Playing It Safe(9)

“Alex, what are you doing?”

His smile vanishes, and he smoothly pulls back to stand up straight and turns around to face the direction of the woman he arrived with. She’s far too young to be with him, and yes that might be jealousy rearing its ugly head, which when added to the stress of facing my ex again makes me more testy than usual.

“Do you know her?” she asks, clearly bothered by his actions. Can’t say that I blame her. If I were her and my date was all up in some other woman’s grill, I’d be a little peeved too.

“Marisa, this is Julia, a very good friend of mine,” Alex clarifies for her. Then he turns his attention back to me and says, “Julia, this is my friend Marisa.”

Oh, Alex, you have no idea the mess you’ve just made. If Miss Teen USA has any sense, she would have picked up on the fact that he said “good friend” when he spoke about me and “friend” when he described his relationship with her. Although, I have to admit, I find it to be rather intriguing that he would identify us like that for her benefit—or maybe he did it for mine? See what I mean? He’s totally an enigma.


“Alex,” she coos while wrapping herself around his arm, “I thought I was your good friend.”

Yup, she picked up on it without missing a beat.

She giggles, and I swear the sound makes me want to vomit. Alex, in turn, has a tight smile on his face and looks uncomfortable while shifting his weight from foot to foot. Me? I just want to get the hell out of Dodge.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she says with a bright smile and way too enthusiastically before extending her hand to me.

I grab it and give it a firm shake. “Hi, Marisa, it’s nice to meet you too.”

Her eyes scan me from head to toe and back again dismissively as if she were Joan Rivers from Fashion Police. With that move, she’s officially made it onto my shit list.

“So,” she says, “how exactly do you know the Grandersons?”

“I don’t.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because.”

I know I’m being purposely evasive, but now I’m having too much fun making Alex more uncomfortable by the minute. Plus, I don’t like her knowing too much about me. Call it women’s intuition, but something about her just rubs me the wrong way.

Marisa lets out a dry laugh. “My, my, aren’t we mysterious?”

“I could say the same about you. Alex has never mentioned you before. Have you, Alex?” Turning my gaze back to him, he tries to hide the smirk that is threatening to crack the corners of his mouth.

He clears his throat before saying, “Marisa is an old friend of the family.”

“An old friend? Well, now you’re just being silly, Alex,” she says, trying to play it off like he didn’t just diss her right in front of me again.

“Alrighty then, you two kids have a great night and try not to be too silly with each other. I’ve gotta get on home. It was nice meeting you, Marisa. Alex … I’ll see you Friday night.”

I couldn’t help myself; I had to throw that last dig out just to see if she’d catch it. By the look of irritation on her face, I’d say she did and is currently trying to figure out why the hell he’s going to be seeing me on Friday night.

As I walk around the hood of my car, I can tell she’s whispering something to him, but when he answers her back, I can hear it clear as a bell. “I’ll tell you later, Marisa.”

Throwing my jumbo purse haphazardly onto the passenger seat before slamming the door, I shoot one last glance over at Alex, who is trying to steer Marisa toward the party. He runs his hand through his dirty blond hair and then looks over his shoulder in my direction while sporting a devilish grin.

Such a flirty bastard. Ugh … and I’m a total sucker for it every single time.

Not more than five minutes into my drive home, my cell phone dings, alerting me of a text. While stopped at a red light, I fish it out of my purse and unlock the screen to see a new text from Alex.

Payback’s a bitch, you know?

I quickly shoot off a text back, playing it off like I’m clueless. I love this little cat-and-mouse game with him. It’s entirely too much fun. Not to mention that it takes my mind off of Aiden.

Payback for what?

Just as the light turns green, my phone beeps again with another text from him.

You’ve been a bad girl, and I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.

When I reach the next red light, I grab the phone and stare at the screen in a daze because that right there might have crossed into the point of no return. You don’t see me complaining, but I’m kind of surprised and not exactly sure how I should answer him. What the f*ck does he mean, “teach me a lesson”? Is he going to put me across his knee and slap my ass with a ruler? Is it wrong that the thought of that has me so turned on right now that I want to turn my car around and climb his body like Mount Everest?

My phone beeps again while in my hands with another text from Alex.

Cat got your tongue?

With my heart racing and my stomach doing a somersault, I type out an answer. Two can play this game.

No, I’m just looking forward to it …

My high is short-lived when he responds so quickly this time, it’s scary.

I know you are ;)

Well played, Mr. Holt, well played. For the first time in God knows how long, I’m left speechless. Now I’m just wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.