I’ve got a million retorts on the tip of my tongue, but Cam is Z’s friend. She’s loyal to him. And she’s already stretched that loyalty by telling me about the bet in the first place. No need to make her feel any more uncomfortable than she already does.
“It’s no big deal,” I force myself to tell her. “But thanks for the heads-up. I appreciate it.”
She searches my face for a few seconds, and I make sure I’ve got my mask firmly in place. Good thing I’ve had a lot of practice using it over the last year, because it seems to fool her.
But before she can say anything else, the guys spot us and walk on over. “Ready for ice cream?” Luc asks, casually draping an arm around Cam’s shoulder.
She leans into him with a grin. “Are you buying?”
“I am,” Z answers. “I figure I owe you since I kept you all waiting around that damn clinic for hours this afternoon.”
“You didn’t keep me waiting,” I tell him.
He grins at me. “Yeah, but you’re new to Park City. You can consider it a welcome-to-Utah present.”
More like an I-want-to-fuck-you present. As if. I haven’t slept with anyone since Remi and I’m sure as hell not about to start with some punk-ass snowboarder who thinks he’s God’s gift. I eye him up and down. “Funny, you don’t look like the Welcome Wagon.”
“Oh, but he is,” Ash says on a laugh. “Trust me on that one.”
“Yeah,” Luc adds. “Z’s got a whole lot of welcome in him.”
“So I hear,” I answer with a smirk.
Cam chokes on her own spit, then glares at me as Luc pounds on her back. But I just smile benignly. After all, two can play Z’s game, and it’s about time he knows it.
Chapter 5
Z
Ophelia really likes ice cream. I mean, she really likes it.
That, or she’s just trying to torture the shit out of me, which I totally wouldn’t put past her. But I’m not the only one aware of how she’s eating her damn cone—one slow, lingering lick at a time. Ash is practically spellbound by her little pink tongue and the crazy wicked things she’s doing with it, while Luc is doing everything he can not to look at her, which only makes it more obvious that he’s aware of what’s going on.
Part of me wants to punch the shit out of my friends for what they’re thinking, but how can I when I’m thinking exactly the same thing? Especially when I’m the one who bet I’d have her in bed by next weekend.
At the time, it was pure self-preservation—no way could I keep standing there while the three of them looked at me like I was one step away from being a basket case—but still, betting I could fuck Ophelia? That’s low, even for me.
Then again, what she’s doing right now is just as low considering she has no intention of sleeping with me tonight—she’s been throwing out hands-off vibes since she ran into me at the clinic. Which makes the fact that she’s all but giving that fucking ice cream cone a fucking blow job even worse. Because even though I know I’m not going to get any action tonight, at least from her, my cock can’t help but fucking respond to every flick of her tongue.
I’ve given her space all evening, partly because I feel guilty because of that stupid bet and partly because I still intend to win it. Not just because I have no intention of losing my freaking Landlord but because after spending the last few hours with Ophelia, I want her more than ever.
At first she was nothing more than a distraction. Then she was a challenge. Now … now she’s still a challenge, but she’s something else, too. Something more. The thought has me shifting uncomfortably in my chair. I never do more. I never even want more. It’s crazy to think that any of that might change just because some pretty girl with a peaches-and-cream accent dumped a fucking drink down my pants.
“You ready to go?” I demand, more harshly and loudly than I probably need to. But I can’t help it. If I have to sit here and watch Ophelia do obscene things to that scoop of chocolate cherry ice cream for one more second, I’m going to say to hell with space and drag her very sexy ass onto my lap so I can do some obscene things of my own.
“Yeah, sure.” Ash shoves his chair back from the table like he’s been searching for a reason to get the hell out of Dodge. Not that I blame the guy. The last half hour can’t exactly have been fun for him. Not with the way Luc is making goo-goo eyes at Cam, who keeps glancing at me from under her lashes while I lust after Ophelia, who is doing a damn good impression of giving head to an ice cream cone. Ash probably feels like he’s fallen down a fucking rabbit hole—of the pornographic kind.
“But I’m not done with my ice cream,” Ophelia complains.
“Yeah, you are.” I snatch the cone out of her hand and dump it into the nearest trash can. It’s one thing for her to eat the thing like that in here, where we’re the only customers. There’s no way I’m taking her out on the street with it, where every asshole tourist in Park City can imagine exactly what I’ve spent the last thirty minutes thinking about.
“So much for the Welcome Wagon,” Luc mutters, but Ophelia doesn’t object about the lost cone. Instead, she just looks at me, her big green eyes so innocent that I know—I know—she’s screwing with me. She’s been playing me from the second she came back from the bathroom tonight, messing with my head just because she can.
Which somehow only makes me hotter.
Not that I have any intention of letting her know that.
I’ve been desperate for a distraction for two days. Desperate for something, anything, to hold back all the bullshit tumbling around inside me. So far, meeting Ophelia has done a pretty decent job of it. Which means it’s time to take things to the next level. Time to—
I catch sight of a mom and a little girl walking through the door of the ice-cream shop and freeze in the middle of pushing back from the table. The girl, maybe six or seven, has long black hair, big blue eyes, and cheeks rosy from the cold. One of her hands clutches her mother’s, while the other holds a ragtag stuffed rabbit that has definitely seen better days.
Oh, shit. Oh, shit. She looks just like April. Her hair, her eyes, her smile. Even her damn purple jacket looks the same.
I turn away, just in time to realize that Cam has seen the girl, too. I can tell by the way her eyes widen and dart back and forth between the girl and me. By the way she grabs Luc and wrenches him to his feet. By the way her voice sounds all wrong when she says, “Time to go.”
Then again, maybe it’s my ears and not her voice. God knows, everything feels off inside me, the pressure building up where no one can see. Just like last night, only worse. So much worse. Because tonight I’m shaking apart, ripping at the seams until the jumbled mess inside me is even more mixed up. I’m shredded all over again.
And because of what? A morbid anniversary that I shouldn’t bother remembering and a little girl and her damn stuffed rabbit.
It’s ridiculous. Humiliating. And at the moment I couldn’t care less.
I head for the door at the closest I can get to a run, brushing past the girl and her mom without so much as an Excuse me or a Fuck you. I’m sure I look like a total pussy to everyone—Z, cracking under the pressure—but right now that doesn’t matter. Nothing does but getting out of here.
I hit the nearly deserted street and start walking, barely aware of the fact that the others are trailing me down the sidewalk. I’m pissed—at life, at the universe, at that damn little girl even though none of this is her fault.
It’s my fault. It’s always been my fault. Trying to blame someone else won’t change anything.