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Ah. The best friend. Orlando sat up a little straighter, curious. He hadn’t given Brooke his number.
“Is everything okay with Juliet?” The words popped out of his mouth before he could stop them, because that was his first concern—his first worry about why Brooke might be contacting him. She hadn’t given any indication of wanting to get to know him yesterday, she’d barely acknowledged his presence any more than Juliet had.
“Hm… interesting that your first thought goes to her. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you, you should go to Black Light tonight.”
“What?” He felt like he had conversational whiplash. He wasn’t sure where that had come from, but he would have never been able to guess that’s what she would say to him. Something pinged in his brain. “I do not want to see Juliet there with her new boyfriend, if that’s what you’re trying to set up.”
“Juliet doesn’t have a boyfriend, she broke up with him this morning. Be at Black Light tonight. But only if you meant what you said to her yesterday. Otherwise, fuck off, cuz if you hurt her again, I’ll be the one doing the knife play onyourass.” Brooke hung up the phone before Orlando could respond—not that he had the brain power to formulate a response at the moment.
Juliet didn’t have a boyfriend?
What the fuck had happened between yesterday and this afternoon to cause that?!
Orlando’s hand dropped to his side, still clutching his phone, as his mind raced. Something big had gone down last night. Everyone had loved London. There was no good reason for them to have broken up and for Juliet to be headed to Black Light tonight unless…
Unless the breakup had something to do with kink.
Unless the breakup had something to do with what Orlando had said to her yesterday.
Fuck.
Was going to Black Light the right move though? After yesterday, he was pretty sure Juliet would reject him out of hand. Yesterday had been the first time a woman had ever said her safe word to him.
But Brooke had called him for a reason. If Juliet’s best friend thought he should be there… well, hopefully she wasn’t setting him up for public humiliation. He didn’t think that would be the case. She was submissive, heavily involved in the scene, and she knew setting up a Dom that way would go poorly for her at Black Light.
Which meant that for some reason she thought Juliet would want him there tonight.
Fuck.
Newly galvanized, Orlando rushed into motion. If he was going to be at Black Light tonight, there were things he needed to do. He had no idea how to prepare. He wished he’d been able to ask Brooke some more questions.
Assumptions he could probably make —
Juliet was going to Black Light to scene rather than observe.
Juliet hadn’t scened since meeting London, which meant she was probably going to have a lot of pent-up needs.
Juliet didn’t know that Brooke was setting them up.
Which meant he was going to have his work cut out for him.
On the other hand… worth it. And showing up tonight would be a good way of proving to Juliet that he would show up. He didn’t think that would be the end of it though—he was going to have to keep showing up if he wanted to convince her that he wasn’t going to ghost her again.
Which he definitely wasn’t.
Even if things didn’t work out —when they didn’t work out —he would be up front with her about it.
One thing he’d realized was that their parents didn’t expect them to act like a happy family. If they noticed that Orlando was only at events Juliet wasn’t, and vice versa, they didn’t say anything. It didn’t seem to bother them. So, if things went sour, they could just go back to that. As long as their parents didn’t know something was going on between them, there was no way for their relationship to affect their parents.
* * *
Orlando
Black Light was busy, as usual. Sitting at the bar, Orlando watched everyone coming and going. Master Elijah walked by and gave Orlando a cheerful wave, but didn’t veer away from the direction he was headed in, clearly on a mission.
Orlando hadn’t called any of his friends to let them know he’d be there that evening. He wanted to be completely focused on Juliet. Also, if he was being honest, he didn’t want any of them there to witness the very real possibility of a thorough rejection.
He’d never told anyone about his feelings for Juliet.
