Shut Up and Kiss Me (9 page)

It was my turn to sigh. Forcing another smile, I headed back out into the dining room, and back to the…bitch. Fifteen minutes and no tip later, I was closing down my section, hurriedly sweeping then refilling the salt and pepper shakers.

I was still sighing, feeling dead on my feet, when I went to cash out and run my receipts.

“
Manhattan?” Josephine called out from behind the bar.

Untying my apron and tossing it aside, I slid into the stool beside Nikki and mimed choking the air in front of me. “Yes, please,” I muttered.

“
She looked fun,” Nikki quipped. “Don’t you just love that ‘the customer is always right’ bullshit?”

“
It has to be better where you work,” I groaned. “How many complaints do you get in one day? It can’t be nearly as many as me.”

Nikki’s mouth fell open. “Are you insane? I work in a hotel, Mila. A hotel. They complain about everything. Every damn thing you could think of.”

“
Drink it away, honey,” Josephine said, placing a manhattan on the bar. Turning away, she went back to wiping down the bar and humming under her breath. Josephine was beautiful, and far too good for this place. Her features were perfect: high cheekbones, rosebud lips, and flawless caramel skin. She worked behind the bar here in the evenings while doing odd modeling jobs during the day. Eventually, she was hoping to make it onto Broadway. But this was New York—everyone was trying to catch a break somewhere, or meet their very own Mr. Right. It was part of the charm of the city, I supposed, but people like Josephine and me weren’t the ‘kill or be killed’ sort. We were too nice for our own good, the sort of women that were chewed up and spat back out. The only difference between us was that I didn’t mind being brushed aside by the sweeping fever that ran constantly hot throughout the streets of the city. Josephine, though, she would care.

While looking down at my drink, my thoughts began to drift back to the weekend, and as they had done for the past few days, they drifted off to Will as well. His lips on mine, and his gifted and dexterous hands working my body into a heated frenzy.

“
Seriously?”

Frowning, I glanced over at Nikki. “What?”

“
When exactly did you stop listening to me?” Grinning, she shook her head. “Oh my God, you didn’t hear a thing I said, did you?

Laughing, I shook my head. “No, sorry.”

“
Mila, Mila, Mila,” Nikki tsked. “You have to stop thinking about him.”

“
There’s a
him
?” Josephine paused in her cleaning to waggle her brows at me.

“
Correction,” I said laughing, “there
was
a him, and now there’s just the memory of a him. It was just one night, no big deal.”

Picking up my drink, I changed the subject, trying to appear like it was what I’d said it was: not a big deal. But the truth was…I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. I’d been able to concentrate on very little but Will and our night together. Continuously, he invaded my thoughts, despite every effort I’d made to try and forget him. His hands, his mouth, and his eyes—it wasn’t love at first sight, that would be insane, but he’d flicked a switch on inside of me that I’d never even realized was there before, and now…I wanted more.

I wouldn’t call him—couldn’t call him. The fact that he’d snuck out without waking me made it pretty obvious how he’d felt. The note had been left out of politeness, and I was not going to be
that
girl.

“
No, no, no,” Josephine said, giggling. “You’re not leaving me hangin’, girl. Tell me the whole damn story.”

“
Mila hooked up with someone,” Nikki announced gleefully.

“
Shut up!” I shouted, slapping at her.

“
Mila!” Josephine squealed, jumping up and clapping. “Sweet, shy, little Mila!”

“
Don’t you dare,” I hissed, when Nikki opened her mouth to speak. Shushing her, I turned back to Josephine. “I met a guy,” I said. “It’s no big deal. We had a great night. We shared a thing. It’s done now. No biggie.”

“
They bumped uglies,” Nikki unhelpfully supplied.

“
I hate you,” I groaned. “You’re so vulgar.”

“
Mila!” Josephine squealed again. “Get it, girl!”

“
I’m sorry,” Nikki shot back, “I’ll try to be less vulgar next time. How about ‘Mila hizzit the skizzins’? Or ‘Mila played hide the sausage’? Oh wait, I know! ‘Mila was doing the jiffy stiffy with the man from
doooown
under’!”

“
Mila went and got herself some stankie on the hang down,” Josephine drawled. “She went ridin’ that flagpole, poundin’ the punanni…”

“
Doing the horizontal biblical bop!” Nikki shouted, her shoulders shaking with laugher.

“
Oh my God!” I shrieked, nearly choking on my laugher. “Stop! Please, please, stop! We shared one amazing night, and now we’ve gone our separate ways.”

“
Oh, for the love of…” Nikki huffed in annoyance. “Stop making it sound like
Pretty
Woman
. It was a one-night stand, Mila, and that’s okay. You don’t need to make it out to be any more or less. No one is going to think any less of you.”

“
I still can’t believe you had a one-night stand.” Josephine continued to laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about a man before. And yet here you are all doe-eyed over some guy you picked up at a bar.”

“
I did not pick him up,” I said indignantly.

“
She’s turning into a real hussy, isn’t she?” Nikki jerked her thumb in my direction and shook her head sadly while Josephine fell into a fit of hysterics.

“
What are we laughing about?” Carlos called out. Rounding the bar, he headed for the small beer fridge. Pulling out a bottle of his favorite imported he gave us a questioning glance.

“
Mila got laid,” Josephine said, smiling smugly.

Carlos’s mouth fell open, and his eyes went wide. “You met someone?”

“
Why is this such big news?” I asked, exasperated. “I’m not Mother Theresa!”

“
Because it’s you,” Carlos said. “And you don’t meet men.”

“
It has been a long time, Carlos,” Nikki said, “But you know, she is a woman, and she has needs. Things that need to be scratched and such.”

“
Please stop, Nikki,” I groaned. “Please, you’re killing me here.”

“
It’s okay, we’ve all been there.” Josephine patted my hand gently. “It’s just surprising. I mean, you’re so shy, I didn’t know you could be so…”

“
Slutty?” Nikki finished for her, and then laughed as I glared at her. “Oh, stop that. It’s good. It’s nice to see you letting your hair down for a change.”

“
You don’t deserve a friend like me,” I huffed.

“
You really liked him, huh?”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

That was an understatement if ever there was one. I really,
really
liked him. I liked how he had looked at me, how he had kissed me and made the world fall away. I liked the feel of his hands on my body, but most of all, I loved how he had made me feel about myself.

“
I’m sorry he left without saying goodbye,” Nikki said softly, so only I could hear. “That was a dick move.”

I stared into my drink. “It was a dick move, but he’s a man, and men are dicks, right?” Turning my head, I smiled at Nikki. I didn’t want her to know how I really felt, how much I was actually thinking about him.

“
Have you thought about calling him? He left you his number, right?”

“
He doesn’t want me to call him.”

“
I’m just saying—”

“
I’m not calling him. Him leaving made it very clear that it was a one-night thing. I’d rather not embarrass myself.” I softened my voice, realizing I was being harsh. Nikki meant well, but that was part of the problem: she had meant well when she had told me to go for it and to be free for one night. Yet after sleeping with Will—after spending a night feeling relaxed and at ease with him, and after going through a variety of foreign emotions since then—I now felt more trapped than ever. I felt ridiculous, like a teenager with a crush. And feeling like this couldn’t possibly be healthy for me.

Inching her stool closer to mine, Nikki slung her arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry men suck so much.”

I shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“
Well, someone has to apologize for their existence.”

I grinned. “Maybe their mothers should?”

“
Good luck with that one. But in all seriousness, Mila—you’ve been through so much, you deserve a little happiness. I say go for it.”

My grin slipped away and I glanced off. “I don’t know,” I mumbled.

She was right, I had been through a lot—more than most women my age—and I did deserve some form of happiness. But then, as I turned back to Nikki and thought of our small, chintzy apartment, with its mismatched furniture and cramped bookshelves, I couldn’t hold back my smile. I really was happy, and being happy now despite everything made me appreciate what I had all the more. And while my past was still out there, my future was unhindered and ready for me to take hold of it and make it what I wanted. I just had to be a little braver, like I had been with Will. After all, it had been a year and a half. Maybe it was time to start…living again.

“
Stop worrying about me,” I whispered.

“
Never,” she whispered back.

Later that night, as I slipped into bed and turned off my lamp, I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling, allowing myself to really think about my past for once. To push back against the feelings of fear and foreboding that always came with the memories and simply think about the contrast of my life now compared to then.

Perhaps it wasn’t even Will that I felt so strongly about, but the confident person I had been when I was with him—at least once I’d allowed myself to break the mold I’d built around me. That woman was a stranger to me, and yet there was something about her that felt familiar. Perhaps she was the person I could have become if everything hadn’t happened the way it had.

My hand fell between my legs as I thought about Will’s hands, touching me, making me cry out in pleasure. Nikki was right: I did have needs—needs that I had forgotten about until meeting Will. Needs that, perhaps, I had never really explored before—not really—but now that they’d been ignited, they were flourishing inside of me.

Closing my eyes, I slipped my hand into my underwear, unashamedly thinking of Will as I touched myself. Each stroke of my finger was his, each tremor of pleasure pulled from me was one he was pulling from me. I inhaled the scent of him, still clinging to my pillow, wishing he was there, wishing his lips were on mine, that his body was pressed against me, that my nails were dragging down his muscled back… And as my orgasm gripped me, I imagined he was here, and instead of the darkness, I was staring up into his beautiful blue eyes.

“
Townsend,” Will told the
maître d’. “Elise,” he added, scanning the interior of the restaurant.

Favors was a small café adjacent to one of the leading hotels in the city, as well as a place his mother liked to frequent. It had been exactly a week since he’d seen her last, and he wasn’t about to risk running into the rest of his family at their estate and ruining another perfectly good Sunday. He happened to like his weekends
—
and his weeks
—
scrutiny-free.

The short and slim man behind the podium gave him a sparing glance before returning his gaze to his list. Scanning the paper, the man snapped his finger and a waitress hurriedly appeared at his side.

“Right this way, sir,” she said pleasantly.

Reaching beneath his jacket, Will slipped his hands into his suit pants pockets and followed along behind the waitress until they’d reached a table in the back, directly opposite a wall of glass that allowed patrons to see directly into the hotel’s lobby.