Chapter 04: Room Thirty Two.

CORBIN.

I already knew her answer before she even opened her mouth.

That was the thing about knowing someone for as long as I had known Sydney Sharma.

You stopped needing the words.

You just read the face, the pause, the way her eyes went slightly soft when she was about to do something she knew was not good for her, and right then every single thing about her expression was telling me exactly what she was about to choose, and I was not sitting there for it.

I was not giving Marcus the satisfaction of watching me be the guy whose girl walked back to her ex right in front of him at a dinner party while I sat there holding a wine glass like a prop.

I stood up, looked at Sydney for a moment, and shrugged like none of this was touching me at all. "I'll leave you to figure that out."

I did not wait for her response.

I just walked.

Not because I was angry, or at least that is what I told myself as I moved through the crowd towards the bar on the far side of the room.

I was not angry that she was going to choose him.

Sydney had always been emotionally driven, always been the kind of person who let her feelings make her decisions before her brain got a chance to weigh in.

I had known that about her since we were children so none of this was a surprise.

What actually bothered me was the part I had already seen coming from the moment she showed up at my apartment tonight.

The part where I rearranged my entire evening, let Fiona dress her up, stood outside in the cold holding a car door open like a boyfriend, walked into this party with her on my arm, and now I got to sit at a bar alone while Marcus reaped everything I set up.

That was the part that sat wrong.

I dropped onto a stool and waved the bartender over and asked for wine and when it came I drank half of it immediately.

I did not look back at their table.

I looked everywhere else, at the fairy lights, at the couples moving near the small dancefloor, at the bartender polishing glasses with the very peaceful energy of someone who did not have a fake girlfriend choosing her ex across the room.

I thought about how Sydney was going to come to me next week with some new problem and I was going to fall for it again because that was just the pattern, that was just how we worked, and I had never once managed to break it.

The stool beside me shifted and someone sat down.

"Hi, can I get the white champagne please." The voice said to the bartender.

I turned and I genuinely had to work to keep my face neutral because sitting one stool away from me, was Sasha.

Marcus's Sasha.

The same girl I watched walk in on his arm an hour ago, the same girl who was apparently the reason Sydney showed up at my apartment crying.

I looked at her for a second and then I smiled. "Hey. You alright?"

She glanced at me with that particular expression girls use when they want you to know they are not impressed but they have not fully decided to ignore you yet.

Then something shifted and she said, "I'm guessing you're big Corbin."

I felt the familiar warmth of being known and I leaned back slightly. "I see someone who pays attention. Let me buy you a drink."

She took her champagne from the bartender, looked at it, and smiled. "I'm here with someone, tho."

"I know," I said, "the same person who is over there right now having a very interesting conversation with someone else."

She turned and looked across the room and I could see the moment she found them because her jaw tightened slightly, just for a second.

She smoothed her expression back into something unbothered and looked away. "And do you need me to remind you that the someone is your girlfriend? Awkward for you."

I frowned. "Why would you think she's my girlfriend?"

She almost laughed. "Jamey's people have been circulating your couple photos since you walked in. It's already everywhere."

I closed my eyes for exactly one second because of course it was.

Of course Jamey had people stationed at the entrance.

Of course the moment Sydney and I walked in together someone with a phone was already working.

At least I had the sense to leave that table when I did... because if I had sat there and watched Sydney choose Marcus with Jamey's cameras pointed at us, the story circulating right now would have been significantly worse.

I lifted my glass. "Good to know. Enjoy your night."

Sasha stood, picked up her champagne, took exactly two steps away, then stopped.

She came back slowly and placed a small card on the bar in front of me. Room thirty two, written in neat handwriting.

"I do not like to wait," she said, "so don't take long."

She walked away without looking back and I sat there holding the card and feeling, for the first time since I arrived at this party, like the night might not be a complete waste.

I dropped cash on the bar and followed.

Room thirty two was quiet and warm and she was already there when I pushed the door open, standing near the window with her champagne glass still in her hand.

I understood now.

I fully understood, because whatever Marcus saw in her was not difficult to identify.

I gulped in. "It seems you just got out of the shower..."

She set the glass down and walked towards me. "Yeah, I needed to get myself wet. Now it's your turn to get me wet."

I reached for her lips vigorously, and she was already working at my shirt buttons.

I let her, but then something in my head just stopped.

It was not a dramatic thing.

It was just a click, quiet and sudden, like a door closing somewhere in the back of my mind.

I stood there and thought about what would happen tomorrow morning.

I thought about the possibility that things might work out between Sydney and Marcus tonight.

If it did not, and the fake dating continued, I would have to cut off communication between me and Sasha which might hurt her feelings, and when she woke up tomorrow, she might decide to share what happened here with whoever would listen.

The story would become that Corbin Stones cheated on Sydney Sharma with the exact same girl Marcus cheated on her with first.

I thought about Sydney's face when she found out about Marcus and Sasha.

I thought about how I would have to sit across from her and listen to her talk about betrayal while knowing what I did in this room.

Immediately, I stepped back.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I don't think we should do this."

Sasha went very still.

The look that crossed her face was not just annoyance, it was the specific humiliation of someone who was not used to being told no, and she stared at me for a long moment before she said, "why? Because of her?"

I did not answer that.

Not because the answer was complicated but because it was actually very simple and I did not feel like explaining it.

I picked my shirt up off the floor and started putting it back on. "I pushed you into something I shouldn't have. I'm sorry. I need to go."

"This is insane," she said, her voice sharpening, "the two hottest dudes on campus are literally running their whole evenings around some cowgirl who does not even know how to apply lip liner properly."

I stopped.

I turned around slowly and looked at her.

I walked back towards her calmly as I took her chin lightly and looked at her directly. "I am going to say this once. Keep her name off your lips."

She smiled slowly. "Or what?"

"Or I'll make sure you understand exactly why you should," I said, "because at least she is not walking around parties looking for someone to get wet for."

Her smile dropped.

She stared at me and I could see it land as I let her chin go and stepped back.

I reached for my shirt again, in the middle of buttoning it when the door opened.

I looked up.

Sydney was standing in the doorway.

She was looking at me, and I was looking at her.

Sasha was standing three feet away in a state that made the situation look exactly what it almost was, and the silence in the room was the loudest thing I had heard all night.

I watched Sydney's face move through something I could not name, and I had absolutely nothing to say.