BEAUTY MARKS

PARTAY IV

"Dominque, nothing, and I mean nothing will ever happen between us unless I'm high, drunk, suffer from momentary blindness and amnesia all at once," Kaede finished her tirade by tilting her head to the side and giving a cynical smile.

"Wow, I love your snappiness."

Kaede sighed, "are you listening to me?"

"No, not really. Let me tell you this: miss Missoni. I've decided to live life every day as if it's my last. I can take any risk I want. I love challenges."

Kaede walked out of the office, and Dominque followed and grabbed her wrist, "we haven't finished.

"What do you want, Dominque? What are you going to do? Push me against the wall and whisper something in my ear like your mine?"

The man released Kaede's wrist, "Kaede," which was like a 2010 pick-up line in fiction. No sane guy says stuff like that unless he has some freaky penchant [natural inclination in French] to seek violence and have feminists give him a kick in his royal specter. If it's the kind of thing you like, I can cater. You can reply something along the lines of you don't own me for a total fifty shades spoof," Dominique said, remembering how his younger sister used to squat his computer to read novels online.

The man learned a thing or two from the chapters she left open on his screen. The first was that most scenarios were unrealistic, and second, they dispraised both women and men. But the most significant was that they devalued relationships made them seem smutty and toxic.

Men were categorized as either: nerdy, bad, or fucker boys with a whole load of mental issues and darker than black childhoods.

Never Dominque thought of proclaiming himself the owner of anyone, and it troubled him that Kaede suspected him of being such a man.

Kaede shook her head, "your mouth sure does challenge."

Dominque smirked, "you're making me level-up."

A glint of what one could take for a smile surfaced on Kaede's face. She turned away and resumed her strut. They both went downstairs.

Marco came to meet them at the bottom of the staircase. A drop of sweat broke out as he tried to distill something in their behavior. In appearance, it didn't seem to be any rumble.

The team made the man panic as some told him Dominque seemed extremely interested in Kaede and visibly came to see her daily.

"Hey, dude, I've been looking for you for the last half hour."

"I went up to charge my phone in the office."

Marco waited for Kaede to be far to say, "did something happen?"

"No, nothing, why?"

"I mean, she didn't bother you?"

"No, she looked at the cameras," Dominque saw how tense Marco was. It was clear there was more to his overprotectiveness towards Kaede than met the eye.

"Marco, is there something between you two?

"Nah," Marco replied with a sheepish stare. The man passed the threshold where he couldn't bring up his relationship with Kaede without getting backlash for hiding it during and after the breakup. People thought Kaede was a jealous best friend at the time, as they never demonstrated their love in public. Kaede was the private person who was all cuddles behind the scenes. The woman didn't hang out. Marco profited from this and passed her off as a friend on most occasions which was practical. Now he imagined people not believing him.

The event was coming to an end, Kaede posed with Joseph, then Marco. The three got photographed together, and then the whole team joined in.

Everyone knew the buzz on the socials would be enormous. At 10:30 PM, they began to empty the store as they were going into restricted hours for which they did not have a permit. As usual, the Uber taxis took the staff to the destination they wanted.

Dominque waited for Marco outside with their footballer friends who held him hostage, "dude, you're coming to the Rimbaud tonight whether you want to or not.

"Guys, I'm drained, Iㅡ."

The Da Stuff team began to leave Dominque could see Kaede talking to Joseph and Marco while the DJ finished packing.

Ten minutes later, everyone was out, and Marco came to join them.

Kaede strode past the men without acknowledging the famous footballers.

"Aww, she didn't even say goodbye, I meanㅡ."

For men used to being idolized by all French football lovers, the woman's behavior was blasphemy.

"Perhaps we can invite her," Bastien, a second league player, said.

"Nah," Marco interjected.

"We can drop her off," Corentin added.

"Forget it; Joseph got a Uber. And trust me, Kaede, rather sliver home like a snake than climb in any one of our cars."

The men glared at Marco, "man, why are you like that. Just say I want her for myself."

Marco turned and watched Kaede drive off, "I can say all I want. She's just a girl I can't have," the latter of the sentence anymore remained in Marcos's mind.

The footballers brought the subject back on its initial course, "okay, whatever. It's Rimbaud time."

In the taxi, Kaede's mind blew up with all the theories one could imagine concerning Dominque.

What was his goal?

Kaede knew all was strategy, but the part of her that liked the attention swayed.

One thing was sure the man had more depth than Marco. His obsession over their matching beauty marks corrupted all of Kaede's ideas. The concept disturbed Kaede, and the fact Dominque wanted her to test him barbecued her neurons.

It was not the tryout that frightened Kaede but the result.

Kaede could not guarantee the outcome, and as Dominique said, she could end up liking him.