RoomHate Part 15

"I thought he was working," she said.

"Me, too."

Justin was nowhere to be found when we walked in the door. I dropped the bag on the kitchen counter and went to show Tracy the upper deck. That's where we found Justin sitting, smoking a cigar with his legs up on the balcony as he looked out toward the water. His hair was wet, like he'd just taken a dip in the ocean. He was shirtless. The top of his boxer briefs was sticking out of his jeans. He looked like a freaking Calvin Klein ad. Tracy's mouth practically hit the floor when she got a look at him.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were playing at the restaurant."

Smoke billowed out of his mouth. "I was supposed to be. But the place almost burned down."

"What?"

"There was a kitchen fire this afternoon. When I showed up, they told me they had to close to air out the entire restaurant. They won't be reopening for another week at least. It doesn't look like I'll get to play there again before I leave."

"Holy s.h.i.t. Did anyone get hurt?"

"No, but Salvatore was a f.u.c.king wreck." He glanced over at Tracy. "Who's this?"

"This is Tracy, a good friend from Providence and a teacher at my school. She came down to spend the day with me. She's gonna sleep over tonight."

Justin placed his baseball cap over his head backwards and stood up. "Nice to meet you," he said, offering her his hand.

"Likewise," she said, taking it.

I shook my head in disbelief, not only about the blaze but the fact that Justin was probably leaving with Jade sooner than I thought. "Wow. I can't believe that about the fire."

"I wasn't really in the mood to perform tonight, but I would have never wished that s.h.i.t on Sal."

"Gosh. I wonder if I'll even be working there myself again before the end of summer."

He took another puff of the cigar and flicked the ashes. There was something so s.e.xy about that.

"What are you ladies up to tonight?"

"We were gonna have some drinks and have a girls night in."

"That sounds like a hot mess."

Tracy laughed. "It's not every night that I get away from my kids. So, a girls' night in is about as wild as it gets for me."

Justin winked. "Well, I'll stay out of your way then."

"You don't have to," Tracy said. "You should join us for a drink."

"That's alright. I'll pa.s.s."

When we returned downstairs, Tracy went to use the bathroom. I was cutting up limes when Justin came down and spotted the gigantic bottle of tequila on the counter.

"Jesus Christ. Enough tequila?"

"It was her idea. I've never done tequila shots before."

He squinted his eyes. "You've never done a tequila shot?"

"Nope."

"d.a.m.n, Patch. What did they not know how to live it up in New Hampshire?"

"I never really drank at all until about a year ago. Actually, I've never drank more than I have this summer."

He flashed an impish grin. "Can I take responsibility for that?"

"Maybe." I laughed.

Our attention turned to Tracy as she came back down the stairs.

"I'm so sorry, Amelia, but Todd just called and said that Ava is sick and throwing up. He really needs me to head back home to Warwick."

"Are you serious? I'm so sorry to hear that."

"I guess you two will just have to enjoy the tequila without me. I'm just glad Todd called before I started drinking and couldn't drive myself home."

"Do you need anything for the road?" I asked. "A bottle of water or something?"

"No. I'm good." Tracy pulled me into a hug and said, "I'll see you back at school in a few weeks anyway."

"Thanks for coming down, Trace. I had a great time."

"It was nice meeting you, Justin."

Justin offered a silent wave before I walked her to the door.

With Tracy gone, the mood shifted from light to extremely tense. When I turned around, Justin was leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed.

This was exactly what I had been trying to avoid. Part of why I'd encouraged Tracy to spend the night was to avoid being alone with him. Tonight was likely the very last time we would be alone before he returned to New York.

I slowly walked toward where he was standing.

Justin smirked. "What are we gonna do with all this tequila?"

Shrugging my shoulders, I said, "I don't know."

"I think we should drink it."

"I don't know how to do tequila shots. Tracy was gonna show me."

"Simple. Lick, slam, suck."

"Excuse me?"

"It's a three-step process. You wet your hand, lick the salt off, slam the drink down, and then you suck the lime. Lick, slam, suck. I'll show you how to do it."

Hearing him say the words lick, slam, suck made my body p.r.i.c.kle.

Just then, my phone vibrated against the counter. It was right next to Justin. His expression darkened after he glanced down at the screen.

He lifted the phone and muttered, "Real f.u.c.king nice," before handing it to me.

All of the blood in my body seemed to rush to my head when I read the text from Tracy.

Justin totally wants you. You should f.u.c.k him hard tonight.

His stare was piercing when I looked up.

Wracking my brain for a response, I let out a fake laugh. "She's a jokester. She likes to bust b.a.l.l.s. I'm sorry."

He didn't say anything, just stared at me with an uncomfortable intensity.

s.h.i.t. Thanks a lot, Tracy!

My heart was beating frantically.

Justin was quiet for the longest time then just simply said, "I really need that f.u.c.king drink."

Breathing out a sigh of relief, I said, "Me, too."

He examined the bottle. "Did you pick out this tequila?"

Good. He was letting it go.

"Yes."

"This brand sucks. It's cheap."

"I told you. I don't know anything about tequila."

"Actually, it's not the worst thing in the world, because we'll chug it down so fast, you won't even taste it. If it were the expensive stuff, then that would be a waste."

Justin opened the small container of salt, grabbed two shot gla.s.ses from the cabinet, and placed them down on the granite before sliding one of them over to me.

Lifting his hand, he spread his thumb and his index finger open and pointed to the s.p.a.ce between them. "Put your hand like this, and do what I do." He then licked the s.p.a.ce between his fingers. G.o.d, that one swipe of his tongue was so erotic. He made it easy to see what that mouth could do in other ways.

Jade was a lucky woman.

Justin watched every movement of my tongue as I did the same. He then sprinkled some salt between his fingers and mine.

"You're gonna lick the salt off real fast before drinking the tequila down in one shot. Don't stop. Drink it all down. Then, grab a lime and suck."

Holy h.e.l.l, hearing the demanding tone of the words lick and suck come out of his mouth...it was almost too much.

"Ready? We'll do it together. On the count of three. One...Two...Three."

Following his lead, I licked my hand and slammed the liquid down, the tequila burning my throat.

I'd forgotten to grab a lime. Justin took one and placed it in my mouth. "Quick. Suck on this. It will diffuse the taste." I sucked the juice out, savoring the acidic flavor. My lips were touching his fingers as he held it. He was watching intently as I sucked on it. I wished I could have swallowed his fingers whole.

When he took the lime away, I licked my lips. "G.o.d, that was strong. What do we do now? Another one?"

"Easy, drunka.s.s. We should wait a bit. You're a lightweight."

We s.p.a.ced out our shots, each one packing a bigger punch than the last. When I lost my balance a little, Justin said, "Alright. That's it. I'm cutting you off."

I watched as he did two more shots. After several minutes, his eyes were starting to look glazed over. We were both pretty drunk.

The room swayed as I made my way over to the couch and closed my eyes. I felt a heavy weight as Justin plopped down on the cushion next to me. He lay his head back and closed his eyes, too. He'd taken off his hat, and his hair was disheveled. The recessed lighting in the living room was shining atop his head, bringing out the natural blond streaks. After staring at him for a while, the need to run my fingers through that silky hair became unbearable. I reached my hand over and started to rake my fingers slowly through it. I knew it was wrong, but I'd somehow convinced myself that it was an innocent gesture between friends. Like we used to do. Deep down, I knew I was kidding myself. The alcohol had clouded my inhibitions and given me the courage to do something I'd been wanting to for so long.

He let out a long, shaky breath but kept his eyes closed as my fingers continued to ma.s.sage through his hair. At first, he looked like he was in ecstasy, so I didn't stop. After about a minute, though, his breathing became heavier, and he started to fidget.

He shocked me when he suddenly opened his eyes and turned to me. "What the f.u.c.k are you doing, Amelia?"

I retracted my hand. My heart started to pound as I attempted to come up with an excuse. "I'm sorry. I...I got carried away."

"I see. Blame it on the alcohol?" he scoffed.

He got up and walked to the other side of the room and pulled on his hair in frustration as he paced. Then, he did the most bizarre thing. He dropped to the floor and started doing pushups in speedy succession.

Trying to fight the tears of humiliation that were stinging my eyes, I watched as he kept with the exercises for several minutes. He was panting and exhausted by the time he collapsed onto his back. He finally sat up, bowing his head toward the floor as he looked deep in thought. Sweat was pouring off his back.

Deciding that I'd already done enough damage for one night, I got up and started to go upstairs.

His voice stopped me. "Don't go."

Turning around at the foot of the stairs, I said, "I think I really need to just go to sleep."

"Come here," he said quietly.

When I returned to my seat on the couch, his voice was more demanding. "I said come...here." He pointed to the floor next to him. As Justin sat with his arms wrapped around his shins, I planted myself on the ground beside him, still too ashamed to look him in the eyes.

He turned his back toward me. "You asked me what this tattoo on my back meant. Look at the numbers in three sets of four under the barcode."

They just seemed like random numerals in no particular order. Three sets of four. What did they mean?

The first set finally came to me: 1221. "That's December twenty-first, your birthday."

He nodded. "Yeah."

The next set was 0323. "What's that one?"

"March 23rd, 2001," he said.