Holding hands, Lola and Trick make their way over to the group closely followed by a severe Johnny. A Johnny I have never been able to take my eyes off for more than a minute, because he’s so Johnny that my Johnny poster weeps at night, struck by jealousy. Max Leokov slides up behind Nat, smiling a dangerously naughty smile. Without warning, he pulls her up from her kneeling position by her underarms and turns her to face Ash. I can’t help but chuckle at the look and Asher’s face. His jaw tics, any ounce of friendliness quickly replaced by anger.
But Max doesn’t care. He wraps his arms around Nat’s middle in an intimate embrace, lowers his face to her neck, and begins to pepper her with kisses. Ash steps forward, scowling, jaw tight, but Max simply steps back with Nat in his hold. I can’t hear what’s being said from here, but from the sly smile on Max’s face as he speaks and the way the others start laughing, I can tell he’s being a smartass and clearly has a death-wish for winding Ash up the way he is.
Clearly.
I’ve seen what Ash can do when he’s pushed. It’s not pretty.
Ash leaps forward, and like a coward, Max releases Nat, but quickly moves in front of Tina, arms open expectantly. Tina, being the sucker she is, moves into his embrace, laughing while he smacks wet kisses on her cheek.
A split second before Nik’s fist moves to punch him, Max dodges it, reaches out, and takes Lola’s hand. He pulls her to him, and rolling her eyes, she smiles, allows him to hold her close—almost too close—and dances a slow dance in the middle of their circle of friends. Trick, not liking this, pulls her away from him and tucks her close to his side. She sighs and happily wraps an arm around him.
Max opens his arms to his friends and shakes his head slowly. I see him mouth, ‘You’re no fun’. As he walks over to the bar and finds Mimi, he wraps his arms around her from behind. She stiffens a moment, turns, then relaxes back into him. He whispers something into her ear, and swatting him away, she laughs loudly. He holds a hand to his heart, wearing a mock-wounded expression.
And for a moment, I’m jealous. They truly are a family. A part of me craves to be a part of it. I feel like a geek looking into the cool group at school. Still, I look around for a Johnny I like, and there are more than a few hotties in the crowd, but my eyes keep moving towards the tall, dark, and handsome man with golden eyes and the magic dimple.
Max.
I’ve lost count of the amount of women I have seen him flirting with, and—let’s face it—he’s almost as Johnny as the man himself.
Dare I say, he’s more Johnny than Johnny?
Sacrilege!
If there ever was a Johnny I’d want for the night, it’d be him. He meets all the check boxes. Gorgeous. Funny. Intelligent. Sweet. And from the way he’s been throwing himself around, he’s a sure thing.
I spend the next ten minutes watching Max flirt with every woman within arms-reach, including my mom, before I pep myself up enough to talk to him. I don’t really like men who flirt, but I like that he’s an equal opportunity flirt. No woman is safe from him. Old, young, thick and thin, he’s all over it, and I see he’s moved on to Nina, who isn’t left unaffected. As he takes her hand and kisses it over and over again, she lifts her free hand to cover her mouth as she fights a smile.
This is my chance. I’ve found my in.
As I approach, Nina removes herself from his wandering arms—the fool—and moves on to chat with Mimi by the bar. With no new potential victims near, Max pulls his phone out of his pocket and begins to scroll.
You like to flirt, Max? Get ready to meet your match.
With every step closer I take to him, my stomach flips and flops around in anticipation. I’m excited! Finally, I reach his side and gently clear my throat. He glances up at me with his brows raised before looking back down at his phone. “Hey, Helen. How you doin’?”
My smile falters.
Helen? Really?
Well…not a good start.
He continues to play around on his phone, brows drawn as I speak, “Uh, it’s Helena, actually. Anyways, I was wondering if you’d like to have a drink with m—”
Before I can get another word in, he mutters, “Cool. Nice to see you again, Helen,” then he walks away, never taking his face from his phone, leaving me standing in the middle of the courtyard, mouth gaping. I blink as a frown overtakes my face. I try to make sense of what happened here. The serial flirt, the man who flirts with anything with a pulse, anything that moves, did not flirt with me.
Hmmm. If my calculations are correct, that would deem me undesirable.
Embarrassment flows through me, heating my cheeks. My embarrassment quickly turns to forced disinterest. I turn my nose up and stand taller. That’s fine. He doesn’t have to like me. Sometimes people just don’t like other people. It happens. It’s all good. And, hey, this is a good thing, I think. I mean, I sure as hell don’t hold a candle for Max Leokov.
Not anymore.
Chapter One
Helena
“Helena, mail!” my father shouts from the kitchen.
I jump up from my laying position and bounce off my bed. My feet try to move quicker than physically possible, causing my sock covered tootsies to slip and slide on the floorboards. A casualty is made quickly. My knee slams into my nightstand so hard the photo frames on the top fall over and the half-full glass of water topples, spilling aqua all over my open textbook.
Gasping with wide eyes, I clutch at it, willing the pain away, but the agony continues, stronger than before, and in a moment of clarity, I think to myself, This is it…this is how it all ends.
Okay, so maybe I’m a little dramatic, but damn, that hurts!
Oh, dear God. Will the pain never end?
My throbbing knee numbs, and I know it’ll have to go. I’ll likely be the only nightstand amputee. Just another statistic. I crawl over to my bedroom door and lie dying in the open doorway. I call out to the only person who can save me. “Ta, help!”
There’s a moment of silence before my father’s heavily accented voice calls back, “No.”
I’d like to say he’s a terrible father and he wants me to die, but he’s a great dad. Maybe a tad dramatic (hence my own dramatics), but a great dad. And I may have claimed death being on my door a few times before. Once or twice. But this time, it’s actually happening. My vision starts to darken. I see the light. “Ta, help me! I’m fading fast!”
My father sighs long and hard. “What happen this time? You get a paper cut, or plug your toe?”