Leo's Chance(22)

It’s a rude thing to say, but, f*ck, people like Gwen piss me off and my patience with her is wearing thin. She’s so wrapped up in herself that she doesn’t realize that the world extends beyond her own petty problems. She’s too shallow to look around and marvel at all the gifts surrounding her, not one of which she actually had to work for. And I’m not even talking about the material wealth, I’m talking about a family, a safe place to land. I would have given my right arm for that, and Gwen complains about it. Fucking clueless.

She narrows her eyes at me.

"It’s not a bad thing to support the economy, Jake. My shopping supports jobs. And by the way, do you think looking like this comes easily? I work at looking this amazing. It’s a full time job in itself. There’s highlighting, and waxing, and pumicing, and manicuring, and tanning and–"

I tune her out after that. Is she for real? Now I remember why I needed to be wasted to hang out with Gwen in the past.

I turn the music up and we ride in silence for the next five minutes, thank God. I’m f*cking exhausted and I’ve only been with her for twenty minutes. We pull up in front of the Millennium Hotel and I leave my car with the valet.

As we’re walking to the elevator, Gwen latches on to my arm. We get on the elevator and I shrug her off of me, giving her a pointed look. When I said friends, I did not mean friends with benefits. She’s still not getting that.

We step off of the elevator and she latches back onto me. Jesus. Deep breath. Two hours.

I lead her over to the bar where I see a couple people from the company, including Christine, and we greet them. Christine introduces us to her husband Tom, whom I’ve never met and we all chat for a few minutes before a guy with a tray of champagne comes by. I take two and hand one to Gwen.

"Gwen," Christine says, when we’ve all taken a drink, "that’s a lovely dress. It certainly doesn’t give us any doubt as to what a lovely figure you have, does it?" She smiles brightly.

"Gwen runs her hands down her hips, smiling a big, fake smile. "Thank you, Christine. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, right? And if you don’t... well..." She trails off, looking Christine up and down. Christine’s husband almost chokes on his drink and I clench my jaw, thoroughly humiliated.

Christine looks like she’s holding back a laugh though, and so I take a deep breath and say, "I’m going to find some appetizers. I’m starved." I turn around and I grit my teeth as Gwen turns with me, still latched to my arm.

I hear a small gasp and when I look up, Evie is standing directly in front of me in a serving uniform, a tray of appetizers in her hand. She looks frozen. My heart feels like it lurches toward her, and I can’t help the smile that automatically spreads across my face. I want to run to her and scoop her up and kiss her all over her beautiful face. The unexpected sight of her is even more welcome after the last half an hour with Gwen. Oh shit, Gwen. Attached to my arm. Fuck!

"Evie," I say, pointedly taking Gwen’s arm and removing it from mine. I feel her stiffen as I detach her but my eyes are glued to Evie who blinks and shoots me a fake smile. Shit.

"Jakey, do you know her?" I hear Gwen’s bitchy voice coming up behind me, but I am physically unable to look away from Evie. Jakey? She’s never once called me that before. I see Evie glance at Gwen, a look of hurt crossing her expression. This is one of the most f*cked up situations I’ve ever been in. And that’s saying something.

Her dark eyes are pools of hurt and confusion as she looks back at me and whispers, "Hi." I feel like a f*cking jackass, even though I haven’t done anything wrong. She doesn’t know that. I need to grab her and pull her off somewhere so that I can explain this. Fuck, she’s working. I don’t want to jeopardize her job. I would never do that to her. Her job is very, very important to her. I know that.

I feel my jaw clenching as I answer Gwen, "Yes, I do know her. This is Evie Cruise." The love of my life. Evie glances over at Gwen questioningly and so I say, "This is Gwen Parker," gesturing my head toward Gwen’s general area.

Evie nods toward her saying, "Hi," very quietly.

"I don't need an introduction, Jakey, I was just surprised that you know her," she says like the bitch she is, and then she hooks herself back onto my arm and grips more tightly when I attempt to move away.

The blood starts pounding through my brain and I feel my jaw ticking against my will.

Evie’s eyes move to Gwen’s arms gripping me and she says very quietly, her brow furrowing, "Right. Well, have a nice evening." And as she’s turning away, I have to physically restrain myself from reaching out and grabbing her and hauling her off to my car. I can see that her hands are shaking and as she turns, her tray tips forward and I hear a loud, wet plop as a cracker full of caviar falls directly on the top of Gwen’s foot. Bulls Eye! Score! I very, very barely contain the laugh that threatens, but that’s quickly squelched as Gwen screeches, "Oh my God! Do you know how much these shoes cost? No, of course you don't! These are fourteen hundred dollar shoes!" And, Christ, that shit is funny too and I almost laugh again until I register the look on Evie’s face. Her cheeks are flushed, eyes wide and she’s humiliated. Fuck! My instincts roar through me and everything in me is screaming, protect! For so many, many years, that was my job, and I took it very seriously. Evie doesn’t even have any idea how many times I got my ass kicked over her, or kicked someone’s ass. I always preferred to do the ass kicking, but the outcome was somewhat irrelevant to me as long as the douchebag who insulted her, whether to her face or behind her back, learned why that was not acceptable. Mean kids always hone in on the weakest of their species, and who is weaker than a foster kid with low self-esteem and worn-ass clothes? Shit, we were like giant targets walking through school. That wasn’t going to happen to Evie though, not if I had anything to say about it.