Call Me Yours – Chapter 1
“Oh My God, they all think we’re his harem.”
Zoe blinked at Jessica but continued stirring her drink with the straw. Jessica had been responding to Zoe’s question about why no one would speak to them. “Do you really think so?”
“We’re attractive women…or at least attractive enough. In L.A. it was hard to stand out in a crowd.” Jessica shrugged. There seemed to be a radius around them that no man would approach. Jessica cared. Zoe didn’t.
They were unmarried—not that it probably mattered at a black door bar—and they were dressed up. Well, Zoe was as dressed up as she could afford to be. Though her top was designer, she’d gotten it at Rack for probably less than her drink cost. Not that she even knew what her drink cost. She wasn’t paying.
“They can’t think that.” Zoe countered as she glanced over at Noah—the ‘harem master’ in question.
“Of course, they do.” Jessica looked at her as if she were dense, then proceeded to explain. “We came in the back door with him, dressed all nice and slutty, and he’s buying our drinks. We’re his harem.”
“I’m not dressed slutty.” Well, maybe a little slutty for her, but Zoe didn’t hold a candle to most of the other women in the room.
Zoe took another drink, almost depressed. She didn’t want to stop coming out with her friends, but it would be nice to get picked up and maybe have a date before she was the only one left. She didn’t want to get married or even fall in love, but a date would be nice. It would be reassuring. Then she reminded herself that she didn’t need that. Look at what it brought with it…
Bree had always been married, Cara and Walker had been around a lot more before they took each other off the market. Tonight, it was just Noah, Jessica, and her.
Just then a sweet, pale, cool-boy came up and slid into the booth next to her. His designer shirt hung open and his man bun was as messy as his scruffy, short facial hair. He might have been good looking, but he wasn’t her type, Zoe thought. Perfect.
“Hey, ladies.” He grinned, wide..
“Hi.” She smiled back.
“Do you party?”
Weren’t they at a party? It was a bar, but wasn’t it kind of already a party? Zoe tried not to look as confused as she felt.
Looking over Cool-boy’s shoulder out onto the open floor, she saw Noah holding up several drinks, almost over his head. He was smiling and talking to some brunette whose boobs were about to fall out of her shirt. The way she wiggled when she talked indicated she was likely trying to get them to do exactly that. Zoe wondered if Noah was going to employ some of his mad theater skills and act surprised.
But Cool-boy was still sitting next to her, looking at her expectantly.
“Um, sure?” She smiled, wondering if she should give him more of a chance.
He grinned again and reached into his pocket as a suddenly very serious Jessica put her hand flat on the table to stop him. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. We don’t party.”
Jessica offered up a cold grin that stopped him in his tracks. She had the kind of features that could have made her a supermodel had she been taller.
Zoe frowned at her friend as Cool-boy uttered some “alright” and “no problem, ladies” and got up.
“Zoe, he’s offering drugs.” Jessica looked at her.
Fine. So, she was naive? “Do you party? That’s the slang?”
Jessica sighed and took another drink, finishing her second pink-whatever of the night. “God, no. That phrasing is so old, it’s practically lingo. I don’t even know where he dug that up from.”
“You should have flashed your badge!” Zoe grinned and tried again to drink the too-strong mojito. Even her drink was so ten years ago.
Jessica shook her head as the sarcasm rolled off her. “Oh yes, I’d love to be outed as a cop in a by-invite-only bar. No way. I’d rather say I was a hooker.”
Their voices were loud enough to be heard over the music/noise and so was Noah’s. “Hookers? Where?”
He slid in next to Zoe, putting the drinks down on the table. Jessica grabbed for hers while Noah pushed Zoe’s forward. “You didn’t even finish the last one.”
She shrugged.
“I was gone for almost thirty minutes,” he pointed out. Though he’d only left their little booth and headed over to the bar and back, it really had taken him that long.
In this place, he wasn’t the most famous face. It wasn’t a bar for A-listers, but the siblings of many a famous rocker or movie star were here. At the bar sat a one-hit-wonder that Zoe recognized. The girl had worked her ass off but hadn’t produced another hit. The guy who’d been cast as the newest superhero on a TV franchise sat next to her. Rumor was, his show was going to be the first big flop in a line of hits. And Zoe was pretty sure she’d seen the woman who’d been flirting with Noah on a Victoria’s Secret commercial.
She was no one. By comparison, her sequined tank top was modest and her skirt—which actually covered her ass—was long.
Noah bumped her shoulder and grinned.
And that right there was the problem.
She’d met him through Bree and Cara. She’d even hung a bit with Marco DeLuca—Bree’s friend—who was a bona fide A-list movie star. When they’d met, Noah had been an up and coming actor. He managed to pay his bills by acting, which was a huge accomplishment in this town. But he wasn’t recognized much beyond the occasional “don’t I know you from somewhere?” Now, he’d had a big role on a season of a popular TV show. He’d held good-sized parts in three movies and had already filmed two more that weren’t out yet. His star was about to rocket into the stratosphere.
He was a fun guy to hang out with, and she liked him. He made her laugh. Teased her about being a brainiac and was an essential part of her friend group. Then the makeup artist on his latest film had studded him up. Sent him home in a new haircut, changed his black hair back to his natural dark caramel brown. She’d insisted on five-o’clock stubble.
He’d blinked at Zoe the day she hadn’t recognized him. Then he grinned.
That was the moment Zoe realized she was a goner.
She’d known him for almost two years. Hung out with him on a weekly basis when he was in town. She’d partied with their friends at his pool and taught him how to wash baby puke out of his shirt the day Cara and Walker’s new baby girl had decided he was overdressed.
But that grin, that day? It had knocked her on her ass.
Zoe had been keeping that secret to herself. So, she smiled back at him in a way that she hoped was perfectly normal and scooted over. He pushed the new mojito at her.
“It’s pink?” She looked down into it. Now she had two drinks she wasn’t going to finish.
“I don’t know. Some new version. I told him to take it easy since you were a lightweight.” He bumped her shoulder again.
“Take a drink and let’s go dance.” Jessica told her.
Good, Zoe thought. She was succeeding at acting normal. Otherwise, Jessica would have let her sit there with her shoulder pressed against Noah’s for a little longer. So, she sucked down about a third of the newer, lighter, pinker mojito, then blinked a little as it hit her. “This is not lighter. Shove over, Noah. I gotta go work this off.”
She pushed against him, trying not to think about the feel of his arm under her palm. His shirt was between them, so no skin on skin, but she thought about it anyway. She thought about the fact that he had a gym membership and one of his films had set him up with a personal trainer. That hadn’t helped her little crush at all either.
Zoe reminded herself that she was poor. She was a student at UCLA. Full ride, but that didn’t leave a lot of extra room for drinks at bars and nice dinners and such. Her friends were generous, and she would pay them back one of these days. Next year, maybe.
Letting Jessica take her by the hand and pull her along, Zoe found herself in the middle of the throng of moving bodies. At first, she was just part of the pulse and rhythm of the group. She could dance—it wasn’t her best skill, but she didn’t embarrass herself. She felt her hair sliding over her bare shoulders and was glad she left it down. Someone slid up against her and for once she didn’t mind.
Then Noah was there, too.
Who was at the table?
“It’s fine. Carl’s watching it.” Noah said and she realized she must have said it out loud.
She didn’t drink from unattended glasses. But Carl was Noah’s limo driver and often came in with them, watched purses and such. Way too extravagant for Zoe, but Noah had been showing off his dollars lately. He liked the limos, said it was cheaper and safer than calling for a ride. Whatever.
Someone else rubbed up against her, and Zoe felt the slide of bodies on the dance floor. It was good to be relatively anonymous. If she wasn’t trying to talk to anyone, if she wasn’t there for a hook-up—and she wasn’t—then it was just a good time out dancing.
When she turned a bit, she saw the person beside her was Noah.
“What were you doing with that guy?” He had to lean in, his lips almost on the shell of her ear in order to be heard.
Zoe fought a delicious shudder and something inside her told her it was time to flirt. To see what Noah was made of. “We were dancing. Jealous?”
“That was some serious dancing,” he told her, once again coming in near enough to kiss.
Why had she thought that? Noah was not really her type. She didn’t go for the hot actor types. There were guys at school, in her classes that were more her style if she needed a random date once in a while. She leaned closer to Noah, “Prude.”
