way I did last night, and the guy I did it with can’t stand the sight of me and regrets every second of our night together.
But I have time. There’s six days until Slater and Zack’s wedding, which means there’s seven days until Jesse goes back to New York. All I need to do is convince him I’m not the monster he thinks I am.
Almost twenty years of animosity…yeah, that should be pretty easy to undo in a week.
I slide out of bed and scramble around for my clothes, noticing the white t-shirt I’d been wearing last night is now stained with grimy yellowish-green marks. Jesus, I don’t even want to know what could be in that canal water. Pretty sure I swallowed some of it during the whole falling-out-of-the-gondola incident.
There’s no way I can wear this to breakfast with the rest of the group. Guess I’ll have go back to my room and change…
After getting back to my hotel room—the one that’s actually in the same resort the rest of the party are staying in—I grab a quick shower and throw on some jeans and a fresh t-shirt before backtracking to the Venetian to meet the others at the buffet they’ve chosen for breakfast.
“Finally!” Slater exclaims as I approach the table, tossing his head back with an exaggerated sight of relief.
Scanning the table, I realize I’m the last to arrive. Jesse must have come straight here instead of going back to the hotel, although how he managed to find the opportunity to perfectly style his hair along the way, I’ll never know. And, of course, the only available chair is directly opposite my dear husband, who offers me a withering look as I sit. It’s the kind of look that says Say anything, and I’ll castrate you.
“Sorry,” I mumble to Slater, who’s seated on my left. “I overslept.”
“What happened to you guys last night?” Zack asks, craning his head around Slater to flick his gray eyes suspiciously between Jesse and me. “We were worried there might have been a murder.”
“Yeah, if you’re going to kill each other can you at least wait until after the wedding?” Slater says with a wry smile. “No one wants Axel giving a toast. Least of all Axel.”
I roll my eyes. “I appreciate the concern.”
“I don’t know where this one was,” Jesse says smoothly with a jut of his chin in my direction, “but I met someone at one of the clubs.”
“Oh, that’s awesome!” Zack cries, a bright grin spreading across his face.
“Don’t get excited, it was just a one-night stand,” Jesse drawls. “And not very memorable.”
I arch a skeptical brow at him, my look saying one thing: Oh really? The three empty condom wrappers and the throbbing pain in my ass say otherwise. To be fair, I’m not exactly the best judge of what epic sex should feel like considering in the past sex has always felt more like a chore than anything else; albeit a chore that got me off, but still. Despite my inexperience, though, something tells me that when you go back for thirds and then fall asleep exhausted, it’s a pretty decent night.
Jesse slides his gaze away from me, busying himself with unfurling his cloth napkin and placing it over his lap.
“And you?” Slater presses.
Knowing there’s no way out of this, I spit out the first thing that comes to mind. “I was over the clubs so I wandered around the Strip. Ended up taking in a Cirque du Soleil performance.”
For some reason, that seems to garner attention from several other people at the table; Chance, George, and Lawson all pause the conversation they’d been having and snap their heads to look at me.
“Cirque du Soleil?” Chance asks dubiously.
“Was it amazing?” George gushes. “What were the costumes like? What was the music like? Was there a story?”
Lawson eyes him skeptically. “You sure you’re not even a little gay, man?”
George just rolls his eyes. “What, a straight guy can’t even appreciate incredible acrobatics now? You can’t have everything, you know!”
My mouth curves into a smirk as I dart a fleeting glance at Jesse. “Actually, it was pretty underwhelming. They’re not as impressive as they think they are.”
“That’s a weird thing to say,” Chance mutters.
Thankfully, I’m saved from further interrogation by Axel, who growls, “We’re all here now—can we just go fucking eat?”
This seems to work as some kind of cue, and there’s a loud clatter as at least a dozen chairs are pushed back, scraping against the tiled floor of