Ice Steam (Loving All Wrong #3) (23 page)

“Xena” flashed across the screen, and I released a loud breath, unsure of what to expect with this woman.

Last time we had words, I was left somewhat shaken from her accurate observations. And I was hanging on with tenuous hope that she would keep her promise and never mention what she knew, even though it kind of baffled me why she was willing to keep a secret like that from her brother.

It had me wondering whether Xavier was keeping secrets from me, too—one Xena knew of.

For the past couple of days, the lies had been weighing heavily on my conscience, remembering Xavier’s heart-aching family story, and then Xena later opening up that their family didn’t respond well to pain.

I wavered on ending all machinations, to leave Xavier out of it and go back home, because if I continued, I was guaranteed to hurt him.

I had ignored his calls and texts, resolute on giving him up, sparing him.

But then, last night when I got home from a shoot, showered and crawled into bed, he kept ringing me nonstop on Skype, until I gave in and answered.

And there he was, naked in bed, hand fisted around his stiff, hard dick, working himself for me to watch.

I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t switch off.

We had Skype sex.

And I decided, after orgasming from watching him jizz all over the web-cam, that I couldn’t give him up.

Not yet
.

“Hey, Xena.”

“Alina!” she chirped. “What’s crackalackin?”

“Just another dull Thursday.” I tried not to blink as the make-up artist fastidiously attached fake eyelashes. “You?”

“Bored,” she whined. “The boys have been in the studio all morning and I don’t have a life outside of them so…I’m left twiddling my thumbs. You wanna do something?”

“Ah, I’m kind of in the middle of a shoot.”

“Ooh! Can I come by?”

“I’m not—”

A beep signaling another call gave me pause.

Xena took the opportunity to babble on, “It’s lunch time. I could get us some food and stop by to watch you pucker up for the camera.”

“Hang on a sec, Xena.”

I put Xena’s
call on hold and answered the constant beeping, as the number wasn’t registered. “Yeah?”

“Hi. Alina? Is this Alina?”

That twang.
Oh Christ
. How did she get my number and why
the hell
was she calling me?

“Yes, this is Alina.”

“Oh, hi!” she yodeled. “Alina, it’s Jessica. Jessica Stucco.”

“Uh, hi, Jess,” I replied with no enthusiasm whatsoever. “How are you?”

“I’m good! Great, actually. I had to threaten your number out of Jake. I’ve been asking for it for
days
and he refused to give it to me,” she said, confusing me. “Your departure on Sunday had been so abrupt. And I kind of felt like, there was, um, you know, a connection between us. You felt it?”

Connection? The only connection we have is through your man
. “I’m kinda desolate inside. I don’t feel much. Things are pretty external for me.”

She giggled, as if she thought I was being wry. “Hey, I have a lunch reservation at
The Ivy
and I’m just heading out. What are you doing right now? Care to join me for lunch?”

“Um, hang on a sec.”

I switched over to Xena’s call. “So…Jessica’s on the other line. She’s convinced there was a ‘connection’ between us the other day. Does she always say weird shit like that to people?”

Xena cracked out a laugh. “That girl’s got a
lot
of love in her. Love is good, don’t get me wrong, but I think she has
way
too much of it. Wants to share it with everyone.”

“She wants to have lunch.”

Xena made a humming sound. “She likes you.”

“I think I get that.”

“No, no,” Xena said. “She
likes
you.”

“I don’t follow.

“You’ll see,” she sang in a tone that said she knew something I didn’t. “Tell you what, I’m gonna have Jess pick me up, we can grab lunch to go, pop in at your shoot and have lunch together.”

I chewed on my bottom lip. This meant letting people into my life, into my space. Not my thing.

But wasn’t this the real reason JK suggested I came to L.A? To ‘make new friends and live a little’? Of course, I had my own agenda for coming, one JK wasn’t aware of. But still, if I was going to be around a cluster of rich and famous people, isolating myself wasn’t going to be that easy.

People were already barging into my life unwelcome, and I could be a bitch and blow the world off for only so long. Letting others in was out of the question, but I could pretend. I was good at that.

“Yeah, that would be great,” I agreed.

I rattled off the address, switched over to the other line and updated Jessica, then hung up.

Who knows, getting close with Jessica might make it easier for me to learn about all the loose screws in their relationship so I can knock their feeble house down and take back what first belonged to
me
.

Jessica and Xena showed up with lunch an hour later. There were mild camera flashings and mouth droppings at Jessica, but nothing as intense as when Xavier had showed up at my other shoot.

The photo shoot director gushed about Xena’s cheekbones, while Xena kept ogling Danni. I opted not to inform her Danni cheered for the other team—at least not yet, because it was nice seeing her interested in someone other than that freakish, eyeliner-wearing Tex Laklin.

We pitched at a white plastic table with white plastic chairs, me wearing a white robe hiding my bikini underneath, while the other two were impeccable: Xena in red bottom Louboutins, pencil jeans and a sheer polka-dot top, and Jessica in another flirty dress and heels.

Xena, not surprisingly, did most of the talking as we ate, while Jessica did a lot of coy staring at my face, constantly finding a reason to touch me.

“I think you have one of the most perfect faces I’ve ever seen,” Jessica mumbled, using her free hand to sweep aside the fresh Beyoncé curls I got for today’s glamour shoot. “And smoky eyes are
perfect
for you. Makes me wish I had black eyes like yours. They’re so…mysterious.”

Never, in my entire life, had I heard anyone wish for
black
eyes.

My gaze slid to Xena, pleading for help, to get this girl to stop touching me, but Xena merely grinned and stuffed a sushi roll in her mouth.

“I’ve never heard anyone wish they had black eyes before; nothing distinct or interesting about them, but…thanks.”

As her hand relocated from my shoulder to my forearm on the table, her other hand spearing a shrimp with her fork, she asked, “How tall are you?”

I kind of needed my hand to eat, but I didn’t think she realized that. “Five ten.”

“You’ve always wanted to be a model?”

“Since my very first Barbie doll,” I told her. “When I was younger, I used to stretch fruit roll-ups out on the floor and pretend it was a runway for my dolls to walk on.”

She giggled. “Now that’s passion!”

Xena rolled her eyes and bit her lip, picking up that I was lying my tonsils out. It was like she had a bullshit radar or something.

“Ice Steam’s coming back from The Big Apple tonight, right?” Xena asked Jessica, successfully getting the girl’s attention off me. “I need to have a word with your man, and his ass has been ignoring my calls for days now.”

My cellphone buzzed.

With my right hand still trapped under Jessica’s, I peered over at the screen to see it was a text from Xavier.

“Yep, they’re scheduled to be back tonight,” Jessica answered. “But Davi won’t be back until tomorrow. He’s taking the opportunity to spend some time with his sister. What, he lost another bet with you and don’t wanna pay up?”

I politely told Jessica I needed to borrow my hand for a minute, then picked up my phone to check the message.

Xavier
:
Never told u, but I love the bracelet. Thank u.

Me:
U r most welcum, rocker of mine.

Xavier
:
Really, Chino, I appreciate it. Wear it everywhere. Never had a chick buy me anything before. They’re usually always asking me for shit.

“Uh, yeah, a bet,” Xena answered Jessica, but the tone of her voice said otherwise.

Jessica sighed, as if Davian was a badly behaved child constantly disappointing her. “Davi doesn’t like losing, that’s his problem. He feels he must be number one in everything.”

Me:
It’s 30
.

Danni appeared at our table. “They need you in ten, Alina.”

“Roger that.”

Xavier:
??

“Oh gawd,” Xena cried, staring up Danni with evident disappointment. “You’re a balls loving, clit hater, aren’t you?”

I snickered, while Danni shrugged. I knew all it would take for Xena to figure it out was for Danni to open his mouth.

Xena transferred narrowed eyes to me. “You saw me visualizing him naked and you couldn’t tell me he was a sperm guzzler?”

Mimicking Danni, I shrugged.

“What a waste of drool,” Xena sulked.

Me:
My trust fund. It’s 30 mil
.

“Hey, I’m nuts about a guy who’s having a hard time admitting he’s gay, and he’ll only let me suck him off if there’s a girl involved,” said Danni to Xena. “What say you be that girl tonight?”

Jessica coughed daintily, and Xena rolled her eyes. “Not in a million. But…can I pay you to be my fake boyfriend for a week or two?”

Xavier:
It’s not the main piece of the puzzle, but I appreciate it. Miss you. Madly.

Danni said, “Fake
boyfriend
?”

“I like a guy. I wanna make him jealous,” Xena explained. “So I want you to pretend to be my long-kept-secret boyfriend. That’s gonna require you leering at/touching my boobs, putting your lips to mine, your tongue in my mouth, and staring at my ass when I walk away. Can you do that, or does the mere sound of it gross you out?”

My phone buzzed again.

Danni watched Xena with wary suspicion. “Will you be expecting me to do a full 180 and fall in love with you by the end of these two weeks? You know, is this a ploy to get me to ‘suddenly realize’ I like girls?”

Xena scoffed. “You stick your dick in the
stink-hole
for pleasure. You seriously think I want someone else’s shit on my tongue?”

Taking no umbrage to this, Danni glanced from me to Jessica and said, “I assume I’ll get to meet a bunch of famous people with this gig so, yeah, I’m in.”

I checked my phone. The text wasn’t from Xavier this time, but from an unregistered number.

“You’re gonna have to work on sounding more like a
man
, though. Or everyone’s gonna know we’re a farce.”

Danni cleared his throat and spoke in a deep, pompous voice, “Hi, I’m Danni Newton, and I suck cunts.”

Making a face, Xena waved a hand. “Oh,
blech.
Dial it down. You sound like a perverted politician.” She plucked a one hundred dollar bill from her purse and tossed it to him. “Buy yourself a pack of cigarettes. Start smoking.”

Unknown Number
:
Room 409 @ Hart’s Hotel. Please…DON’T show up. Please.
∞

I didn’t need a name. The infinity sign at the end was
everything
.

The door was matte-black. A gold embossed 409 situated at eye-level. A “Do Not Disturb” door-hanger swayed ever so slightly from the handle.

I could hear a familiar rhythm, stifled by carpets, curtains, bed sheets, wood and concrete, coming from the other side of the door. Massive Attack’s
Angel
.

The same base, drumbeat, guitar strum, and soft voice I lost my virginity to.

I pressed my forehead below the 409, pressed my palms flat against the matte-black wood, letting the muffled music seep through the wood and into my pores as the memories of that night floated around my head in lazy swirls, like spice-scented smoke from an illegal Cuban cigar.

My heart ached. Then it smiled. Then it ached some more.