Page 50 of Heartstruck at Dawn
“I do, but I can’t light you up in here. It’s best to wait until you get to the party.”
“Boring!” Sophie replied with a giggle.
“Hey mate, could I pinch a fag?” Nathan said behind me, greeting Caleb with a firm handshake. He looked quizzically at Nathan, and I burst out laughing.
“What?” Nathan chuckled.
“We said we were going to speak English.” I teased.
He pinched my waist lightly and rephrased, looking at me, “Caleb, can I have a cigarette, please?”
I laughed again.
By context, I’d assumed that’s what he wanted, but Caleb’s puzzled face was priceless. He took out yetanothercigarette and gave it to Nathan. He walked away immediately after that.
We all stepped out of the building and saw Big Mike (that’s what the guys called him) standing beside a black town car. Our SUV was parked behind it, and David had the engine going.
“Hey, Mike,” I greeted him.God,he’s scary.
“Good evening, Miss Murphy.”
Caleb’s mouth twitched. I guess that was his newest version of a smile. He approached me again and said, “You’re riding with Mike tonight. Both to and from the party. It’s your father’s orders. We’ll take the rest of your friends in the SUV.”
“What? Why?” I complained. “What if you or Aaron ride with Mike? I swear I’ll let him drive me back home after the party. Come on, Caleb. I really want to be with my friends. They leave in a couple of days. We’re having fun,” I said with an exaggerated sad face.
Caleb scratched his face and said something to Aaron in Hebrew with a snippy tone. Aaron didn’t seem happy either. “You’re going to get us fired,” he whispered and got in the front seat of the SUV. Aaron got in the car with Big Mike.
Yay!
Tobias and Cecile stepped into the last row of the SUV. Sophie and I sat in between Ren and Nathan. It was a group date, but we all knew who we were walking into the party with.
Sophie talked to Ren most of the way there, which I thought was perfect. Tobias kept making Cecile laugh, even though she was trying to act like she didn’t care for him. Somehow the scene felt familiar.
We were so cramped up in the car, and it was inevitable for me and Nathan to find ourselves too close to one another the entire way there. He’d placed his cigarette behind his ear. “Do you smoke?” I asked him.
“Sometimes, when I drink. But not really.”
I knew I asked Caleb for a cigarette, and Nathan probably thought I smoked because of it, but I was glad he wasn’t a regular smoker.
Sophie then told me in French that she’d found Ren cute. Cecile agreed with Sophie as she joined in the conversation. Tobias went nuts.
“God, that is so sexy,” he said, closing his eyes for a couple of seconds. “Is there anything hotter than a French girl?”
“Hey!” I complained. Tobias laughed at my discomfort. Ugh.
“American girls are my favorite,” Nathan whispered to my ear.
Nope,nope,nope.Not blushing.I took a deep breath instead to drive the blood away from my face. He probably sensed that his remark made me nervous because he changed the subject.
“So, how many languages do you have up your sleeve?” He raised his brow with a teasing smile.
“Just French and Spanish.” I bumped my shoulder against his. “My mother was Spanish. And I learned French when I lived in Paris,” I explained. “I heard you speaking Swedish. Did you live in Sweden?” I could feel the subtle spin of the tequila swaying inside me, even more so inside the car.
“We moved to Sweden when I was about five or six years old for my father’s work. I basically grew up there and went to school with the Sjöbergs. Joel and I became great friends. But I moved back to London for college. And then I got a job in New York, and Joel was already living here. I was then transferred back to London for a while, and now they sent me back here.”
“So, you’ve worked in the same firm all this time?”
“Exactly. It’s an English firm, but besides the London headquarters, there’s the New York office and another in Delhi.”
