I gulped.
He studied me a moment and I found myself pressed even tighter against him. My fingers curled into his shoulder. His next words almost blew me off my feet. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Els,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.
My eyes grew round with shock at his announcement, my heart beginning to thud against my chest. Adam thought I was beautiful? No, not just beautiful… “the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen”.
Wow.
Okay.
My chest began to rise and fall a little rapidly. “Adam…” I replied softly, unsure whether he meant that in a strictly platonic sense or if he was finally opening his eyes up to see I wasn’t a little girl anymore. For a start I had boobs now.
“I worry about you all the time,” he confessed. “You’re so sweet and kind, too kind sometimes. I worry someone will hurt you and I won’t be there to stop it.”
It was true I had a tendency to look for the best in everyone, and I had a bit of a hero- complex (I wonder where I’d picked that up from), but I wasn’t incompetent. And I was a woman now. I could take care of myself, and I told him so.
Adam frowned. “That’s not what I mean. You get a lot of male attention, Ellie, and sometimes it’s difficult to weed out the wankers. For instance the kid you came with tonight.
He flirts a lot… with everything that has tits and a pair of long legs.”
Glowering at the insult to Liam, I tried to press back. “Liam is a nice guy.”
“Liam is after one thing. I should know—”
“Right, you’ve been hogging her enough.” Braden was suddenly standing beside us, grinning. “I want a dance with the birthday girl.”
Adam tightened his hold on me and then as if it occurred to him what he was doing, he threw Braden a grin and let me go. We shared one last look and then he was gone and I was in Braden’s arms.
What the hell had just happened? Had Adam Sutherland… was he… was that more than friendly advice? The way he touched me, the things he’d said, the way he’d looked at me. It had felt different. My heart was racing, a bubble of giddy hope starting to float up inside of me. Poor Liam was forgotten as I got lost in my longing and fantasies.
“I’m proud of you,” Braden told me gruffly, bringing me out of my head where I was already picking wedding dresses and deciding who would be my maid of honor. I guessed it would have to be Allie since I’d known her the longest.
I smiled at my big brother, feeling my chest expand at his declaration. “What for?”
“For many reasons. For getting into Edinburgh Uni. For taking care of Elodie and Clark, and for being a good sister to Hannah and Dec. And for being a great wee sister to me. It’s been a tough year, Els, and I’m grateful for all your help.”
I hugged him close for a second, my heart hurting all over again for him. After falling for and marrying his Australian wife, Analise, Braden had filed for divorce when he walked in on her and his old school friend hav**g s*x in one of Braden’s empty developments in New Town. The bitch had put him through the ringer for the last nine months of his marriage and then she’d cheated on him with his friend. It was the ultimate betrayal. Worse, our dad had been the one who’d cottoned onto it and he’d set Braden up to find the traitorous couple. That was dad’s way. Rather than pulling his son aside and letting him down easy, he’d let Braden walk into that. Braden didn’t seem to mind. In fact he was grateful to our father. I, on the other hand, thought he was an insensitive arsehole. Then again, I didn’t exactly have fluffy feelings toward Douglas Carmichael at the moment (or ever).
As if he’d read my mind, Braden sighed. “Dad’s sorry he couldn’t be here, Ellie. I’m sorry too.”
“Don’t apologize for him.” I turned my face away, screwing it up to stop the tears. You would think after eighteen years of complete neglect I’d be over the hurt by now.
Unfortunately, the hurt never went away. I just couldn’t understand what Douglas found so unloveable about me that he’d deliberately shun me time and time again. It was my eighteenth birthday for God’s sake and he couldn’t get up off his rich arse for half an hour to pop into offer me birthday wishes.
Braden sighed again and I heard him curse under his breath. He had a fairly good relationship with our dad now and I didn’t want to be the cause of any problems between them so I gave him a squeeze and smiled at him. “I’m fine. I’m more than fine. I’m surrounded by friends and family who care about me, Braden. And that’s all I care about.”
We shared a smile and another hug seconds before the music changed to up tempo again, and mum and Clark descended on us. I had a dance with the two of them, giggling as they pulled out moves that hadn’t been seen in at least two decades.
As the night continued on, I mingled with friends and family but my eyes kept wandering through the crowds in an attempt to find Adam again. My stomach was a riot of butterflies, and I couldn’t get his voice out of my head.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Els,”
I smiled at something Allie said to Liam and watched it crack him up but I had no idea what the conversation was about. My head was stuck in rewind.
When the room began to feel too hot, I ordered a bottle of water from the bar and slipped out of the back of the room and found directions to the exit. It was the fire exit and it led out to the back of the hotel where all the rubbish bins were stored. I crept outside quietly, sucking in a huge gulp of air and enjoying the peace. It could give me a moment to wrap my head around what had happened and if what I thought had happened had actually happened.
I felt a giddy smile start to stretch my lips when a grunt followed by a moan made me freeze. The large wheeled bins were situated between me and an alcove of the building, and the sounds were coming from there. My heart picked up a little bit as I guessed what the sounds meant and what I’d stumbled upon. When another grunt sounded I covered my mouth with my hand to keep in the giggle that was threatening to erupt.
“Yes,” a female voice groaned. “Adam, oh my God.”
The giggle instantly died as the blood rushed in my ears. I felt a burn in the bottom of my throat as some devil, some masochistic thing inside of me, made me tiptoe silently around the bins.
All the hope I’d been feeling exploded and disintegrated around me.
As I watched Adam screw one of the female catering staff against a brick wall, I realized what an idiot I was. What a childish, naïve idiot.
And then the anger settled in. The frustration. The pain… that somehow I wasn’t good enough. Not good enough for Adam. Not good enough for my father.
My eyes narrowed. There was one person who thought I was good enough, so what was I holding out for? For flowers and sonnets and a man on bended knee? That wasn’t going to happen. This was reality. Sex was sex. There was nothing magical about it.
Clearly.
I wasn’t naturally an angry person, but the burn of jealousy fueled it and I turned silently back to the hotel. As soon as I was inside, the image of Adam moving against the catering girl kept flashing before my eyes. I felt sick. Chugging back more water, I made a decision. I needed to wipe that image out of my brain.
I found Clark talking to his brother in the function room and thankfully Mum wasn’t anywhere around because what I was going to ask she’d probably not be happy about.
“Els, what do you want to do with all these presents?” He asked, pointing to a table that had been set up at the back.
“Can I ask you and Mum a big favor?”
He smirked, guessing what that favor was. “You want us to take the presents back home for you?”
“My friends and I want to go onto a club, if that’s okay?”
Clark studied me for a moment and then finally sighed, “Go on before your Mum sees you. And be careful.”
I nodded and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Leaving him to it, I pushed my way through the dance floor and found Liam and Allie dancing together. I pulled Liam off to the side with an apologetic smile thrown Allie’s way.
“What’s up?” he asked, giving my hip a squeeze.
I looked into his eyes, feeling my stomach flip as I said meaningfully, “Let’s go.”
His body tensed and his eyebrows drew together. “Just me and you?”
“Yeah.”
“Where do you want to go?”
I pressed close to him, making my intentions very clear. “Where do you want to take me?”
Liam’s breathing stuttered. He seemed to swallow hard. “I could get us a room.”
“Okay then.”
We left quickly, slipping from the party before Mum or Braden could see me. My nerves kicked in as we made our way through the hotel to the reception, and I fought hard not to throw up as Liam booked us a room.
Every inch of me was trembling as the lift took us up to the first floor and as soon as we were inside the room and Liam started kissing me he could feel me shaking against him.
“Are you sure about this?” he whispered against my mouth.
The image I was unsuccessfully trying to bleach from my brain flashed before me again. I wanted tingles and excited butterflies, I wanted flushed skin and passion. I wanted trust and safety, I wanted affection and laughter. I wanted loyalty and friendship. I wanted love.
Unfortunately, life had played a cruel joke on me and I’d fallen in love with the one person in the whole world I couldn’t have.
Just because I couldn’t have him, however, didn’t mean I shouldn’t live. None of my friends were virgins any more. What was it really but a nuisance? It used to be a gift. Or at least I liked to romanticize that it was a gift. I supposed what it really used to be was a mark of ownership. But this was the 21st century. No one owned me. And my virginity was something I could give to whoever I pleased.
“Yeah,” I whispered back, reaching up to unknot the halter tie on my dress. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
Liam thankfully took his time. He made me come before he put on a condom and pushed inside of me so I was as ready as I could be. Still, it hurt. After a while the pain diminished and it felt okay. Liam enjoyed himself. He tried to hold off until I came again but I didn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking over and over again as he moved inside me that I’d well and truly buggered everything up for myself.
I’d promised myself since I was fourteen years old that the first time I made love I’d be in love.
Instead I was lying in some hotel room while a boy I merely liked casually took the gift I offered, and I casually let him. I felt a heaviness settle on my stomach when Liam was finished.
I stayed awake listening to him snore beside me and cursed myself to hell for letting anger and jealousy get the better of me.
*** I lay there for a couple of hours but eventually decided I couldn’t stand to stay in the hotel room. At the back of four in the morning I snuck out of there and had reception call me a taxi.
The woman on reception took one look at my mad hair and revealing dress and knew exactly what I’d been up to. The smirk she gave me made me feel cheap, and I realized quickly that the only reason I felt cheap was because I thought I’d acted cheap.