Starlight (Peaches Monroe #2)(51)
Author: Mimi Strong

“Right. Of course.” He’d extended his hand toward me, and I took it. We walked out of the restaurant, hand-in-hand, for the benefit of the awaiting paparazzi.

Mitchell trailed along a few feet behind, largely ignored.

Dalton dropped my hand and wrapped his arm around my shoulders—for publicity, of course. And then he held my door open at the car. He twirled me, pressing me against the car frame, and he kissed me. Just one very deliberate kiss, right on the lips. For publicity, of course.

I got in the car, my head spinning from the kiss. It was as though he’d had a venom on his lips, and it was numbing my whole body.

Dalton and Mitchell talked some more about movies on the way back to Mitchell’s place, but I didn’t say a word. I just sat there. Numb. I got out at Mitchell’s and thanked Dalton again for lunch.

As he drove away in his not-too-flashy BMW, Mitchell said, “I have to write about this on my blog. Please don’t judge me, but I stole the napkin he used to wipe his mouth.”

“Too late. I’m judging you.”

“Can I smell your lips? Do they smell like Dalton Deangelo?” He laughed. “Wait, no. You kiss me and transfer some of his kiss to my lips.”

“You are so weird. Maybe that’s why I love you.”

He linked his arm with mine. “Come on in. We only have about eight hours to figure out what we’re wearing to go clubbing tonight.”

“Clubbing again?”

“It’s Friday. Duh.”

He did have a point.

Some time later.

I woke up.

It was dark.

Oh, because my eyes were shut.

OW! Opening my eyes was a bad idea.

Something brushed up against me, beside me. I was on my back, somewhere soft.

Something—an arm—flopped over my chest. A human arm. Not my own.

I cracked open my eyelids. The arm was covered in dark hair, so it wasn’t Mitchell’s blond arm, and it wasn’t the drag queen Luscious Hilda Mae Sparkles’ arm, because he/she used Veet to remove everything, and I do mean everything. (We had kind of a nice girl moment getting ready to go out clubbing Friday night, and Luscious showed me this great after-care product for preventing in-growns.)

“Good morning, sunshine,” said the man I was apparently in bed with.

I silently vowed to never drink again, and rolled over to face the end result of a series of questionable decisions, including taking whatever Luscious handed me the night before at the first club. She said it was like a No-Doz, but it was more like a Red Bull crossed with a hand grenade.

At least I still had my clothes on, which meant I probably hadn’t done anything regrettable with…

Keith Raven.

“You look surprised,” he whispered.

“This is just how my face looks in the morning.”

CHAPTER 19

Keith chuckled. “I bet you don’t remember anything you said to me last night.”

“When I drink, I lie. Did I tell you I speak three languages? That’s a lie. You can’t believe anything I say when I’m drinking.”

“What is the Closet of Regret?”

“Um… it’s this second closet I have in my room back home. Someone who lived there before me carved out some walled-off space and put a door on it.” I licked my lips. “Talking is hard work. Anyway, I put some of my regrettable purchases in there.”

“Like your cuckoo clock.”

“Um, yes. Keith, I’m sorry I bored your ass off last night with stories about my online shopping problems.”

“You weren’t boring at all. We had a good talk. Really good. You said that you regret all the things you never did, and you regret not being more fun, and you’d like to stick your old self in the Closet of Regret and come out as someone new.”

“Oh. Well, it’s really more of a cupboard. I’m not sure if I’d fit.”

“I think it was more of a metaphor, and you agreed that you dismissed the idea of going to Italy with me too easily.”

I sat up quickly, then I lost about five seconds to time travel before the blood got up to my brain.

“Hey, I’m mad at you,” I said.

“Because I came and picked you up last night when you’d had too much excitement, but your friends wanted to keep partying? Are you mad that I hauled myself out of bed, didn’t even get dressed, and drove straight to you in the dead of night, even though you called me bad names on the phone?”

I swallowed hard. “What did I call you?”

He grinned. “You called me girlfriend-fucker, and you called me cheese-fucker. The second one made me laugh so hard, I had to come get you.” He stopped grinning and got a serious look. “Mostly I came because you sounded scared.”

I gasped as I remembered being scared and disoriented. “I got lost and I couldn’t find Mitchell and his roommate. Oh no, they’re probably worried about me.”

“Don’t worry. I found them before we found you, standing in the shadows behind the DJ booth, your eyes bugging out.”

A cry caught in my throat as I remembered how relieved I’d been to see Keith’s friendly face. I was so grateful, I didn’t even make fun of his flannel pajama pants.

Memories flitted back.

We came back to his apartment, I tried to get into those pajama pants, but he insisted we talk for a bit instead.

And now here we were, both in the same clothes as the night before. I stayed sitting up, staring down at him.

“Thank you for being my hero last night,” I said. “Sorry I act like such a jackass sometimes. I tend to shoot first and ask questions later.” I traced the wrinkles on the duvet cover with my finger, unable to meet his eyes for the next question. “So, are you back together with your ex? Is she going with you to Italy?”

He snorted. “We’re not back together. Oh, she’d like that. You know, the reason I was gone so late Thursday night was she took my van keys, and my phone, and threw them down the hill in her backyard. I had to beg her for a flashlight, and then it took forever to find everything.”

“Hmm. I may be hungover, but I’m not an idiot. It’s fine if you slept with her, just have the decency to tell me.”

He sat up and retrieved his phone from the top of the dresser, where it was charging. The screen was cracked, dark bits of dirt within the crack lines.

“Landed on a rock,” he said.

“Your screen looks like how I feel.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Cracked and dirty?”