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I entered the room. The long, dark blue dress that accentuated my figure,slightly dragged over the floor with every step I took in the Saint Laurent sandals. A diamond necklace hung around my neck, matching the earrings perfectly, which were clearly visible because I had my curled hair tucked behind my ears. The last time I got ready like that and partly enjoyed it was months ago, so the feeling had become strange.
Rose, Rafes, Wheezies and Sarah's stepmother sat at the table, as did Ward, my mother and my brother. Their eyes darted straight to me when they noticed my presence, and after a long time I saw my mother smiling at me. Like she was proud that I didn't embarrass her with my choice of clothing. I greeted them with a quick nod and sat down nervously on the chair next to my brother, making his eyes roll back in annoyance. I swear, that guy was born to be a hater.
"Where is Rafe?" my mother asked a few moments later and only then did I realize that he wasn't here. The chair across from me was empty and I kind of hoped it would stay that way for the rest of the evening.Before Ward could even answer my mother's question, Rafe came in and seated himself without saying a word, his eyes remaining on me.
"Sorry, something came up," he murmured seconds later and I saw his gaze slowly wandering down to my cleavage and a grin forming on his lips. Woah, it would have been a miracle if that wouldn't have happened. But to be honest I also scanned him slowly, noticing the many hickeys on his neck that he tried to hide with a black turtleneck, without success obviously. It bothered me. The hickeys bothered me for some reason that I couldn't explain to myself at the time.
"Soo Anna," Rose's voice came from across the table, catching my attention.
"Is there some guy or something?" She winked at me as she took a sip of the red wine, which she clearly had enough of. I was actually just going to answer the question with a simple no and ignore it as much as possible, but Rafe's little cough when she asked me made me think twice about it. My eyes met Rafe's again and I noticed that he was also waiting for my answer. Didn't I tell him about JJ? Or did he think I was just joking at that moment?
"Yea, there is a guy."I replied as shortly as possible and I could feel my mothers gaze on me. She probably just hoped that it wasn't a Pogue, because that would ruin everything, right? But I really didn't care about her opinion, not even a little.
"Is he a Pogue?"Rafe wanted to know, as if I hadn't already given him the answer hours before. I don't know what his plan was.Perhaps, he wanted to provoke an argument between my mother and me, or he just wanted to make my evening as unpleasant as possible.He was pretty fucking close to doing just that. There was an uncomfortable silence in the room. As if my love life was so interesting that everyone wanted to know everything about it. Rose and Ward exchanged looks that they probably thought were subtle, but they were anything but subtle.
"That's none of your business, Rafe"I finally managed to say and he nodded, with the usual provocative facial expressions of his. The food arrived and the chef started serving everyone their food, so I took advantage of the little distraction to quickly disappear into the bathroom.
With the first look in the mirror I noticed that my lips were slightly smudged, so I took the lipstick I was lucky enough to have with me out of my bag to touch them up. But before I did that, I took a quick look at my phone to see if any of the five had texted me. A message from JJ and Kiara popped up in which they asked me if everything was going well and if I was okay. While I was texting the two of them to reassure them that everything was okay, I heard someone behind me, which made me almost scream loudly.
It was Rafe. What a surprise.
"What are you doing here?"I quickly put my phone and lipstick back in my bag and was basically ready to leave.
"You look good,"he spoke, completely ignoring my question. He crossed his arms across his chest and leaned against the doorframe. Maybe it was time to start the plan: Try to bond with Rafe and try to get closer to him. But would that just work through the sexual tension we constantly had? I mean, it's probably worth a try.
"You too,"I couldn't believe those words left my mouth, and he probably couldn't either, judging by the surprised look on his face. "Was that a compliment?"He tilted his head a little as he said this, taking a few steps towards me. I shrugged and slowly bit my lip, making him exhale heavily in response.
