Sinner(198)

I can feel my blush spreading up my cheeks as the thought hits me. The kind of blush that I hate because it makes my cheeks pink, which looks weird and not in a cute way if you’ve got red hair like mine. He’s grinning at me though with that totally charming and utterly disarming smile, and those piercing blue eyes are flashing and it’s like I’m under some kind of spell.

…You know, the kind of spell where I apparently can’t say anything without sounding like a total weirdo. “So, how do you- I mean, how did you get-”

Wow, was I really about to ask ‘how did you get invited?’ I shake my head. “Uh, sorry. I guess I meant to ask your name, not, you know, accuse you of party crashing or something.”

He laughs, and the sound is like warm silk and smoke, which makes something tingle inside of me. “Oh, yeah sorry, I never even got to that part.”

God that smile is freaking criminal it’s so attractive, it’s like I just want to-

“Hudson,” My heart skips a beat. “Hudson Banks.”

Shit. And just like that, I’m over it.

“I work with-”

“You work with my Dad.” I say evenly. Ok, spark gone. Mystery butterflies dead.

Hudson freaking Banks.

I can’t believe I haven’t recognized him from the corporate gala event Dad threw a year or so back. Of course, back then I was too busy hating our Dad for dragging us to his stupid event and too busy sulking in the corner with a book to bother being introduced to anyone.

Anyone like Hudson Banks. One of “The Guys” my father is always palling around with in whatever conflict zone he’s in this week. The charm suddenly looks more like smugness to me. The cool confidence now arrogance as I realize that this is one of the people it seems my father would rather spend time with than his own family at his own home.

Hudson frowns a little, seeing the way my smile falls from my face, and he opens his perfect mouth to say something when suddenly something blonde and loud crashes into him. “Heeey baaabe.”

I can see him wince, and see his jaw tense up, and I almost have to grin at his discomfort. I mean I thought my dress was a little too flirty for the occasion, but this girl looks like she might be a stripper.

“Hiii, I’m Chastity.” She says, sticking out a hand covered in tacky looking jewelry with big fake nails.

Ok, I take it back, this girl is definitely a stripper. I can’t even help but let the grin spread across my cheeks as I see the frown deepen on his. Whatever charm he was trying to work on me - and I refuse to admit that it was; working, that is - is now being totally shattered by this bimbo, and that thought is extremely amusing to me in that moment.

Hudson clears his throat. “So, uh, you’re going to be in New York for college in the fall I hear?”

I’m momentarily confused how he knows that, but I nod. “Yeah, Columbia. It was that or Cornell, but I really liked the idea of being in the city-”

“Oh my God.” Hudson’s stripper-date has her mouth wide open, her eyes glazed as she shakes her head at me. “I totally gave up corn too. It has so many carbs it’s like crazy, am I right?”

Wow.

I can see Hudson’s eyes flash as he cringes, and it only makes me grin even more and nod enthusiastically at her. “That’s, uh, yeah that’s terrific. Good for you-”

“Chastity.” She says with a smile, holding out her hand as if we didn’t just do this thirty seconds before. “Like the virtue.”

I almost lose it completely. You just can’t make this stuff up, folks.

Hudson clears his throat again, as if trying to clear how awkward an encounter this is. “Well, I’m in the city too you know, and I’d be happy to show you around sometime.”

Oh, yeah, definitely, I think to myself Maybe we could go watch Chastity’s pole routine or something.

What are you, jealous? I frown, quickly burying the voice in my head and the totally ludicrous notion that I could possibly feel jealousy involving a guy I’ve just met, who I already sort of hate just on principle.

“Babe, I’m gonna go powder my nose, ok?” Chastity makes an exaggerated pantomime that even I get as a cocaine reference despite having never done drugs, before she giggles. “Oh, can I get my phone?”

Hudson grits his teeth, clearly totally uncomfortable with this whole scenario as he slips his hand into his jacket pocket and pulls out her cellphone. It’s when the two little nip bottles of scotch fall out and hit the grass under our feet that his face falls, he groans.

“That’s, uh, that’s not what it-” He looks up at me, his gorgeous blue eyes darting around my face as if they’re searching for something, and for the briefest of moments, I want to be that something.