I stepped away from the wall and tried to put on a happy face. It didn’t work. “Hi.”
“She says that so well.” Mal turned to me and winked. “So did you really ask the mighty David Ferris for a divorce?”
“She threw up on me when I told her we were married,” my husband reported.
“What?” Mal dissolved into laughter, tears leaking from his eyes. “Are you serious? Fucking hell, that is fantastic. Oh, man, I wish I’d been there.”
I gave David what I hoped to be the meanest look in all of time and space. He stared back, unimpressed.
“It was the floor,” I clarified. “I didn’t throw up on him.”
“That time,” said David.
“Please keep going,” said Mal, laughing harder than ever. “This just gets better and better.”
David didn’t. Thank God.
“Seriously, I fucking love your wife, man. She’s awesome. Can I have her?”
The look I got from David spoke of a much more reluctant affection. With the line between his brows, it was closer to outright irritation. I blew him a kiss. He looked away, hands fisted like he was barely holding himself back from throttling me. The feeling was entirely mutual.
Ah, marital bliss.
“You two are just the best.” A chiming sound came from Mal’s pocket and he pulled out a cell phone. Whatever he saw on the screen stopped his laughter dead. “You know, you should take her to your house, Dave.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” David’s mouth pulled wide in a truly pained expression.
I didn’t think it was a good idea either. Happily, I’d go through life without setting foot inside the house of horrors ever again. Maybe if I asked Mal nicely he’d fetch my stuff for me. Imposing on him further didn’t appeal, but I was running low on options.
“Whoa.” With a grim face, Mal shoved his cell at David.
“Fuck,” David mumbled. He wrapped his hand around the back of his neck and squeezed. The worried glance he gave me from beneath his dark brows set every alarm ringing inside my head. Whatever was on that screen was bad.
Really bad.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Oh, you, ah … you don’t need to worry about it.” His gaze dropped to the phone again then he passed it back to Mal. “My place would be cool, actually. We should do that. Fun. Yeah.”
“No.” For David to be so nice to me it had to be something truly bad. I held out my hand, fingers twitching from impatience or nerves or a bit of both. “Show me.”
After a reluctant nod from David, Mal handed it over.
There could be no doubting what it was, even on the small screen. There was a lot of skin on account of my being bare from the waist down. My naked butt sat front and centre in all its pale, dimpled glory. God, it looked huge. Had they used a wide lens camera or something? The party dress had been pushed up and I stood, bent over a table while a tattoo artist worked hard inking my rear. My panties had been cinched down, barely covering the basics. Shit. Talk about a compromising position. Taking part in a porn shoot was definitely not part of the plan.
At the other end of the frame, our faces were close together and David was smiling. Huh. So that was what he looked like when he smiled.
I remembered it then, the buzz of the needle, and him talking to me, holding my hands. At first, that needle had stung. “You were pretending to bite my fingers. The tattoo artist got mad at us for messing around.”
David tipped his chin. “Yeah. You were s’posed to be keeping still.”
I nodded, trying to remember more but coming up empty.
People would see this picture. People had seen this. People I knew and strangers both. Anyone and everyone. My head spun woozily the same as it had then. Only alcohol wasn’t at fault this time.
“How did they get it?” I asked, my voice wavering and my heart at my toes. Or maybe that was just what remained of my tattered dignity.
David gave me sad eyes. “I don’t know. We were in a private room. This should never have happened but people get offered a lot of money for this sort of thing.”
I nodded and handed Mal back his phone. My hand shook. “Right. Well …”
They both just looked at me, faces tense, waiting for me to burst into tears or something. Not happening.
“It’s okay,” I said, doing my best to believe it.
“Sure,” said Mal.
David shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s not even that clear a picture.”
“No, it’s not,” I agreed. The pity in his eyes was more than I could take. “Excuse me a minute.”
Fortunately, the closest bathroom was only a short dash away. I locked the door and sat on the edge of the Jacuzzi, trying to slow my breathing, trying to be calm. There was nothing I could do. The picture was already out there. This was no death and dismemberment. It was a stupid picture of me in a compromising position showing more skin than I liked, but so what. Big deal. Accept it and move on. Despite the fact that everyone I knew would likely see it. Worse things had happened in the history of the world. I just needed to put it in context and stay calm.
“Ev?” David tapped lightly on the door. “Are you okay?”
“Yep.” No. Not really.
“Let me in?”
I gave the door a pained look.
“Please.”
Slowly, I stood and flicked the lock. David wandered in and shut the door behind him. No ponytail today. His dark hair hung down, framing his face. He had three small silver earrings in one ear playing peek-a-boo behind his hair. I stared at them because meeting his eyes was out of the question. I was not going to cry. Not about this. What the hell was even wrong with my eyes lately? Letting him in had been dumb.
With a heavy frown he stared down at me. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, it is. I should have looked after you better.”
“No, David.” I swallowed hard. “We were both drunk. God, this is all so horrifically, embarrassingly stupid.”
He just stared at me.
“Sorry.”
“Hey, you’re allowed to be upset. That was a private moment. It shouldn’t be out there.”
“No,” I agreed. “I … actually, I’d like to be alone for a minute.”
He made a growly noise and suddenly his arms wrapped around me, pulling me in against him. He caught me off guard and I stumbled, my nose bumping into his chest. It hurt. But he smelled good. Clean, male, and good. Familiar. Some part of me remembered being this close to him and it was comforting. Something in my mind said ‘safe’. But I couldn’t remember how or why.