“Jordan, will you please come with me?”
“Yes,” I sighed. Sometimes, the only excuse for doing something stupid is knowing that you are doing it and being willing to accept the consequences.
He put his hand at the small of my back to press me forward and I went, just barely stopping myself from leaning against him. Just because I liked how he felt, just because it was intriguing and appealing and delicious was no reason to reward him for this display.
The back rooms at the Cendrillon are numerous, dim and cool, clad in brick and boned with bare rafters. Jacquard couches that were quite big enough to fit two or three, Pashmin rugs and delicately embroidered lampshades mostly hid the fact that they were in reality something a great deal like cells. Gatsby handed me the key to the room he had found for us and then spread himself out on one end of the couch, watching me through half-lidded eyes.
He was good to look at, so I looked, and I saw the dark love bites that peppered his throat, the disorder of his clothes and the looseness of his limbs. His mouth was almost as red as what I painted on, and I bet that if I touched him there, he would flinch.
“Does Nick know you’re here?” I asked, and he shot me a bemused look.
“Of course he doesn’t. He wouldn’t want to hear about a place like this.”
I could still feel Nick pressed against my shoulder, hear that soft please, and I shrugged.
“You could bring him. He’d come for you.”
Gatsby smiled disarmingly.
“Oh he won’t do anything for me,” he said. “Nick thinks I’m a social climber. Very Minnesota of him. He can’t forgive people for their origins, and at the same time, he won’t forgive people for trying to overcome them.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” I asked, finally relenting to come and sit next to him. I kept some space between us—it wouldn’t do to get overly familiar with him, but there was something there that told me he wasn’t a hazard to me, not tonight.
“You haven’t spoken to him,” he said, reaching for the hem of my dress. He toyed with the fringe there for a moment. “Have you decided against me?”
“I haven’t decided anything,” I said a little sharply. “I’ve been busy.”
“With Nick?”
“You don’t own him,” I said stubbornly, and he blinked as if something had snapped into focus.
“I don’t want to own him any more than I want to own the Sound,” he protested, and I gave him a sideways look.
“Would you mind awfully owning the Sound?”
The bright grin was unexpected in this place, like a knife cutting through an opium fog.
“No, I would probably like that. All right, shall we lay our cards on the table, Miss Baker?”
“I would if I were playing cards. That’s just you.”
He sat up, leaning towards me and with the sensuality he had been wearing set aside. He didn’t seem to know what to do with me, which face worked best, which tone would melt me. Now Gatsby looked at me, a little blank, a little curious, and to my surprise, a little desperate.
“I need Nick,” he said quietly. “I need him to get Daisy.”
I stared at him, because of all places to hear Daisy’s name, the Cendrillon wasn’t one of them. She might dance with a girl to cause a scene, but anything else made her feel funny. I would have taken it more personally if I didn’t suspect she felt that way about boys too, once the kissing and petting turned to something else.
“What’s this to do with Daisy?”
“Oh, Jordan, I love her,” he said, and I burst out laughing.