Spare Change

I'm Not Normally Like This

He cut off my rambling with a loud and throaty laugh, "Do you want to keep it?"

"What? No!" I burst out.

He pursed his lips together and smirked before running his tongue across the inside of his bottom lip. He rocked back and forth on his heels for a second before taking a sip of his drink, "Don't you want a piece of me?"

Thank god I wasn't sipping my water, otherwise I would've spit it out. "I don't understand," I muttered.

I understood.

He simply smiled again, his pupils becoming darker while his cheeks flushed. The back of my neck was heating up and I felt the familiar tingle of want twinging in my back. You can't do this. Look at you, he dates models. He'll be so disappointed.

"We should go somewhere where we can talk," he mumbled leaning in close, his lips barely gracing the bottom of my ear.

I turned my head away and laughed, avoiding eye contact, avoiding letting his lips get any closer to me, "Wasn't your friend just about to kick us out?"

"What? Lou? He just gets worried when I invite people we don't know, he's protective over our reputations."

He leaned forward against the railing, staring down at the streets below us. I kept my distance behind him, staring at his back. His dark green button up was starting to come loose from being kept in his pants and the back of his hair was muffled from the wind. He looked... normal.

He craned his neck to turn around and look at me, "I'm not going to convince you to say yes, am I?"

I kept my arms locked in front of me, a tight grip still on the chain of my purse. "No, I'm sorry."

His head hung down and he raked his fingers through his hair, "Fuck, I'm so sorry, I'm not normally like this, asking women I just met to sleep with me."

I held out my water bottle, "Want some?"

He turned around to look back at me and let his head fall to the side as if he was almost saying thank you for me brushing off his comment. Carefully he took it and sipped, "Thank you."

We both assumed our positions on the railing now, leaning to look down below us. The roof was pretty windy, I couldn't find any words to break the silence. I looked up, there were certainly no stars in New York City, but the moon was big and shining down on us. This would be so... romantic with the right person.

"You know, I'm not normally like this either. Going to celebrity parties, stealing gold rings..." I shake my head, smirking to myself, "So why don't we just call it even and forget?"

"I'd like that very much," he replied.

I glanced at my phone, Charity and Louis had been gone for a while now. I thought we were leaving soon. My expectations for how tonight was supposed to go were so painfully different than its reality. I guess meeting mega famous people isn't all that it's cracked up to be. There was another text from Eduardo, "If you guys get your asses downstairs fast enough, we can still go grab food after Leah and I close".

"How long have you worked here?"

His question brings me back to reality and I realize how rude I must have looked just sitting on my phone. "Uh, three years."

"Wow, do you like it?" He genuinely asks.

I can't help but laugh out loud, "Fuck no."

He seems genuinely taken back by my blunt reply, "Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry."