Page 8 of Exrated
Exhaling, I turn to face him, and well, I can’t form words. Now that we’re off the dancefloor and in the light of the bar, I can really see him, and he’s somehow even more fucking gorgeous than I remember. Half Lebanese and American—that mixture is nothing short of exotic. He wasthatguy in high school that all the girls fawned over, but I don’t even know that he noticed because he was always mine. Always. I swallow in an attempt to force my heart out of my throat. I don’t know what’s worse right now, the fact that I was slut dropping on him like that, or the fact that it felt so damn good.
“What…” I shake my head and shrug. “I mean, what are you doing here?”
“Uh, well I live here…”
“In LA?” I pause. He bites down on his lip, and I notice a glint.He got his lip pierced?“You live in California? In LA?” I ask.
“Yeah…” he laughs and fuck him for those dimples that just popped out and those eyelashes that are so thick they mimic eyeliner.
Shocked doesn’t cover this. The last time I spoke to Tyler, he was in New York. Hell, the last time I stalked his Facebook—because yes I do that every so often—he wasstillthere. And here I stand, staring into the eyes of the boy who used to be my world. We grew up next door to each other. He was my first crush, my first kiss, and as clichéas it is, we lost our virginity to each other. And out of all the firsts I had with Tyler, the one that is the most salient in my mind is that he was my first broken heart. He crushed me. He had a full paid scholarship to NYU, so I can’t fault him for moving, but what we had wasn’t just some normal love—it was an epic love. And epic loves should stand the test of time, but ours didn’t.We didn’t fight for it, we just let it go because six months after he left we broke up and shortly after that he had a new girlfriend while I was still trying to pick up the pieces of my shattered heart. The hardest part of it all was thatthroughout my life, if nothing else, I had him, and then one day, I didn’t.
“It’s good to see you,” he says, blatantly dragging his eyes over me. His gaze stops on my exposed legs before lifting to my face. He smirks. “Damn,” he says. “You’re fucking gorgeous.”
That angry part of me wants to shove a middle finger in his face and tell him to fuck off, the hurt side still wants him, and that drunk side wants revenge. I swallow. “Thanks,” I say as I turn back to the bar.
“What do you want to drink?”
“I got it.”
“Yeah, yeah. What do you want to drink?”
“Tequila.”
“Youwant tequila? What happened to vodka?”
“Tastes change.”
“Sometaste…” he says, grinning as he steps up to the bar.
“You really think you’re gonna get the bartenders attention before—”
“The regular?” the bartender asks.
Here I am with my tits basically out, and Tyler takes one step toward the bar and gets his order taken.
“Yeah, and a tequila shot. Thanks, Will.” He glances down at me with a shit-eating grin on his face. “What was that you were saying, I wouldn’t what?”
I roll my eyes. “A regular at a night club. Wouldn’t be a drunk would you?”
“Nah, not at all.”
Within seconds, he’s handing me a shot glass. I tip the tequila back, and it burns on the way down. My eyes water from the sting as I fight back a cough. “Thanks for the shot,” I say turning to walk away.
“Hey, where you going, titch?” Tyler grabs onto my arm.
Fuck. My heart just did that stupid flutter thing and sank to the pit of my stomach. Titch. That’s what he’s called me since we were kids because he said it’s what they call small people in England. I hated that name, but grew to love it.
“You here with someone?” he asks.
“My friend.”
He nods.
“I gotta…” I rip my hand out of his hold, and he narrows his gaze on me. “I gotta, you know, get back over there before she starts to worry.”
“Don’t wanna catch up?”
Oh, fuck you.“Not much to catch up on,” I say.
