Page 53 of Change My Mind
Rachel rolled her lips together, slowly nodding her head as she thought about her next words.
“Fine. I’ll drop it. I’m here to talk if you ever need it.”
“Same.” Rachel looked back at me. “Are we okay?”
She wrapped an arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple. “Of course we are, Ads. You’re a grown woman, I’m a grown woman, we’re allowed to question each other’s choices.But at the end of the day, it’s your life. It’s my life. We have to live with the consequences. Ain’t nothing the other one can do about it.”
A bartender finally showed up.
I was backat the bar, pressed up against Rachel, pretending that we weren’t being leered at by two men at the other end as we tried to get a drink, when I felt a solid presence at my back. I knew it was Eli because it felt like stepping into a forest. One of his hands settled on my hip, and he dipped his head to speak in my ear.
“Hey, you.”
I tried to suppress the shiver that ran through me. “Hey, yourself. How was work?”
Rachel scoffed as she turned to look at us—mostly Eli. “Can you see if you can flag the bartender down? Apparently, the fact that we both keep near flashing this man is not making him want to serve us, and I need tequila,” Rachel said.
Eli whistled. And within two seconds, the bartender we had spent the last five minutes trying to get to look at us came over.
“What can I get you, mate?” the bartender asked.
“Twelve shots of tequila,” Eli answered. The bartender nodded and turned away to rack up our shots while Rachel muttered ‘unbelievable’ to herself.
A few minutes later, a tray of tequila was presented to us, and Rachel took them back to our table after paying. I moved to follow, but Eli pulled me back. I fell back against him easily.
“Guess what I got today?”
He didn’t wait for me to respond before he held his phone up. I skimmed the email he was showing me and turned around.
“Then I guess the question is, are you comfortable ditching the condoms?”
Eli’s mouth quirked up in a smile. “No, the real question is, when do you think the best time would be to—” He cut himself off. I looked around to see what might have spooked him, only to be immediately greeted by my sister.
Eli’s hand dropped away from my hip. I shouldn’t have felt the loss of his touch so acutely, but I did.
Clara smirked, her eyes bouncing between me and the man behind me. “Hi, Eli. Addie, come dance.”
Clara grabbed my hand and dragged me towards the dance floor before I could even attempt to answer.
Thirty-Four
ADDIE
Eli was watching me. He was talking to Jesse and Lucy, but his eyes kept glancing towards where Becky, Clara, and I were dancing.
It was because he was watching me so intently that I noticed the way his jaw clenched and his shoulders drew back. I turned around to find one of the guys who had been leering at me and Rachel earlier so close that I almost knocked my head against his.
“You alright there, hot stuff?” he asked as one of his hands reached out to grab me. I stumbled backwards into another body. This one, I knew. I sank back into him as an arm wrapped around my waist. His fingers slipped under the hem of my top, and heat spread through my body.
The man opposite me physically recoiled at the sight of Eli.
“Sorry, man, didn’t realise she was taken,” he said, looking solely at Eli like I ceased to exist now that a bigger man had staked his claim on me.
“Just leave,” Eli replied. His voice was husky. He kept his tight hold on me as we watched the man walk towards the bar. I did a quick sweep to see if I could spot Rachel, as she might have been his next target, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“You okay?” Eli asked, his chest rumbling against my back as his lips brushed against my ear. I shivered against him and felt his smile against my neck.
“Just peachy,” I said. My voice was barely above a whisper, and maybe that was for the best because when was the last time I said something was ‘just peachy’?
