Sparkling Fear, page 23
"You look hot," Charles said as I walked into the kitchen and grabbed lemonade from the fridge.
A grin formed on my lips. "I'm not done yet."
"But I'm allowed to compliment my date."
"Thanks," I kissed him on the cheek, and as I turned away from him, I almost ran into Paisley. "I hope I don't have to listen to your cheesy compliments all the way there."
I glanced inconspicuously at Carter, who was looking at her like he had a hockey star standing in front of him right now.
"At least I have a date," Charles countered, and Paisley rolled his eyes.
"Date?" I asked.
"Dad asked us to bring a date a few weeks ago."
That's when I had an idea. I knew it was risky and maybe a little stupid, but I knew I'd be doing two people a favor and I hope they would remember this moment and if not, I'll remind them at their wedding when I give a speech and say the golden words I told you so.
I was a wingman now and that was a very serious job.
"Carter?"
"Huh?" He looked away from Paisley for the first time, his head turning towards me and his eyes lingering on her for a moment.
"How tall are you?"
"No!" Charles interjected, but I ignored his statement.
He hesitated. "Six-three, why?"
"Leni, no!"
"That means Charles' clothes would fit you too?" My plan was about to work if he would finally stop interfering. Carter looked at me with a narrowed gaze and tilted his head. "I think so."
"Dude," Charles hissed.
"Don't dude me. She's just asking if I'd fit into your clothes."
"Then why don't you go as Paisley's date?"
After that question, I was expecting a no from a certain someone, but no one said anything in response. I loved being a wingman.
"He has to look after Simba," Charles interrupted the silence between us.
Jude interrupted. "I can do that. I've got nothing to do tonight anyway. It's just that your chocolate might run out later, because I don't want to drink or eat anything other than chocolate in any form at the moment."
"Perfect," I clapped my hands together excitedly. "Then Paisley has a date now." I pulled her by my hand behind me into the bathroom and locked the door.
"If my brother wasn't madly in love with you, I'd kill you right now."
"You're welcome. You can thank me on your wedding." I grinned, because even though Paisley wouldn't admit it, I was sure she was happy. I wasn't silly. I saw the looks between the two of them, and Carter didn't make it particularly hard with the way he kept looking at her. I zipped up my cream-colored satin dress with white beaded straps and smoothed it out one last time before Paisley and I walked out of the bathroom.
"Hold still, you idiot," hissed Carter, who had his back to us and was trying to knot Charles' tie.
"How am I supposed to stay still when I'm sure you're going to choke me with it?"
Paisley and I watched the two of them for a moment until Charles looked past Carter and glanced at both of us. "Holy shit," he gulped.
"What?"
Charles nodded in our direction. Carter turned around, and with the look on his face, I knew it was already a good idea that he was Paisley's date.
"Holy shit, you both look—" Carter breathed the same words as Charles. Charles smacked him in the back of the head as he walked past him. "Dude," he slapped me on the shoulder. "Thats my sister and my girlfriend. Stop fucking staring."
His hands found their place on my hips. "You look so gorgeous, Sunshine."
Standing in front of Charles in high heels proved to be quite practical, because now I didn't have to stand on tiptoe to bring my mouth to the same height as his. "You don't look bad yourself, Captain," I smiled, adjusting his cream-colored tie.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Charles
Seeing Leni in this floor-length, cream-colored dress made me imagine what she would look like if I stood in front of the altar, and she walked towards me with a white wedding dress and a bouquet of flowers.
Leni looked like an angel.
The most beautiful angel I've ever seen.
We walked across the parking lot, both girls wearing our suit jackets because it was really cold. We got closer to the building, where we had to take the elevator to the top because the event was on the roof terrace. Who does an event on a roof terrace in February?
My motivation for the whole evening was limited because my dad was going to introduce me to everyone as the future National Hockey League player. But seeing that Leni was looking forward to this evening and that I had her by my side made me relax a little.
"Have Mom and Dad met Leni yet?" Paisley asked as we entered the elevator.
"I sent Mom pictures of Leni and me, but they don't know her personally."
Pling.
The elevator opened, and we arrived in an anteroom where people were standing around. Before I could scan the room for my parents, we were each handed a champagne glass, which I exchanged for orange juice because I was the driver.
"Paisley! Aaron!" I heard my mom call out and come up to Paisley with her arms outstretched, and gave her a kiss on the cheek as the two of them hugged.
"Mom," I drawled out her name as she hugged me too. "You know I hate it when you call me Aaron." She held me by my upper arms and looked me up and down. "Just look at you. You look so handsome."
Mom looked at Leni. "And you must be Leni?" Mom grinned at her, who held out her hand. Mom took her hand and pulled her in for a hug. "You're even prettier than in the pictures Charles sent me."
"Thank you, Mrs. Whitfield," Leni said shyly.
"Oh please, call me Bea!"
I leaned toward Leni as Mom walked over to Carter. "I think she likes you."
She hugged Carter like he was her second son. "Paisley didn't tell me about having a boyfriend."
I almost choked on my orange juice. My sister and I exchanged a look, and you could tell Carter was more than overwhelmed, too.
"Oh, uh—"
"Mom, Carter's not my boyfriend," Paisley tried to explain.
Mom straightened the dark green shawl covering her shoulders and hooked Carter's arm. "Whatever. I'm glad you're here. Come with me. Remember Stephanie, where you did an internship at her flower store when you were in high school?"
Before Carter could say anything, Mom pulled him along, and the two walked to a woman with flaming red hair who was more excited about seeing Carter than Weston if the two of them hadn't spent the summer together.
"What was that?"
"I think I need alcohol," Paisley exhaled next to me.
"I'll be right back," I said as I saw my dad standing outside with a whiskey glass in his hand, standing by the fence looking out over Manhattan. "Dad!" I ran out of the vestibule and walked towards him.
I stopped next to him and listened to the phone call until he slipped the phone into the pocket of his jacket. "Would you like some?" He lifted his glass with the bronze-colored liquid inside.
"I'm driving."
"How are you?" He asked me as he took a cigar out of his jacket and lit it with a lighter.
"Good, I've brought Leni with me."
"I've already seen her with Paisley. You'll have to introduce me to her later." I grinned at his sentence, because there was nothing I liked more than telling everyone that this girl was my girlfriend.
Dad exhaled the smoke from the cigar without taking his eyes off the tall buildings that stood across the street from us. "So Carter Rhodes is your sister's date."
"As a friend."
He exhaled, visibly annoyed.
"Dad, just because Sheriff Rhodes is an asshole doesn't make Carter one too."
"People will talk."
I hated this topic because whenever he said anything about my friends or Paisley's, you could always tell who he liked the most and who he disliked. He was most convinced of Weston, because he had the dream Dad was living at the time. Dad also knew that Carter had the same dream of becoming an NHL player, but he still wasn't as convinced as he was with Weston. He thought Henry was great anyway because he was friends with Henry's dad and because Henry was a Sinclair.
"God, Dad. Can you please stop judging my friends like that all the time?"
"I'm not judging. I just want the best for my kids."
"Carter's not even half as bad as Noah."
My dad groaned in annoyance. "Let's not talk about your sister"s ex-boyfriend."
Silence spread between the two of us again, and all you could hear was the echo of traffic on the streets of Manhattan.
"I saw you were coaching today."
"Yes. We had kids from high school at college."
"I saw the pictures."
"Pictures?" I asked curiously.
He pulled his phone out of the side pocket and opened an article he showed me. "Your university wrote an article about it and uploaded pictures."
A group of students took care of the newspaper. They wrote about campaigns, reported on the games and, if you wanted, you could contribute your own ideas or texts, which were then published in the newspaper.
I took my dad's phone and scrolled through the article and looked at the pictures.
"That's what you want to do. Am I right?"
Jerkily, I looked from the cell phone to my dad, who was stubbing out his cigar on the wall of the building.
I hesitated for a brief moment. "What?"
"You heard me."
I handed the phone back to him. "Would that be so bad?"
"Why would it be? What's bad is that you didn't tell me sooner," he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "And I've to admit that I somehow always suspected it."
"Dad, I don't want to sign the contract. I'm sorry."
"Please, Aaron, don't apologize for such nonsense. If that's what you want to do, then I'll support you."
I wanted to be upset about the name, but at that moment it was the least important thing because I was trying to explain to my dad that I didn't want to sign this contract after college. I love ice hockey, and I'm never going to stop playing, but I don't see my future on the ice with a contract on one of the NHL teams.
I wanted to coach the team. Discuss strategies and stand behind the barricade during games and watch the players.
"And you're not mad?"
"No. Maybe my grandchildren will become hockey players one day," he laughed into his grey beard.
"Dad!" I rolled my eyes.
"But I want you to know that I'm not mad at you. I'm a bit sad, but I want you to have the life you want, and I think you've already found someone for the rest of your life."
"She's really great, Dad."
"I'm going to say hi to Leni, but first I have to email someone that the contract has been rejected." We hugged, and he patted me on the back. "Thanks, Dad," I mumbled into the crook of his neck.
"I love you, Son. So, so much."
"Can I ask you to a dance?" I whispered softly in her ear when I saw Leni standing at one of the tables.
She turned around and put her hand in mine. We walked to the center of the room, where others were already dancing to Wildest Dreams by Taylor Swift, the piano version.
"I was talking to my dad."
Leni lay her arms over my shoulders, and I felt her cool fingertips on the back of my neck. "What did you talk about?"
"I told him I wasn't going to sign the contract."
We both moved back and forth to the song. A grin formed on her lips, and her eyes started to sparkle. Love was cheesy, but it was the most beautiful feeling I had ever felt, and I wanted to experience love with no one other than her. I held my future by the waist and looked into her ocean blue eyes, which I drowned in.
"How did he react?"
"He said he'd always thought it would happen and thought it was rather bad that I hadn't brought it up sooner," I explained, tightening my grip on her hip.
"Coach Whitfield. Sounds perfect," Leni smiled into the kiss as I leaned forward and kissed her. "Leni Whitfield too. Have I told you I have the prettiest girlfriend?"
"Twice already. Only you left out the term girlfriend, Boyfriend."
"Boyfriend and girlfriend, then." The corners of my mouth went up at the thought. "We'll have to celebrate later."
"Later?" Leni brought her mouth to the level of my ear. "What if I tell you now that I'm not wearing any underwear?"
She had ripped out my vocal cords with that question, and I felt the heat shoot through my body and my dick started to clench against my pants. It was a mistake that she had just whispered that in my ear between all these people, because she wasn't going to get away with it.
I took her hand and pulled her behind me.
"What are you doing?"
"You know exactly what I'm going to do with you now," I murmured without waiting. The line outside the restrooms was pretty long, and I was sure we'd been in line for at least twenty minutes, and it would be weird to know people were waiting outside.
Pling.
The elevator, next to the restrooms, opened, and people were exiting. "Come on." I pulled Leni behind me, and we squeezed past the people and entered the elevator. I pressed the button that closed the doors, and we went down.
"Charles, what are we doing here?" She said, completely out of breath.
I pressed the button that stopped the elevator. A little shake, and we were standing somewhere between two floors. Our eyes met, as did our mouths, when we both had the same idea and came towards each other and kissed. I let my tongue slip between her lips and pressed her against me so that she would feel what she was doing with the statement on the dance floor.
We staggered against the wall of the elevator. Slowly, I began to kiss my way down her neck. "Charles," she breathed out, and it almost sounded like a beg. "I'm sure they'll wonder where we are."
"Then let them wonder. I'm not leaving this elevator until you come with my head between your legs."
I knelt down in front of her and loosened my tie a little, finding it hard to swallow the thick lump in my throat.
"Here?"
I looked up at her. "Would I be kneeling here in front of you otherwise?"
I lifted the fabric of her dress and started kissing my way up her soft legs to her thigh. Leni lifted one leg and put it over my shoulder.
"Charles," she whimpered as I gently nibbled on her thigh. She really wasn't wearing any underpants. Under that dress, she was naked, and that only made it harder not to rip that dress off her body. My mouth lingered on her clit and I began to taste it with slow movements of my tongue.
"Mhmm..." her hand was buried in my hair.
God, she was so wet.
"What a naughty girl you are," I mumbled against her pussy as I slid two fingers inside her. I'd kneel on hot coals in front of her, just to make her feel good.
"Oh fuck, Charles," she said so quietly it was almost inaudible. My movements quickened, and I felt her press the heel of her shoe into my shoulder blade and her pussy tighten around my fingers.
I looked at her, and her chest rose quickly and hastily. I brought my fingers to my mouth and licked the wetness from her pussy from my fingers, while our eyes never parted.
I stood up again. "Don't ever tell me again that you don't wear underwear if you don't want to be punished for it."
"But maybe that's exactly what I wanted," she bit her lip, looking at me innocently. I pressed the button and the elevator started moving again "Ready?"
"Mhm," she nodded, combing her fingers through her hair.
We both stood in the middle of the elevator and I put my hand around her waist. "I love you," I breathed against her hair as I gave her head a kiss.
At that moment, the elevator opened and in front of us stood Carter and Paisley. "There you are," my sister said. Carter looked at me with a narrowed gaze, and I knew exactly what was going through his mind. "Can I kidnap your girlfriend for a moment?"
"I'll be right back," she kissed my cheek, and ran outside with Carter. My sister hooked my arm, and we walked to the table where our parents sat. "I'm not going to ask if you guys were the reason the elevator didn't work and everyone had to take the stairs."
Chapter Fifty
Leni
"Is the plan still on?" Carter asked me as we stepped onto the roof terrace and the cool February air settled on my skin.
"If Weston and you get the alcohol, then the plan should still be on."
Charles and Paisley's birthdays were in two days, and I thought on their birthday, which also happened to be Valentine's Day, it would be a good idea to throw a surprise party. Who knows how many more times we will celebrate in this apartment before Charles, Simba and I move out? I still couldn't believe that there was a cat waiting for us at home from now on.
"Wes will pick him up a little earlier tomorrow, then I'll drop off the alcohol and go to the ice rink. Are you going to be at the home game?"
I shook my head. It was pretty hard to be there on game nights because of work. "I'll be home after work tomorrow. I probably won't be back until after midnight," I explained.
"Okay. How many have you invited?"
"Henry invited the people."
"Oh, God." His look at those two words didn't exactly reassure me.
"Expect at least a hundred people to be in your apartment," he smirked.
I was pretty sure from the start that this was going to be a big party because Paisley and Charles knew a lot of people at ESU, and since I wasn't sure who I should invite, I left the task to Henry. My idea was to invite the whole hockey team, but when I suggested it, the three of them looked at me in horror.
"Do you think they suspect something?"
"I don't think so. Paisley tried to get something out of me earlier when you were both away, but I tried to change the subject."
"And how are we going to keep her away from the apartment?"
"I could do something with her, and then you call me when you want us to come."
Oh. I liked that idea. Not just because it cleared up the last question on my list about the party, but because it meant they'd get to spend time together.
