The thought of a night out, an event in my honour, is a very thoughtful gesture from Tony. Each day I feel more and more a part of this family. I've never even been on the same street as the Plaza hotel, never mind a guest inside.
As the room begins to empty I find myself left with only Steve and James.
My phone begins to vibrate, lighting up with messages that seem to overlap each other again and again.
"There it is" James taunts, "The most popular girl in Manhattan."
I roll my eyes at him and pull my phone from my pocket, seeing the names of my girls flashing up on our newly made group-chat. They're excited to be invited tonight and guessing which news station will be first to get tipped off about our location. My bets are on TMZ.
Papparazzi is something I'd never considered having to deal with when I joined the team. I don't feel like a movie star, a model, an artist of any kind, but somehow the media treat us like more than that. They idolise our every move. We are much more than just decorated veterans to them and with that comes a sometimes aggressive need to know everything about us, and so we get followed almost everywhere we go, the public so desperate for even a crumb of our private lives. I heard they were even working on a musical.
"It's just the girls. They're excited for tonight."
"As am I" he grins back, his eyes glinting as he leans forward in his chair.
Steve clears his throat, making his presence between the two of us known. "We should get going" he indicates towards the doors and I push myself from the counter and in the direction of the elevators.
"Laters, Sarg." I call to Barnes as I grab my bag and hear the boys murmuring their goodbye's, or what I assume to be goodbye's, behind me.
It's not until I'm in the elevator and watching Steve approach me with a sorry look on his face that I realise it might have been more of a late warning than a goodbye. I notice James' wide eyes and frustrated expression. A blonde woman enters the room from the opposite side, the same woman I had seen so close to James on the hangar when I first arrived here, and skips straight towards him, her arms reaching out to touch him as Steve's massive torso blocks my view. I try to discreetly manoeuvre around him but he notices what I'm doing instantly.
I'm never normally this much of a... Well, bitch, but if she's coming with us tonight, someone please un-invite her.
I acknowledge the jealousy in my body when I feel my teeth clench together. All this time I've been mentally stating how much I am not attracted to Barnes, but I can't deny how my eyes have narrowed and my body language changed in the last few moments. I apparently liked the feeling of thinking I had been the only girl he paid attention too.
