Shame on Me

“But seriously, how do we keep showing up at the same places?” he asks again, placing his hand on my hip and pulling me closer to him to make room for a few people trying to get up to the bar.

I’m pressed up against him and staring at his throat while he reaches over to take my glass of ice water from the bartender. I’ve been around plenty of hot guys before. I’ve done photo shoots with half-naked male models. None of them has caused this kind of reaction from me. I’m never at a loss for words. Is it because, once again, he caught me doing something that I’m going to lie to him about or because I find myself attracted to him?

“I, um, was in the neighborhood and thought I’d check this place out,” I tell him lamely, taking the glass of water from him and sucking down the entire thing.

“You were in the neighborhood? Where exactly do you live? It took me three hours to get here.”

I regretfully take a step away from him and set my empty glass on the bar.

“Why are you here?” I ask, taking the focus off of myself.

He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. I suddenly have the urge to do the same with my own hand. I want to clutch his hair and pull his face down to mine so I can feel his lips again.

Holy hell, I need to get this under control. Men suck. They are all pigs, even if they seem nice at first. Andy was really nice at first too. Just because I want to help Matt out and he’s easy to look at, doesn’t mean anything.

“I found out that Melanie was going to be here tonight. This isn’t usually the type of place she goes to, so I was hoping I’d catch her with the guy she’s been seeing. I really wish I had a camera on me the other night when we were at Blake’s,” he says.

I am such a bitch. I could have taken a hundred pictures of Melanie the other night. But in my defense, I didn’t know he was the good guy at the time. I hope to God he never finds out about my role in all this.

“Do you think she’ll drop everything if you catch her with this guy?” I ask.

“I know she will. Her reputation is important to her. She’s all about looking good and making sure everyone thinks she’s a saint. If I can catch her and then threaten to out her to her family and mine, she’ll back down on the lawsuit. The only problem is, I would never do that to her. Even though our marriage sucked, I could never hurt someone like that. I just hope she doesn’t know that.”

Oh, God. Why did he have to say that? Why does he have to be such a good guy?

“So, how do you expect to find her in this mess of a place?” I ask, looking around again at all of the people.

“I’ve already seen her. She’s upstairs in one of the VIP lounges,” he tells me, pointing over his shoulder to the roped-off area. “I haven’t seen any guy with her, though, just a few of her girlfriends.”

I look over his shoulder and sure enough, in the very center of the VIP area, in one of the biggest lounges, I see Melanie sitting on a couch with two of her girlfriends on either side of her. They’re laughing, toasting, and having a great time.

“Jesus. It’s a good thing you’re not legally separated yet or all of your alimony would be going right down the drain. Just to sit in that lounge there’s a fifteen-hundred-dollar cover charge, plus you have to purchase a minimum of two bottles of top-shelf liquor. In a place like this, that’s around nine hundred dollars a bottle,” I tell him.

“Wait, how did you know I’m not legally separated yet?”

Oh, no! Oh, shit! I can’t really tell him I had Lorelei look that information up for me yesterday, can I?

“Uh, I’m just assuming. You know, since you didn’t mention it.”

Please let him believe me, please let him believe me.

Matt accepts my lame attempt at an explanation and glances back to Melanie and her friends. “Are you serious that it costs that much to sit in the VIP section? How do you even know that?”

Because I’ve partied in plenty of those lounges throughout my career. I’ve hosted parties in those lounges. I could probably tell you the cost and liquor requirements for every club in the United States and the UK.

Something stops me from telling him this, though. Maybe this is the real reason why I have a soft spot for him. He still doesn’t know who I am. I’m just a girl he met in a bar. Someone he looks at just like any other normal girl. I want to be normal more than I want to be honest right now and it’s killing me.

“I asked when I first got here. You know, just wondering why they had that section roped off,” I lie.

He looks back over his shoulder, shaking his head.

“That doesn’t make any sense. There is no way in hell she could afford something like that.”

I shrug when he turns back to face me. “Maybe one of her friends paid for it.”

He shakes his head. “Nope. No way. Melanie is a kindergarten teacher. All of those women she’s with? They all teach at the same school she does. They barely make minimum wage.”