Do you ever wish you were a different person in a different place living a different life?
Because I do.
My parents live in an excellent architectural residence that has vibrant and breathtaking landscaping with an idyllic pond and two swimming pools each with their own cabana. My high school friends and I never snuck into bars or clubs, instead we took turns taking each family's private jet or boat to get to our vacation home for a private party. Caviar and white truffles are common ingredients around the dining table. Hermès and Cartier became daily style to pair with my elite private school uniform. My walk-in closet is full of luxuriously minimalist designer pieces that exude discreet elegance and optimize class and sophistication of my family.
My life sounds marvelous and people see me as the girl who has everything.
Little do they know is I hate that version of my life.
A knock at my bedroom door startles me when I'm inspecting myself in front of a full-length mirror in my black fitted midi dress with a plunging sweetheart neckline and a one-shoulder frill detail. The padding on the bust and the slit on the skirt had me thinking all day if this dress is a little too much for tonight. Last week, my best friend-slash-roommate, Jessica, and I went shopping for this dress and also a new pair of shoes on Fifth Avenue.
Someone raps on my door again a bit more impatiently this time. "Ashley!" Jessica calls out behind the door. "Joey's here."
"Jess, will you come in here just for a second?" I request.
A second later, she opens the door and steps into my room. When she sees me standing there all dressed up, she claps her hands over her mouth. "Oh, my God! Ashley, you look—!"
"Shh!" I shush shortly. "Is he in the living room?"
She nods and says in a lower voice, "Yes! Now exit your room and welcome your badass prince. Oh, and he's clean-shaven."
I catch a dramatic breath. "Which part?"
She rolls her eyes irritatedly, hands on her waist. "The furthest I can see is his face. Maybe you can check another area later for dessert."
As she's about to pull me out of the room, I stop her immediately. "Wait! Is the dress too much? Or should I change into something simpler?"
"What? No, girl, we picked the dress together and you look hot!" she ensures, smoothing her hands down my dress. "Now, take a deep breath and go outside or you're going to be late for your dinner reservation. Oh, don't forget your shoes."
After slipping my feet into my brand-new strappy stilettos, I take a deep breath just like Jessica suggested before tailing her out of my room. There on our living room couch sits my one and only Joey. He looks extremely sharp and dashing in a black suit with his usually windswept hair brushed up pretty neatly and his stubble freshly shaved. When he catches sight of me, he shoots straight up from the couch looking awestruck.
"Ash, you look..." his eyes run up and down my body, open-mouthed. "Wow."
Just like that, the nervousness that has been clouding me somehow vanishes into thin air. His reaction is pure and cute I just want to kiss him right now. Smiling at him, I approach him and then straighten his collar as I compliment, "You clean up good, too, mister."
And we kiss as I coil my arms around his shoulders and his arms pull me closer to fill in the space between us. His aftershave smells amazing which always makes me want to breathe him in as I caress his naked jaw.
A fake cough from Jessica breaks us away from each other shyly and I realize that we're still in my and Jessica's apartment. "Sorry to ruin your moment, but I'm afraid you guys will miss your romantic dinner tonight if you're not going, like, right now," she reminds us.
I gasp as I look at the clock on the wall. "Oh, my God! Babe, let's get going!"
After we put on our coats and bid her goodbye, Joey and I trot out of the apartment and are about to get into the elevator with some students if he doesn't stop me.
"Babe, what do you think if we turn up a few minutes late for our dinner," he grins naughtily as the elevator door closes, his eyes can't stop checking me out, "and go to my apartment to have a quickie?"
I chuckle. "As much as I would love to, I don't think we can. We really have to go now."
His shoulders sink and he nods lightly, pressing the elevator down button. "Okay. Let's go."
Guilt seethes through me to see him get turned down. "I'm sorry, babe."
"No, don't be, I was just being selfish," he says, wiping away my perfectly-styled hair from my face. "I just wanted to have you all to myself before the world sees how beautiful you look tonight. But, nah, it's just stupid."
His clear, crystalline blue eyes reflect the seriousness and I can't help wanting to kiss him again, but he takes my hand and hops in the empty elevator instead. When we reach his BMW, he opens and closes the passenger's door for me like a gentleman then jogs around the car to slide into the driver seat.
Before igniting the engine, he turns to me with a hundred-watt one-sided smile that never fails to awaken the butterflies in my stomach and he says, "You're missing something."
My face crinkles in confusion. "What?"
"A necklace."
"Ah, yes. Jessica and I couldn't find the perfect necklace for the dress last week. She just kept disapproving of the ones I liked."
Suddenly, he grabs the iconic blue paper bag of Tiffany & Co. from the backseat and presents it to me. "Happy first anniversary, Ash."
Real surprise takes over me that all I can do is cover my mouth with my hands since I'm at a loss for words, tears starting to trickle down my cheeks. Joey is not the lovey-dovey, romantic kind of a boyfriend, that's why I never thought he would treat me like a fairytale princess tonight.
The first time we met was a year and a half ago in our apartment-style student housing when he also just moved into the unit right above mine and Jessica's with his best friend, Harley. At that time, we all had just started our junior year at Columbia. Joey was—and still is—on the Columbia Basketball Team, even though he's no longer the captain since he got picked on NBA Draft last year and wanted to focus on graduating first this year.
However, our love story didn't begin with a meet-cute where a girl sets her eyes on a boy across the room who's already staring at her and they know it's love at first sight. Our story started with him holding a 'little' housewarming party in his apartment that disturbed me a lot I had to stomp upstairs to tell him to quiet down. When the door to his apartment swung open, there he was. Standing tall in his black Columbia Lions t-shirt, unbuttoned denim shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and black jeans.
I knew trouble lurked in his shadows the moment my eyes first laid on him. He's a mountain of solid muscles with ebony hair of Italian ancestry from his father's side and permanent inks engraved on his warm ivory skin. The sapphire marbles of his dark gaze evoke the seductive energy like a luminescent fin ray to lure the prey. Before you know it, his mouth will eat you out and there's nothing you can do but beg for mercy.
I had to put aside the fact of how attractive he was that night since he was being an asshole when I advised him to respect other residents who wanted to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, then he joked about me being a square loner on Friday night after I refused to join his party. Since then, he became a pain in the ass to me and we really couldn't stand each other. The universe must've had nothing better to do but bumped us frequently into each other around the building. But somehow, we eventually caught feelings for each other through our fights.
The turning point between us happened on one drunken night when we accidentally slept together. It was the last Friday night before exam weeks started and I was supposed to go out with Jessica, but she bailed on me last minute for her childhood best friend-slash-boyfriend, Kyle. Upset, I decided to go alone to the bar and bumped into none other than Joey.
He ditched his friends to play a drinking game with me and as the night wore on, the game became wilder and out of control. I remember I lost my smoking virginity that night and it was to a joint. My father would go ballistic if he ever found out—I put my money on it. But I was desperate to show Joey I wasn't the goody-two-shoes that he thought I was, so I took the freshly-lit joint from between his fingers and coughed the life out of me.
He hooted with laughter and I felt extremely embarrassed thinking I must look like a dork to him now. But when he taught me how to take a proper drag, he looked so hot I literally couldn't bring my eyes to look away from him. Right at that moment, I knew I had this overpowering hunger in the pit of my stomach and it wasn't for food. It was something I'd never felt before with other guys before him.
What happened after that really messed with both of our heads. None of us wanted to admit our feelings toward each other until Jessica stepped in to help us face the problem. If it wasn't for her, there's a huge chance we wouldn't have been where we are now. We owe her big time.
"Please, open it," Joey says softly, back to today, indicating the Tiffany paper bag.
Still crying, I accept the gift, and fireworks of happiness burst inside my chest like the Fourth of July when I read what Joey wrote in a small letter saying 'My dear Ashley, I dish out a couple of assists per game, but I've never landed on a dime like you. Joey.'
"Aww," I swoon, wiping tears of joy away from my face. If it was last year, I undoubtedly wouldn't have gotten what this basketball pickup line meant.
I take the blue box with a white silk ribbon out of the paper bag with a broad smile refusing to leave my face. After untying the ribbon, I remove the box lid and find a shining necklace in a Tiffany blue pouch. Words can't describe how beautiful the necklace is and my tears pour down more profusely instead.
"T- Thank you so much, babe," I stammer through my tears. "It's beautiful. I really love it." My lips reach for his and the kiss feels wet from my crying I pull away from him after only a few seconds. "I'm sorry I can't stop crying and my makeup is ruined. I- I have to pull myself together for a moment."
His hands cup my jaw as he stares profoundly at me. "I don't mind. You can have tears and snot all over your face, and I'll still want to make out with you because you have the most beautiful crying face."
With that, our lips meet each other again. His tongue dances in my mouth while one hand moves from my jaw to the back of my head and the other slides down my spine. Our breathing gets ragged and a moan escapes my mouth as a shiver electrifies me when his hand creeps up my thigh. But when a craving for more taste of him escalates at lightning speed inside me and I'm ready to jump onto his lap, he suddenly stops what he's doing which makes me hold my breath.
"I thought we didn't have time for this," Joey mutters, an eyebrow arching up.
"No, I was wrong, baby," I breathe out. "I want more."
"We really have to get going," he says, pulling his hand from under my dress.
I feel embarrassed and disappointed as I watch him straighten his body in his seat. "Seriously?"
A sly smirk appears on his face. "That was for wearing that dress and turning me down for a quickie earlier. Now we're even."
"What?" I scowl. "Joey, you jerk!"
My death stare for him just causes him to laugh which makes me want to punch his handsome face even more. Sometimes I wonder why I fell for this asshole in the first place.
"Come on, goldilocks, chin up!" he chuckles as his car engine roars to life. "You started it."
I groan with my eyes rolling. "Get lost. You ruined my mood for tonight."
"Oh, come on," he starts to steer his car out of the parking spot, "you didn't actually think we'd have sex right there where everyone could see us, right?"
"I thought you loved crazy."
"Yeah, but we can't waste our time getting caught by a cop tonight," he responds as the chuckle stops. "We're late for our anniversary dinner."
Closing my eyes for a second, embarrassment masks my face because the truth is I didn't really think that. After restoring the Tiffany necklace to its box and paper bag, I buckle my seatbelt and fold my arms in front of my chest. "Yeah, thanks for making me sound desperate. Now just shut up and drive."
The whole drive to the restaurant is quiet and an uncomfortable atmosphere hovers over us. Just like that, regret for wearing this dress surfaces in me that I realize this dress looks like something a cheap whore would wear. Oh, God, I'm being super dramatic tonight.
"Okay, Ash, I'm sorry," Joey apologizes in a gentle voice after occasionally turning his head just to find me still wearing a scowl. "I crossed the line with the joke. Now, please, stop giving me that look."
With one hand on the steering wheel, his free one unfolds my arms and reaches to hold my hand. The way he intertwines his fingers with mine and then kisses the top of my hand melts my heart and vaporizes my anger toward him. He playfully punches his face with my hand and I can't help but chuckle.
"Your eyes were telling me that you wanted to throw a punch at me so badly and I deserved it," he states. "And now you did it, please forgive me?"
With his thick eyebrows lowered like a puppy asking for a treat, how can I say no to his incredibly cute pleading face? Furthermore, I don't want the rest of the night spoiled and I know we can still turn everything around. So, I nod while holding back a smile and squeezing his hand.
Five minutes later, Joey parks his car near the restaurant. He doesn't let me out of the car right away, instead his eyes dig deep into mine and I'm afraid he can hear my heartbeat beating so loud. When his fingers tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear, a desire to taste the addictive softness of his lips again flares in my chest. I roll my tongue back from the thirst of licking the sexy piercing in his ear.
I think it's something about him in a perfect-fit suit that arouses the wild beast inside of me and makes me eager to tear his shirt apart. And I'm not even drunk yet.
"Let me put on your new necklace," he offers.
All I can give as a response is a slight nod as I endeavor to gulp my wild thirst down my throat. My hands are shaking when I take the necklace out of the box and hand it to him. After turning my back, I pull my coat halfway down my body to make it easier for him to put on the necklace. Or maybe, deep down, I just want to feel his skin touch mine.
A shiver courses through me all over again as his fingertips skim across my bare skin to push my long golden hair over my shoulder. I can feel his warm breath on my exposed neck while he clasps the necklace around it.
"Done," he informs after planting a slight kiss on my shoulder.
I look down at the necklace and turn around to face him again. "How do I look?"
A genuine smile blooms on his face, his perfect teeth showing. "I can't wait to see people drop their jaws faster than cell service underground when you walk in."
It's impossible to strain a burst of laughter when Joey tries to make me smile with his witty remarks. I totally get how he can get any girl he wants since his eyes alone can bewitch you in a split second, and the next thing you know you will spread your legs and let him do anything he wants to you. So, to prevent my hunger from dropping my panties right now, I pull the front of his jacket and gift him a deep kiss on his lips before climbing out of the car.