Bestfriend or Best Lover

TWENTY FOUR

Arden's POV

Belle and I visited the hotel branch at Grand Central Station, luckily we finished fast and since it's still early, I asked Belle to stay a while and chill at the bar downstair, which was name 'The Campbell'. I ordered her my favorite cocktail - the blonde negroni, made with hendricks gin, cocchi americano, and suze. While I ordered a pint of beer for me.

I was on my second glass of beer, and It's already half empty. While she was still on her first.

"Ar, I'm just going to the ladies room." I nod. She stood and went straight to the direction of the toilet down the hall.

"Arden, happy to see you here," Wren walking straight up to me, raising his shot of tequila toward my beer, gesturing a toast and downing it without delay.

"Cheers, man." I return the gesture and take a sip from my pint of beer.

He slams his shot glass onto the table with a groan and wipes the remnants of tequila from his lips. "It's boys poker night at my place tomorrow, your coming right?" Card games are our monthly routine which is set in our calendar by Caleb. So how can I forget.

All I can do is nod. My mind roaming somewhere else.

Fact is, I have been offered the assistant general position and that means a bigger responsibility. I will be in a lot of business trip. This morning, I received my official promotion when the General Manager called me in her office and sent me an email—filled with new work task/duties , along with a lot of other maters that I need to learn about the hotels.

But I still haven't delivered that news to anyone. Not my parents. Not to the guys. Not even Belle. Every time I've opened my mouth to tell her, it's like my throat locks up and I can't get the fucking words out. That's why I needed a drink and gather my thoughts.

This is everything I've worked my ass off for, and now that it's official, now that I've actually achieved what, at times, felt like the impossible, the realization of having a huge responsiblity —excites me and at the same time, scares me. What if I—fails?

"Ar!" Belle's voice fills my ears, and I turn on my barstool to find her standing at the bar gesturing toward me with her co-worker, Claire and Anne, which I acknowledge with a smile and curt nod. "Do you guys need a refill?" Belle asks looking at me and Wren.

I look back at the table and take a quick inventory of our drinks and turn back toward Belle. "Two more shot of tequila for Wren and another beer!"

Wren gives her a thumbs-up and she replies with a two thumbs-up and turns back around to face the bartender.

But my eyes take it upon themselves to take in the view—her view.

My eyes follow the length of her legs, moving up to the luscious view of her long sexy legs that are revealed until they meet a tight green velvet skirt just above her knee that is molded to her figure perfectly, her shapely ass prominent when she's leaning over the bar like that. And long dark hair falls down her back and over the tight white shirt. 

Goddamn, Belle is quite the vision.

Truthfully, it should be illegal for her to make something as innocent look that sexy.

I don't know how long I sit there, staring—at my best friend's rather girlfriend's perfect ass—but it takes the sounds of someone calling  my name to pull me out of my trance.

"Arden? Bro, what's with you?" I hear Wren say. His voice changes slightly. "He's not normally like this, I swear."

I look up to find a woman standing over us, and apparently, she's been trying to get my attention.