The First Taste (Slip of the Tongue #2) - Jessica Hawkins Page 0,55

she’s probably right.

“Really?” Howie asks, shrugging. “I’m pretty sure it is.”

We laugh, and Sadie seems to notice Andrew then. She looks over my head. “Feeling better?”

“Not really,” he responds.

“Where were you guys?” Sadie cocks her head at me. “Nathan tried calling.”

“We weren’t together,” I say. I don’t want to lie to her, but it doesn’t feel like the right moment to announce her brother had me bent over a desk upstairs.

“I know.” Sadie squints at me. “I didn’t mean you were.”

I touch my stomach. “I think I have food poisoning.”

“Geez,” Sadie says. “You and Andrew?”

Nathan snorts, and I glance at him quickly. “Must’ve been the chicken,” he says wryly.

“Or the Glenlivet,” Sadie jokes. “Do you feel well enough to stay?”

Food poisoning or not, my stomach aches. I should’ve been here. I should not have let my love life, if I can call it that, get in the way of what’s important. I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

“No reason to stay if you don’t feel well,” Sadie says, and her kindness only makes me feel worse.

“I’ll walk you out,” Andrew volunteers. “I should take off too.”

“No,” Sadie says, any sympathy in her voice gone. She nods discreetly at the other side of the table. “What about Mindy?”

“Shit,” Andrew says. “I forgot.”

“You’ve barely spoken to her all night,” Sadie says.

“Well . . .” Andrew lays a hand on her shoulder. “That’s because my mind is on someone else, sis.”

I open my mouth to interject before he can out us, but Sadie beats me to it. “For the last time, Bell . . . doesn’t . . . count.”

“Oh. Got it.” Andrew winks, his dimples deepening with a grin that’s just for me, and my heart skips. Fuck—I’m in trouble. I don’t want a skipping heart. Missing tonight is a wake-up call. I’ve let myself get too wrapped up in a man I barely know—but it doesn’t even matter how well I know him. I can’t get wrapped up in anyone—period. “No need to walk me out,” I say, tucking my clutch under my arm. “I’m a big girl.”

“I know you are,” Andrew says slowly, “but I’m leaving anyway.”

“I’ll get Mindy,” Sadie says. “You can share a cab.”

“Won’t that look bad?” he asks. “If everyone from the firm gets up and leaves right after you win the award?”

“Yes, it will,” I say. “You guys stay. Otherwise, I will.”

“No, no. Go, Amelia,” Sadie says. She bites her thumbnail and looks at Andrew. “If you really don’t feel well—”

“I don’t.” He kisses her on the cheek and looks to me. “Wait there. Let me say goodnight to Mandy.”

“Mindy,” Sadie and I say in unison.

“Right.” Andrew shakes Nathan’s hand, then leans over to Mindy to tell her something. They look good together. His olive skin matches her golden tan better than my nearly translucent white skin. Our differences are stark, but as much as I want to deny it, we look good together too. So good that I want to smile, and that’s a bad sign.

I don’t wait for Andrew. I pick up the award and slip out when his back is turned. As I cross the lobby toward the exit, I hear the quick, solid footsteps behind me. I’m at a disadvantage in my sky-high heels.

“Amelia, wait,” Andrew says.

I turn around. “I wasn’t lying before—”

He holds two plates of cheesecake. “Swiped these from the dessert cart.”

I eye the cheesecake topped with raspberry sauce. “I really don’t feel well,” I say. “I’m sorry about the room. I’ll pay my half.”

He reads me like a book. “Bullshit,” he says. “Twenty minutes ago, I was fucking your brains out. You feel fine.”

I flush, touching my hair. The back of my neck is clammy. “I’m still leaving.”

“What’s this about?” he asks. “Mindy? I told you, I was tricked into bringing her. I’m not interested.”

“It doesn’t matter if you are,” I say, drawing back. The edges of the award cut into my palm. “Even if I were jealous, I wouldn’t have any right to be.”

His eyebrows shoot up, and his concerned expression eases into a slow smile. He takes a step closer to me. I want to step back. I need to. But I don’t. “Are you?” he asks, his voice low, “jealous?”

I square my shoulders. “No.”

“You’re sure? Because I wouldn’t mind if you were. If you’d shown up with a date tonight, I would’ve been.”

He only says it to get me to go upstairs with him, yet it still makes me want to smile. “If that’s true,