then opened her mouth as if she was going to speak, her expression hardening. She shut it again, turning pink, saying nothing, and then gripped her cup with both hands and looked down.
The girl looked meek. When had I ever seen Portia look meek before? Never. Her arrogance was cringing. Her blush no doubt expressed the shame this preppy, society girl felt over slumming it with me.
“Portia, you asked me here to talk?” My pitch rang with sarcasm and impatience.
“Justin…” she said to her coffee, in a voice that told me off for my being cutting. It sounded a little more like the Portia I was used to.
“What?”
She looked up again and stared at me, appearing anxious. That was another new look for Portia, as far as I was concerned.
“I… we… did…?” She bit her lip, and then she came right out with it suddenly, “Did we do it? The other night… I mean… Shit… Did we, you know? I was so drunk I don’t remember.”
So that was what all the blushes were about. I started laughing, I couldn’t help it. Really I should be insulted; she looked so terrified, like it would be a scene from a horror movie if we had done it. “No. We didn’t, Portia.” The air swept out of her lungs and her breath brushed my cheek before she looked down at her coffee again.
I leaned back in the chair, trying hard not to feel insulted… “We kissed, and I made you come, and you never returned the favor.”
That had her eyes and her color back up, along with her chin and her nose tilting. “Justin.” It wasn’t a shout, it was a hard whisper. “That would have been disgusting in a pool anyway.”
“Nice to know you got your priorities right, Portia…”
She screwed her face up at me––she even looked pretty when she screwed her face up.
“I take it you regret it?”
“I don’t remember it. Well, only in the form of a few patchy images. I can’t remember getting dressed, or getting home. How did I get home?”
I hadn’t realized she was that bad. “I helped you get dressed and you were unsteady on your feet but you weren’t out of it. We came back on the subway, and I walked you to your door.”
“You did?” Her gaze was boring into mine, like she was looking for a lie.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Thank you.” Those words were reluctantly said, and she looked away, but as she spoke she reached out and picked a piece off the muffin I’d bought her.
“You’re welcome.”
She glanced up again.
I picked up my muffin and took a bite, watching her as she watched me. So what now? Did I want this to be something, or was it just a hook up.
I didn’t say anything, nor did she.
Then eventually, after she’d nibbled a couple more pieces of her muffin, I said, “Do you regret it?”
One of the staff set down my toasted pastrami thing.
Portia took a breath as they walked away.
She did regret it.
“I––“
“Forget it, Portia. We hooked up at a party, it’s nothing big, it probably happened a ton of times all over New York. Two people had too much to drink, end of, no headline.”
Portia
End of. Justin was right. I was embarrassed, and I felt awkward as hell, ‘cause I couldn’t remember exactly what we’d done, but I believed we hadn’t gone the whole way. I hadn’t had any flashbacks of that, and as soon as he’d said he took me home, I saw an image of him next to me in a subway car.
“Sorry.” Embarrassment led me to say it.
He shrugged. “So anyway; what the frick went down with Jason?” There was a sudden glint in his brown eyes.
Wicked and funny. That was Justin.
He always joined in with the gossip but we never knew if he was making fun of us when he did. Crystal’s theory was that he was a douchebag and he was joining in with the hope of getting lucky. Well if that was true, his moves had worked on me. I was staying sober from now on. Resolution.
“What the hell you gonna do, Portia? You won’t have pretty boy to stare at every day… Shame. You’ve got no chance of pulling him loose from his girl now…”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
He lifted his dark eyebrows. “Yeah, right. Whatever. You aren’t fooling me. If he’d have offered, like I did…”
Crap, he had to go and bring that back up. My skin heated. I was tired of blushing. I’d spent yesterday with my head under the pillow, too embarrassed to even face myself. “Don’t talk about it.”
“Was I that bad?” He was joking but he wasn’t joking. I’d kicked his ego in the balls.
I gave him a lopsided smile and narrowed my eyes, “Justin, I told you. I don’t even remember!”
His eyebrows lifted higher. “Great. That bad.” His wide lips tilted. He wasn’t unattractive. I’d never really looked at him like that before. But he was okay. I mean his eyes were nice, dark brown and glowing like treacle, with that wicked and humorous glint, and he had a wide smile that came in flashes. His short black hair, that he kept cut close to his head, suited him because he had a nice shaped head… That sounded stupid. But he did. I wanted to reach out and touch him, run my fingers up his cheek and then over his hair. Maybe that was how things had got started in the pool.
He was talking about Jason again. I wasn’t really listening.
“… so you girls are going to miss the eye candy.”
I smiled at him, and just nodded. I wasn’t going to lie. Jason was hot. I could just watch him for hours.
“We oughta get back.” He stood. “Otherwise we’ll be the next to be fired.”
I got up.
When we reached the office, he held the door open for me. Crystal was wrong. He wasn’t a sleaze. He was just a normal guy––girl hunting. He was nice in a way. He’d made this whole thing with me easier. He could have been really horrible.
He whispered in my ear, “We better go back separately, seeing as we’re incognito… You can go up first, I’ll hang back.”
I smiled at him, “Thanks,” then walked on ahead.
I glanced up when he walked into the office five minutes after me, and watched him take his black Parka coat off on the
