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“Oh, come on, she doesn’t need your pity. Trust me.” He makes to leave but I’m smaller, so a lot faster, and block his path.
“She’s not the one I’m pitying, Edward.” He narrows his eyes at me, his smile faltering for a split second before springing back to its default infuriating position. “You play with people as if the only reason they exist is to entertain you. How empty and vapid do you have to be to get off on that?”
“Really fucking empty,” he responds without missing a beat. “But it doesn’t get me off.” His eyes grow cold and a storm starts brewing in them. The chill runs up my arms in a rush of goosebumps and he steps in close to me, sending my battling emotions into overdrive. “I’m more than happy to give you a demonstration of the thing that does, though.”
His voice is a thick, arousing rasp in my ear, hot breath making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. And breathing? My body goes ahead and forgets how to do it completely. All I have is his intoxicating, woody scent seeping into my pores and a deafening heartbeat hammering in my ears. There’s no escape.
And if I have to be honest with myself, even if my feet remembered what they were good for, I wasn’t so sure they’d move away from him. Not with his face this close to mine. Not when all it would take to taste his lips again is for me to tilt my chin, lean in…
In a sea of nameless faces who don’t care about anything other than themselves, it would be so easy to get away with it. To do the thing I most wanted without anyone noticing.
So I tilt my chin. Edward’s head snaps back a fraction of an inch, surprised by the move but not scared off. So I lean in…
“There you are!”
I shrink from Edward like I’ve been zapped with a taser, schooling my features to greet Miranda with the biggest smile. “Here I am,” I say with a nervous laugh.
She’s not alone either, which definitely helps to make the situation a whole lot more of exactly what I was hoping for.
“This is Andy,” she practically puts my hand in his. “He’s got some exciting stuff in the works that I think you’ll want to know about.”
“Miranda can’t shut up about you.” Andy rolls his eyes playfully, and takes back his hand. “I agreed to meet you so that she’ll hopefully change the topic.”
He laughs, Miranda laughs, Edward glowers at them both.
6
Edward
“Is this it?” Doug, my contractor, scratches his head dubiously. “It’s a piece of shit.”
I meet him on the sidewalk, hands in my pockets, as I stare at the community theater Cara’s so hellbent on saving. He’s not wrong. It’s a piece of shit, alright.
“Won’t be for long,” I pat him on the shoulder and motion for him to follow me in. He waves over his guys, too, and we all troop forward like men on a mission.
A shithole in a shithole part of town. No wonder the place is on its last legs. I’m surprised it made it into the twenty-first century at all.
“Location, location, location,” Doug says, circling on the spot in the spacious entrance hall. “This ain’t it, Eddie.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, willing myself to overlook the annoying bastardization of my name yet again.
“It will be after we’re through with it. I’ll have my people vet the renters personally–only high end stores in the mall.” I hold up my hands like a movie camera to help him envision it.
But Doug only shakes his head. “High end? Nobody in this area can afford that.”
“Then low end,” I snap at him. “And we’ll throw in a low-end arcade and a low-end cinema to rake it in. What I’m saying is this…” I go over to him and throw my arm across his shoulders. “...Let’s not get caught up in the weeds when a majestic rain forest is waiting to be discovered.”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my marbles, and I push him away, no longer interested in sharing any kind of space with him. What a waste of a perfect analogy.
“Look, take your guys around and do your damn inspection,” I sigh. “I’ll be inside.”
Doug nods, puts two fingers in his mouth, and lets off an ear-piercing whistle. His guys come to attention like trained attack dogs. If they had them, their pointy ears would be pricked, tails wagging as they await their next instruction.
I leave them to it and amble on through to the theater, hoping to find the person I’m here to piss off. If I play my cards right, we’ll be smack dab in the middle of our usual banter when Doug and his men come in. She’ll ask me what the hell is going on, and I’ll have a front row seat to her face when I break the news.
I stifle the laugh that bubbles up inside me. Because who am I kidding? I always play my cards right and man, I can’t wait to see Cara’s face.
“You’re not allowed to be in here.” Her arms are folded tightly across her chest and she’s eyeing me like some bum who crawled in off the street.
