I had a feeling this night was fixin’ to take a turn for the worse, and I hoped like hell Ellie wasn’t going to be in the cross fire.
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Jeff
Ellie walked up to me and told me she was heading to Gunner’s room to use the restroom. I could feel Rebecca and Crysti staring her down. Bitches.
“I’m going to head over and talk to Gunner. Y’all have some fun.”
Before they could answer me, I walked away. Gunner was giving me that look. The one that said I was walking a thin line and not to fuck things up.
If only he knew.
I slapped him on the back. My buzz was going pretty strong. “So you think my baby sister is having fun at her first college party?”
He shook his head. “Jeff, man, what’s going on with you tonight? You never get wasted like this. You’re leaving me totally responsible for watching your sister and her friends.”
“It looks like Jeff’s little sister’s friends are taking pretty good care of themselves,” Rebecca spat out with a fake laugh.
My breath caught in my throat as Ari made her way over to us. She was out of breath from dancing. Gunner reached into the cooler and handed her a beer.
“Whew! I haven’t danced that much in forever! Where’s Ellie? She needs to get her ass out there and dance with us.” Ari took a drink of the beer but avoided my stare.
Rebecca wrapped her arms around me, and that’s when Ari decided to look. Her heated gaze traveled up and down Rebecca and landed on her arms wrapped around my waist.
“Who’s your friend, dickwad?” Ari asked.
Fucking hell, why did she have to look so damn beautiful? The sheen of sweat covering her body had my own aching to be inside of her. To claim her as mine and make sure every single one of these bastards knew it.
But she wasn’t mine. She could never be.
I cleared my throat. “Rebecca, this is Ellie’s best friend, Squirt. Squirt, this is Rebecca, a friend of mine.” I stressed friend, and I had no idea why. That was a lie. I needed Ari to walk away, and if she thought Rebecca was something more, like a hookup, she wouldn’t want to be around us. The heat from her body was too close to me, confusing me and making my head spin. Ari seemed to have stood a little taller, her eyes locked on mine.
When she finally broke the stare, she turned to Rebecca. “Hello, Jeff’s friend Rebecca. The name is Ari; nice to meet you.”
Ari reached for Rebecca’s hand to shake it, and being the bitch she was, Rebecca looked at it and laughed.
I forced myself to keep smiling, hoping that would make Ari leave, but it didn’t.
Instead, she glanced back out to the dance floor. I hated the idea that she was going to go back out there and rub up against some guy.
When Ari turned back and looked at me, her eyes were begging me for a truce. She chewed on her lip and was about to say something to me. She was going to ask me to dance. I knew it by the look in her eyes. My entire body tensed, and panic set in. If she asked me to dance, I would say yes, and once she was in my arms, I wouldn’t want to let go of her.
I leaned in, like I was about to whisper something to her, but I didn’t whisper it. I said it loud and clear for everyone standing there to hear. “Better be careful dancing like that out there, Squirt. You’re playing with the big boys now. You might lose your V card if you keep dancing like that, honey.”
The moment the words were out, I felt like I was going to throw up. A sickness I’d never felt before settled into the pit of my stomach, and I wanted to throw up.
You motherfucking asshole. God, I hated myself right now. More than I ever had in my entire life. I’d just hurt the only woman I’d ever cared about, and the way she was looking at me felt like a knife in my heart.
I barely registered Rebecca and Crysti laughing. The only thing I could see were the tears slowly forming in her beautiful eyes.
Ari looked at the two bitches and then back to me. Her hurt morphed to anger, and Gunner walked between us as he told the two bitches to knock it off or leave.
I forced the corners of my mouth to rise a little more. Please walk away, Ari. Please just go.
Her shoulders squared off, and she shook her head while she flashed me a smirk. “Fuck you, Jeff. It’s not the first time I’ve played with big boys, and it certainly won’t be the last.”
All the air in my lungs came out in one whoosh. Her comment was meant to hurt me like I had hurt her . . . and it fucking did. The idea that Ari might have already lost her virginity was something I didn’t want to think about. She knew it too by my expression at her comment.
Ari walked over to Jack, the DJ, and asked him to play a song.