'M' is For: [Ch12] Careful What You Wish For - Part 2

Missy’s birthday celebration for me started out normally enough. We skipped barre and met up at a restaurant near Missy’s apartment for dinner. Most everyone I knew, like Kiara, Danielle, James, and of course, Thomas. But Missy also brought along a new guy she had picked up named Bryan. He reminded me a little of Todd from the Hamptons: impressively muscled with a personality like cardboard. It seemed Missy had a particular type when it came to her flings. I’d also invited Edward, but he’d had a modeling engagement and couldn’t make it.

Missy had reserved the back room of the restaurant all to ourselves. It was a pretty cool room, with exposed brick walls and racks of hundred-dollar wines all around us. We ended up settling on some more modest house wines, but we had a good time swapping samples and pretending we were all expert sommeliers. Missy, of course, was the most convincing, and she made a whole bit out of it: swirling the wine, taking little sniffs, and ruminating on the “sad, melancholy notes” of her drink.

Afterwards, Missy invited us back to her apartment for cake. I was moved despite myself to see she’d prepared with candles and party hats with elastic bands for us to wear, and I gamely let the group sing to me in discordant, off-key notes before I blew out the candles. Thomas helped cut and serve the cake, and James popped open a bottle of champagne.

It was at that point that Missy stepped forward, clapping her hands together. While not as dressed up as she got for her book club parties, she was stunning as always, with her hair pulled into a low ponytail and a deep navy-blue jumpsuit that accentuated the lines of her collarbones and narrow waist. Her eyes found mine, and I felt a prickle of sudden trepidation.

“Thank you, friends, for coming together to celebrate my dearest Mallory’s birthday tonight,” Missy announced. She threw an arm around my shoulders, drawing me in close enough to smell the scent of her perfume. “Now, if I’d had my way, we’d be celebrating this all a little more extravagantly over the weekend to give this queen the party she deserves—”

“Hear, hear!” Kiara hooted from the back, and when I made a face, she winked at me unrepentantly.

“—but it was not to be,” Missy continued. “Our sweet Mal will be traveling to visit her family, and so we’ll have to wait. BUT, as a special birthday gift…” Missy tightened her arm around my shoulders. “...I will lend you none other than my Thomas for a whole weekend.”

“Wh-what?” Thomas and I both stared at Missy.

“Thomas. I’m giving him to you.” Missy laughed, and the hairs on the back of my arms rose. Although nothing in her behavior indicated it, I got the strangest feeling that she was furious with me. “Please don’t tell me you’re not interested when we both know better.” Missy tapped my nose playfully. “Besides, you’ve mentioned before how your mother always gives you grief over your dating life. What better way to make her happy than showing up with someone as perfect as Thomas?”

“But that would be a lie. He’s your boyfriend,” I protested.

“Do you accept your gift or not?” Missy said, and now there was no mistaking her impatience.

A long silence fell as I looked around the room. Everyone else was watching us as though this were a perfectly normal thing for Missy to have done. For all I knew, maybe it was. I looked at Thomas, but his eyes were fixed on Missy, his expression hard to read.

“Uh, yeah,” I managed to say. “Thank you, Missy.”

Missy beckoned toward Thomas, and he joined us. She threw her spare arm around him, pulling him close to kiss him. This was no chaste kiss; she savored his lips, winding her tongue against his. The muscles in his throat moved as he returned the kiss in earnest, eyes drifting shut as his own arm crept around her waist.

A moment later, Missy was turning towards me, and I found myself opening my own mouth in automatic response. Her lips were sweet with the taste of her lip balm, but her tongue was the taste of champagne and danger and forbidden desire. She caressed my tongue in slow, deliberate movements, withdrawing slightly to trace the inside edges of my lips before plunging forward again. I moved my lips against hers, attempting to keep my head above the currents that threatened to pull me under. It seemed like an age before she finally withdrew, slipping back until our lips were lightly touching. Just as I started to relax, her teeth came down on my lower lip and bit down hard. I gasped despite myself.

Missy smiled down at me, eyes glinting like symmetrical chips of ice beneath her mascara-blackened lashes. Thomas is a gift in name only because you’re both mine, her smile seemed to say, and I shivered with a sudden chill. I gingerly touched a finger to my lip and drew it away, bright with blood.

“Have a good trip,” Missy said sweetly.

❖❖❖

“Oh my gosh, Mallory, sweetie, I love the hair!” my mom enthused as she opened the door to our house. “You look so sophisticated and so…so stylish!”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said with a smile. I hadn’t done much besides apply a light layer of makeup and curl my hair, but as someone who previously couldn’t be bothered to spend more than five minutes on my morning routine, I could see how she would take the change as monumental. “This is my friend, Thomas.”

I stepped aside so that Thomas could introduce himself.

“Hello, Mrs. Ryan,” Thomas said, extending a hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” My mom stared at him for a full moment before remembering her manners. She quickly reached out to shake his hand, a low blush creeping into her cheeks. A rueful grin twitched my lips. The ability to telegraph our slightest emotion was one thing we had in common.

“Nice to meet you,” my mom said, still shaking his hand. “When Mallory said she was bringing a friend…I didn’t imagine…I thought maybe…”

I coughed pointedly, and my mom recovered enough to glare at me. She did finally release Thomas’s hand.

“Well, come on in,” my mom said, turning and leading us into the house. “Shall I give your friend a tour of the house?”

“Yes, ma’am, that’d be wonderful,” Thomas said. For all that Missy had sprung this trip on him unexpectedly, he sure seemed determined to be on his best behavior. It was totally unnecessary. He could have answered with monosyllabic grunts and my mom still would be swooning.

“I can take the bags while you show him around,” I announced. “I assume Thomas is going to be in Will’s old room?”

“Yes. We put out some fresh sheets and a towel,” my mom said just as my dad emerged from his office. He had his reading glasses on and a folded-up newspaper tucked under his arm.

“Hi there. Bill,” my dad said by way of introduction, and he and Thomas shook hands.

I took the duffel that Thomas had brought and slung it over my shoulder. My dad and I exchanged a quick hug and kiss, and then I headed upstairs, grateful to have a couple moments to myself before the family time began in earnest.

After Missy had made her announcement at the party on Thursday, we agreed that Thomas would meet me in the lobby after work and we’d head over to the bus station together. That gave me enough time to get things ready on my end, like giving my parents a quick heads-up so that they wouldn’t be totally shocked when I showed up at the door with Thomas in tow.

“I told my parents I’m bringing a friend,” I’d informed Thomas once we’d made it onto the bus and picked our seats. “They don’t know much about you except that you work in the same building and we have some mutual friends. Of course, they’ll jump to their own conclusions, but we don’t need to tell them anything more than that.”

“Sounds good,” Thomas said.

“Is this…have you done anything like this before?” I asked him, and Thomas shook his head.

“Not like this. Not for a whole weekend. Usually it’s for a night, at most, and Missy’s always been there to supervise.”

I was tempted to ask him what he thought of the whole thing, if Missy’s offer had surprised him as much as it had me, but I sensed that Thomas wouldn’t tell me the truth. Not when Missy was concerned. “Well,” I said lightly, “I appreciate you coming. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make it easier for you.”

Thomas raised his eyebrow, smiling a little at me. “Mal, this is for you. It’s your birthday weekend. Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself.”

God, I thought to myself as my pulse quickened in response. I’m in trouble.