“Only thing is . . .” I step in with her, flattening myself against the wall. Even doing that, she’s an inch away from me. I’m not complaining. I grab soap and start to lather up. “You don’t happen to have a formal dress, do you?”
Her eyes widen.
“Dad’s events are over the top.” I grimace. “Don’t be intimidated, though. I’ll be there.”
“Oh.”
“If you don’t want to . . .”
She winces. “I thought it’d be us and your parents. It’s a party?”
“The guest list is over two hundred people. My father has it every year.” I begin to lather her skin. My hands massage her, but her muscles are tight and tense. I’ve worried her.
I wash her back, then her front.
“So . . . dress. Do you have one?”
She doesn’t meet my eyes, instead finding the wall of the shower fascinating. “I don’t own fancy clothes. I mean, I have a prom dress from prep school, but I’ve filled out since then.”
I recall her at prom. She wore a strapless white dress that sparkled. She came alone and sat with her friends.
I’d been to a pre-party with the hockey team and arrived trashed. I wanted to talk to her, but part of me, the sane side, held back. I’d taken her virginity, then dumped her. What could I say?
“At prom . . . you looked pretty.”
Like a lost princess who didn’t know how to navigate the world.
I was similarly lost. I didn’t know how to manage not being Kurt.
Her gaze searches mine, then she clears her throat. “Oh. Thanks. Alright, let me think . . . a dress.”
I open my mouth to tell her I’ll buy her one but stop. She’ll say no.
“Poppy’s a bit of a debutante, and we’re the same size, although she’s shorter. She’ll have something.”
I watch her, trying to gauge her true feelings. “I should have told you earlier it was a party.”
There it is. The anxiousness. She draws her lower lip under her teeth.
“We’ll have fun,” I say, but the truth is she could be a queen and my father would complain she’s getting in the way of my career. Kurt had a girlfriend. Janis. Dad never liked her and tried to get between them.
That won’t happen with me and Julia.
Law, hedge funds . . . I want her to be part of it.
“My parents can be stuck-up, but my mind about you is already made up,” I say with a grin, trying to lighten the mood.
She holds out her hand for the soap. “It is?”
I hand it over. “Yep. You’re a pain in the ass.”
She hip checks me out of the water to where it’s freezing.
I chuckle. “Kidding.”
Grinning, she pulls me back in and lathers me up, her hands moving over my body. When she reaches for my cock, she pumps me up and down, her fingers grazing over my crown.
“What did you have to say to me?”
She stops and frowns. “Oh . . . just that I have some ideas for a Christmas gift for you.”
“I already got you something.”
Her surprise is glorious, then dims. “I hope you didn’t spend much.”
I snake a hand around her waist and pull her to me. “You being with me is present enough.”
She eyes me doubtfully.
“You don’t believe it?”
“Maybe.” She pauses. “I went to Parker’s aunt’s house once for a birthday party. Not because he wanted me to meet his parents. It was because he told me he had a fantasy of fucking me in the pool house while all of his uncles and aunts and cousins were there.”
She turns to open the shower door. I can feel the unease in her, that she’s comparing me to Parker.
It dawns on me. “Fuck.”
She drapes a towel around her chest. “What?”
“Parker’s parents. They always come to the Christmas party. My dad and him were Kappas together.”
Her eyes widen.
I exhale, nodding. “Are Parker’s parents a problem?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. We barely spoke. We didn’t do anything in the pool house. We stayed for half an hour and left.”
I get that. There are so many people at our Christmas party, there’s usually only time for superficial talk. The whole Kappa/Julia thing probably won’t come up. “My dad’s crowd have a pretty short memory, especially with alcohol flowing.”
Unless you fuck up.
Then, they remember it forever.
“As long as you don’t try to drag me into your pool house, I think I’ll survive.”