? The only thing I could control was the outcome of my cases.

Harvey challenged me with a case he didn’t think I could win, a sexual harassment crime that was so air-tight, there was no way the defendant would walk away from it without some intense intervention.

But I’d do it. I’d get that win, and I’d see the relief on my client’s face as his accuser was made to face facts.

I’d liberate Kelly from her Harvey-bubble and make her see that her life wasn’t meant to be spent serving a man who didn’t appreciate her. I’d make everyone realize how useless both Harvey and Jake were, and how heavily they relied on the rest of us to get the job done.