Eros

Chapter 23: The Sign

"Are you sure?" Shay stared at her, her eyes big. Pleading. Pouting.

"Shay! I am sure."

"He told me that he—"

"I don't give a rat's behind what Eros said, okay? Not now, not ever!"

"Aw, but Angie . . ."

"Just because I love you doesn't mean you can get away with stuff." Angie tore her eyes from an invitation she'd just assigned. She couldn't stop thinking about the secret her dad had revealed the other night. It haunted her.

Shay dropped her pen and leaned back in her chair, her thin brows furrowed, her eyes darkening. "You know, I'm just going to tell you anyway."

"Shayla! You're impossible. He hurt me that night! Okay? I was in my underwear for crying out loud with disgusting stuff smeared all over me and he just marched up to me, real angry like, and accuses me—accuses, mind you—of pulling a fast one on him. I know you wouldn't put up with crap like that. You would have slapped that handsome face of his!"

"A-ha! So you think he's handsome?"

"I didn't say he was handsome." Angie thinned her lips, feeling her face crumple with disgust.

"I heard you." Shay stopped moving and just sat there, watching Angie sign another invitation.

"What?" She punctuated her irritation by slamming her hand on the table.

Shay shook her head from side to side, her eyes glued to Angie's face. "You still love him."

"Get out, Shayla. I don't want you anywhere near me until the party is official. Go downstairs and bug the gardener, he's cute enough for you."

"Him? No, I couldn't—he's twenty eight! Twenty eight and unmarried and working as a gardener! Does he still live with mommy?"

Angie laughed. She stood and pulled Shay by the wrist and herded her to the door. "No, he lives in his quarters out there. Go bother him."

"No—I'd rather bother—"

But Angie closed the door on her and fell into her chair with a long sigh. She stared at her graduation party invitation until it blurred out of focus. All she could think about was Eros. Everything about him. From his eyes to his lips to his hair to his body. His childlike ignorance and daring naivety. So naïve that he thought nothing of loyalty.

She leaned back until the vaulted ceiling came into view, the lamplight bulbs flickering like candlelight on the wall behind her. Though her dad had confessed such a painful thing, she couldn't help but approach her problem with prejudice. She closed her eyes, seeing Eros' lips glide along Candi's, her sighing as her eyelashes fluttered open.

"I bet he's with her now!" Angie leaned forward, the pen in her fist. "Holding her. Touching her. Kissing her. She knows how sweet his mouth tastes. I bet she likes to grab his hair like I did." She had imagined them together quite often that it made her sick enough to vomit.

No, she wasn't as strong as her mother. She wasn't ready to open her heart back up to being stomped on all over again. If only her mom was still around.

Angie stopped right there, the pen snapping in two.

Even though she thought of Eros with someone else, her body betrayed her. It was alive with passion and she longed to hold him again. She glared at herself. "I hate you, stupid body!" She jumped up from her seat, walking as fast as she could to her balcony to think.

There, by Cupid's water fountain, stood Shay kissing Cody. The gardener. Angie smothered her laughter and ran back inside, bursting out loud, holding her sides. Once gaining control of herself, she gathered the invitations and snapped a rubber band on them. She'd leave the stamping up to Shay.