Page 26 of Love at First Sighting

Carter

Sneaking through a secret door that looks like a bookcase makes me feel like I’m in a National Treasure movie, and I am so into it.

I don’t have time to look around the dressing room and survey my surroundings. The first thing I find is El. From the moment she stepped off the stage, I’ve been a bundle of jealousy, but also fear.

“El, what happened?”

I resist the urge to touch her, but my hands desperately want to caress the sides of her face, hold her hands. Do something.

“Well, I asked Sam for help,” she says, shoving a small table in front of the door. Hopefully it’ll buy us some time. “He was useless. Said I’m ‘damaged goods’ and couldn’t risk his reputation introducing me to Ian.”

“What an ass.”

“It doesn’t matter, though,” she says, but I can tell it’s eating at her. There’s dullness in her eyes where I’m so used to sparkle. “I attracted Ian’s attention on my own. He brought me in here to chat. I asked him about Terra’s plans—”

“For the drones and stuff?”

“ No ,” she snaps. “I was far vaguer. But he knew who I was and about my UFO encounter.”

I lean on the edge of the couch. “Sure, but a lot of people do.”

“Yeah, but he was suspicious of me. Don’t you think maybe if Terra did have something to do with this, he’d be onto what I was doing? If I posed some kind of danger to his vested interests?”

“Right.”

“Then he left because Seal arrived.”

While I fully respect that billionaires can do whatever they want, bringing sea life into a swanky club feels excessive and potentially mean to the seal.

“Where’s the seal going to go?”

El pauses. “I meant, like, the singer . Not a seal.”

“…Oh.”

El smiles and knocks my hat down over my face as she moves toward the vanity along the back wall. As she steps away, I grab her arm. I tilt her chin up and direct her gaze to mine. “You are not damaged goods. You are the most extraordinary thing in this whole place.”

El’s breath catches in her throat. Between all the bad press, the hateful comments, and the treatment she’s gotten from her peers, I don’t blame her for buying Sam’s diss. But she shouldn’t. Not for one minute.

“And, you know, his name’s not even Sam,” I add.

“It’s not?”

I shake my head. “Don’t let any man named Buster Bradford make you think you don’t shine.”

I know I’ve said something nice, but El blinks a few times. “Buster. Really?”

I nod. “Buster Bradford.”

“Wow. You know, I might go by Alaka-Sam, too, if that were my name.” She blushes and giggles. “Anyway, I think we might even be able to find something in here that gives us a hint.”

I begin looking around, starting with some of the papers on one of the vanities. They look to be bills and programming for the party. Models, servers, meals, condoms.

I move on to the gifts. There are huge coffee table books—one of liquors from around the world, another of brutalist architecture, and another of flowers that look like vaginas—but none of those things are clues.

El digs into a cellophane-wrapped basket and snags a couple of chocolates from inside, passing one to me. She bites into the truffle. “For my troubles.”

I look inside a gift bag and find a bedazzled snorkeling mask, a fountain pen with another tech company’s name on it, rocks glasses made of some kind of crystal. These are all gifts people give to make a point. Not a care in the world, just money.

“Carter?” El says quietly. She sounds like she’s seen a ghost, and she turns to me to raise a gift box. It’s a silver cigar tin with a note and ribbon attached to it. I take the box and El steps closer to me.

I flip open the card and read.

Ian,

Shame to have to miss the party, but congrats on the launch! We will have to break into these when I see you in a few weeks.

Marcus

Before I can extrapolate how many Marcuses Ian knows, I feel sick.

I know it’s Marcus’s handwriting because I taught myself to forge it when I was thirteen.

Not for illegal purposes, but so I didn’t get left behind on field trips when he forgot to sign the permission slips.

I know the jagged shapes of his letters, near chicken scratch, and the way the U bleeds into the S at the end of his name.

“I know it could be another Marcus,” El begins. “It’s not a totally uncommon name. But we know there’s a chance they could know each other.”

“No,” I cut her off. “You’re right. It’s not another Marcus. This is his handwriting.”

El rests a hand on top of mine. Her proximity is a balm to the betrayal I’m trying not to feel. From the moment we found the photo of my dad, Marcus, and Howard Forte at the archive, I’ve been afraid of where the compass might point.

“They clearly know each other, but…sending cigars to someone doesn’t mean you’re committing crimes with them,” I struggle out.

I don’t know how much I even believe my own words, but the part of me that’s afraid to have no one at all clings to it desperately.

I’ve never doubted that PIS has woven its way into some shady corners.

It’s an entire division created on dishonesty and lies.

I never doubted that my dad or Marcus had to do things they weren’t proud of.

Even I have. For the first time, I’m worried maybe Marcus and my dad swung too hard to the other side.

It doesn’t mean it’s all connected, I try to remind myself.

I am terrified of saying the words Marcus is the only family I have , because it’s becoming more and more obvious I’ve given him credit for so much and am getting the bare minimum in return. There’s a voice in the back of my head, yelling, but muffled, telling me I deserve better.

“Hey,” El says, turning and resting her hands on my shoulders. “We don’t know what this means yet. Lots of dudes give other dudes cigars.”

I swallow my fear as she brings a hand to my cheek. Her brown eyes are big and pleading, like she’s desperate to know how to fix this. El brushes her thumb along the slant of my cheekbone and her touch is so hypnotic I want to lean in and let her know her presence alone solves so much.

“We have to keep looking, right?” she whispers.

“We have to keep looking.” I shake myself out of my trance and step away. “Marcus keeps a calendar on his desk. We can see when this meeting is.”

“Do you think he’d mark that down?”

“We won’t know until we look,” I say. I slide out my phone and snap a picture of the letter. Just in case. I want to have a paper trail. “If we Uber to the Nest, I’ll pick up my car and we can head over to the office. I’ll have sobered up enough by then.”

“Can I even go to your office?”

“In theory, no, but I run the camera system, so who’s going to find out? No one’s going to be there on a Saturday night. We’ll be in and out.”

El looks somewhat enthused by the idea of breaking the rules. “Okay, that works. I think we’re safe to ditch this party.”

El wraps her manicured fingers around my wrist and pulls me toward the door, pushing the small table out of the way.

There are voices on the other side—too close.

Then the door jolts. Shit, shit, shit. Ian Forte is going to waltz his little Keebler Elf loafers back in here and catch us in the act.

I don’t know what he’ll do, but I’ll probably be kicked out of Houdini House forever, which might be a shame.

I do like magic shows. And I like seeing El in this sparkling gown even more.

“Damn,” she hisses, pushing back on the door. “Um…uh…What are we doing in here?”

“We got lost looking for the bathroom?”

“ Together? ” she snaps.

“Not the weirdest place I’ve been with a woman.”

El scoffs, turns, and grabs me by the tie. “Come here.”

I don’t even question what she means—not when her lips slowly inch toward mine, jaw dropping open slightly with a muted sigh as we begin to close the gap.

There’s no need to pretend I haven’t fantasized about what her lips taste like or how her body feels.

I’ve pictured this in my mind a thousand times and every fiber of me wants to devour her.

The sequins on her dress press so firmly against me, I can feel each one itching and poking through my shirt as she holds my gaze, her lips only a few breaths away.

I question if she’s going to take this all the way.

It’d be easy enough to make it seem like we were kissing, like a panicked pull-away between kisses, but that’d be excruciating torture.

To come so close and not know what her lipstick tastes like, what sounds she makes when I touch her.

But El’s the kind of woman where, if I kiss her, I’m not going to want to stop.

“Make this look good,” El murmurs.

Her lips collide with mine like she’s convincing herself to jump over the finish line with me, and I think she’s pleased with her choice.

We’ve only known each other a couple of weeks, but it feels like I’ve been waiting for her for years.

Her lips are full and warm, and miraculously, even Ian’s vodka tastes great on her tongue.

I slide my hands up her body, learning her curves with something other than my eyes, settling them at the back of her neck, one thumb along her jaw.

I tilt her chin down, parting her lips to kiss her deeper. She lets out a crushing groan as her fingers grip the hair at the nape of my neck. I touch her, and she asks for more. El is pliable under my fingertips, and as I back her up against the closet door, she trusts I’m going to catch her.

I lace one arm around her waist, and the other grips the doorframe behind her. Safe, shielded, and all mine. When El slides her grip lower, latching on to my belt loops to tug me closer, that’s when I know she’s not acting, either.

Our eyes meet like fleeting ships in the night.

It’s a moment of hungry, unspoken agreement between us that says we can dishevel each other as badly as we want.

El bites down on my bottom lip with another kiss, tugging it away from my teeth with a teasing laugh.

She wants to torture me and I want to suffer.

The door pushes open beside us and a busboy peers inside.

“Mr. Forte? Oh…Oh no.”

El yanks away so quickly it feels like I’ve been punched in the chest. I can’t think of anything but the taste of her lips and how I’m going to die if I don’t get more of her soon.

“Oh gosh! Are we not supposed to be in here?” she says. El’s voice pitches up, playing dumb and naive. “We just…got distracted.”

She toys with the back of my hair and brushes her nose with mine.

“Yes,” I choke out. “Very distracted.”

I’m so, so distracted.

“You shouldn’t be in here. If you leave, I won’t tell anyone you were here.”

“ You ,” El gasps, “are a gem. We’ll get out of here, then. Come on, babe.”

Babe. I’m ready to perish.

El grabs my wrist and pulls me out of the room with her, like the most earth-shattering kiss of my life didn’t just happen.