Keep Me If You Can (If You Can #3)

31. Problem Solver

Chapter thirty-one

Problem Solver

I didn’t walk directly to Sydney in case Olivier came after me, but when it was clear he was preoccupied with whatever was going on, I doubled back and met Syd where I’d left her. She was staring at the table, her lips parted and her drink empty.

“Well, that went both better and worse than expected,” I said. “So it turns out Clara is Cody’s wife’s sister .”

“Nellie,” Sydney said, her voice hollow. “What happened to being nice?”

“How nice can you be when you’re telling someone their husband is cheating?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to embarrass her!”

“I didn’t say anything embarrassing—”

“Look at her!” Sydney’s voice wavered. I glanced back at the table, where Clara was clearly fighting back tears. Olivier grabbed her arm and she batted it away. A second later, Cody’s wife doused Olivier with the rest of her frozen daiquiri and then took Cody’s beer and dumped it on his head.

“It’s not even just Olivier and Clara now,” Sydney said. “Now it’s two couples I broke up.”

“You didn’t do shit,” I said. “You’d rather let those women be with dirtbags who lied to them instead of letting them know the truth?”

“Put yourself in their shoes,” she said. “Would you want to be embarrassed like that in public?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’d never be in those shoes in the first place. I’m never doing relationships and that means I’m never getting married.”

“Yeah, but have some fucking empathy,” she snapped.

I gaped at her. “Are you seriously arguing for not telling them?”

“I’m saying you need to think about how your actions affect other people.” She blinked rapidly. “Neither of those women deserved that.”

I didn’t know if embarrassment or anger was heating my cheeks. Maybe it was both. Sydney had a point, in a way. Yes, both of them had deserved better than that, but they’d thank me one day.

Maybe.

Or maybe it was just another way that I’d fucked up.

“Maybe we should go back to the hotel,” Sydney said

“Why?” I asked.

“You’re spiralling.”

“How am I spiralling?”

“You’re not being yourself,” she said. “You’re doubling down on this relationships-are-bullshit thing because you’re obviously hurt about things ending with JP and—”

“Watch it, Syd,” I said.

“I am saying this as your friend,” Sydney said. “You are lying so obviously that it’s painful. You are so stubborn you’re refusing to admit how miserable you are. You’re so unwilling to admit you have feelings for him that you’re trying to solve it by finding a random person to hook up with, but you can’t solve every problem by spreading your legs, Nell.”

I didn’t say anything.

I didn’t say a single fucking thing.

“Wait,” Sydney said a moment later. “That came out—”

“Ladies,” said an unfamiliar voice. “I hope the drinks we sent over didn’t cause this tension.”

I turned to see the two guys the bartender had pointed out standing nearby. One was taller, with light brown hair and pale white skin, wearing a buttoned shirt and chinos. The other was shorter and looked like he lived in a gym, with thick biceps that strained the fabric of his polo and big, puppy dog eyes.

I liked the tall one.

“Yeah,” I said. “You’ll do.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What was that?”

“I said you’ll do.” I downed the rest of the drink one of them had bought me and put the glass on the bar. “Let’s go dance.”

“Nellie, wait,” Sydney started.

“You can leave if you want,” I said. “But I have to go solve some problems.”

And I grabbed the man’s hand and dragged him towards the dance floor.

“Well, you know how to go after what you want,” he said.

Or at least, I think he did. The music was so loud I could barely think.

“Yeah,” I shouted. “What’s your name?”

He said something. I wasn’t exactly sure what. He had a strong French accent to begin with, but paired with the volume of the music, all I could guess was that it started with an F sound. Felix, maybe?

It didn’t matter.

I didn’t need to know his name.

Our dancing started innocently enough. My body didn’t touch his as I swayed to the music, my hands grazing his arm the only form of contact. For one or two songs, we stayed that way, just teasing each other as we moved to the music.

I let him be the one to make the next move; as my fingers trailed down his arm, he turned his palm up to catch my wrist and tugged me closer to him. He leaned in, his lips moving, but I shrugged helplessly.

“The music is too loud!” I shouted, and he smiled and returned the gesture before putting a hand on my lower back and pulling me hard against his body.

I took a sharp breath as we pressed together, inhaling the scent of overpriced cologne and subtle sweat. Closing my eyes, I focused on the feel of his fingers as they trailed down my sides, strong hands pulling my body closer to his. There was a comfort to his body, a gentle familiarity that made me relax against him. I took another deep breath, then frowned.

Familiar, but not quite right.

There were a few things wrong with that, namely that I’d never met Felix before and there was no reason for him to seem familiar. Something tugged at the back of my mind, but I ignored it, instead reaching up and running my hands along Felix’s chest. His hands moved up and down my sides in a way far too intimate for a man I’d spoken a handful of sentences to. Still, I kept dancing, and I kept letting him touch me, and I kept thinking the woodsy citrusy scent of his cologne was too spicy.

Too spicy compared to what, I didn’t know.

He moved one hand to the small of my back, holding me even closer. I rested my hands on his shoulders, trying to ignore that déjà vu-like sense creeping through my nerves. My tension must have been palpable: moments later, Felix’s lips brushed my ear.

“What is wrong?” he shout-asked.

I shook my head as if doing so would shake off the strange feeling and grinned, looking up at him. “Nothing!”

Without warning, he tightened his grip on me, making me gasp as his body crushed against mine. I looked up at him with wide eyes, and he raised an eyebrow at me questioningly. Before he could speak or I could think, I pulled his face to mine and kissed him as hard as I could.

It surprised him; that much was evident by the way he jumped. It was just as apparent that he wanted it, though; as soon as he recovered, he kissed me back, his hips grinding into mine. I smirked against his mouth, responding by pushing my chest into his, and I felt him exhale against my lips.

He pulled back and said something, but again, I couldn’t hear it.

“I don’t read lips!” I shouted.

He leaned in and brought his mouth next to my ear. “I said, keep dancing like that on me and I might start wondering if there’s something else you are looking for.”

Turning my head slightly, I spoke into his ear. “Are you wondering how long you have to put up with the dancing charade before you ask me to go home with you?”

“Forward, are you?”

I pressed my body tighter to his, already feeling his body reacting through his chinos. “You seem to like it.”

“Well, maybe,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows and swayed my hips. “Maybe? So that’s just your phone vibrating in your pocket?”

The shifting of my hips had the desired effect. Felix’s cock twitched again and he smirked.

“Maybe I’m just very happy to see you,” he said.

I kissed him again, and again, breathing softly as his lips worked mine, and his fingers dug into my skin as he pushed his bulge against me. Usually, that would get a reaction of my own underway. I waited patiently for those tingles of desire to start, for my panties to dampen and my nipples to harden, but they didn’t.

Frowning, I kissed Felix harder, slipping my tongue into his mouth. He exhaled a soft sigh, his hands moving to my ass and squeezing. His tongue flicked against mine, and again, I waited for that shot of arousal to course through me.

Nothing happened.

Frustrated, I moved my mouth to his neck. Felix groaned, the sound making his neck vibrate beneath my lips, and he kissed the side of my head. His hips rolled, pushing his erection against me again as his lips found my ear.

“Why are you teasing me like this?” he asked.

“I’m not teasing,” I said. “That would imply I have no intention of going through with this.”

He swore softly enough that I wasn’t sure exactly what he said. “What if I took you to my car? I’m parked out back.”

I had no problem fucking anyone in a car. “You have a condom?”

He nodded. “Let me settle the tab so they do not stop us on the way out.”

He subtly adjusted the front of his pants before leading me to the bar, his hand on the small of my back. I waited, leaning against the bar as he asked for his credit card, my heart racing as I tried to ignore the fact that Felix was barely turning me on. It was because it had been a while, I told myself. I hadn’t fucked anyone new since Ben, technically, and that had been at the start of the summer.

I’d almost convinced myself when the bartender brought Felix’s credit card over and Felix took out his wallet to put it away.

“What’s that?” I asked, staring at the leather.

He frowned. “What?”

“That!”

“My wallet?”

“No.” I pointed at the monograph in the corner. “What are those initials?”

He frowned, a mix of confusion and amusement. “My initials.”

“I thought your name was Felix.”

He laughed and shook his head. “No. Phillipe .” He tapped each of the letters on the wallet. “Jean-Phillipe MacKay.”

JPM.

Nausea hit me at the same time as the realization that I’d picked the fucking knock-off version of JP to dance with. I’d had the opportunity to dance with a guy who was completely different, but here I was with Phillipe.

Brown hair instead of blonde, but in this light, almost the same.

Confident hands, but they didn’t know how to touch me.

His voice smooth, but too French.

His outfit stylish and put together, but it didn’t fit him quite right.

Woodsy, citrusy cologne, but it didn’t have the subtleness of JP’s.

And no sparks when he kissed me.

“Oh no,” I whispered.

Phillipe frowned. “What is wrong?”

“I… I have to go,” I said.

The frown deepened. “Wait. Go where?”

“I have to—”

“You said you were not a tease, baby.”

He wasn’t even calling me the right nickname. “I’m not. I just realized—”

He took a step forward, effectively trapping me between him and the bar. “Then why are you teasing me?”

One time, a man with horrible breath and even worse sweatpants cornered me alone at Les Bleus.

One time, Clinton Thibault was his usual horrible self while we were alone at a luncheon in the Marchands’ backyard.

One time, my dad was about to scream at me for asking what a blowjob was at a wedding. One time, he had screamed at me, calling me a slut for daring to try to find out if I was pregnant.

Each of those times, JP had inconveniently shown up right when I needed him.

Each of those times, he’d stepped in, not to protect me but to back me up.

Each of those times, I’d taken it for granted.

For a moment as Phillipe pressed me against the bar, I hoped JP would magically appear. But he wouldn’t. He only ever did that when we were friends, and we weren’t friends anymore.

We weren’t anything anymore.

And I hated it.

“You need to leave me alone,” I said to Phillipe.

“You need to tell me why you’re such a fucking—”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll rip your balls off before you even get a chance to take your hands off my friend.”

Sydney worked her way between me and Phillipe, giving exactly zero fucks about shoving him out of the way so she could get in front of me. Phillipe stepped back, a look of offense on his face.

“I just want to know what happened,” he said. “One second she wants to fuck me and—”

He said more, but I didn’t hear it. Sydney pulled me away from the bar, then threaded her arm through mine.

“Leave?” she asked.

“Leave,” I agreed, and we hurried for the exit.