More to You ✔

Chapter 24 - Emily (Mitch)

Mitch's jitters grew as he shared a cab with Shawn and Emma to Siam Discovery Center. Shawn kept glancing at Mitch then Emma, who was squeezed between them.

Her gaze rested on Mitch as well, a scowl resting on her lips. "What's going on between you and Maria?"

Mitch resisted the urge to groan. He'd not ridden with Maria to avoid this topic. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Really?" She crossed her arms over her chest, brushing his skin. "For weeks, she won't stop singing your praises, and suddenly you two are hardly speaking or at each other's throats. What did you do?"

The city's high-rises and large, overarching SkyTrain tracks rushed by in the window. His mouth grew drier. Why the hell wasn't it kicking in yet? Did he only get one good pill in the batch?

"It happens. Our worlds don't revolve around each other."

"You've caught her every time something goes wrong," Emma said. "Samet meant something to her, and you fought that guy at the club."

Shawn turned to Mitch. "You said nothing happened at the beach."

Mitch shrugged. "You told me to tell you that nothing happened in Samet."

Shawn's eyes narrowed, and he took a deep breath. "For fuck's sake, Mitch! You lied to me over semantics."

"Maria wanted to keep it a secret, so I did," Mitch said. "She made it clear it wouldn't happen again, so I thought we handled it."

"She said that," Emma confirmed, her tone toward Shawn twice as soft as the one she'd used with Mitch.

Shawn muttered, "One thing, I ask you not to do one thing. There are hundreds of thousands of other available women in Bangkok."

"Relax, man, it was a kiss, a hell of a kiss, but nothing more than that, and some dancing, a lot of dancing." A smile grew on Mitch's lips, picturing her in that rainstorm, dress hugging her curves, hair flying around. "Damn, can that woman dance."

Shawn put his hand on the passenger's headrest, flexing the muscles he was probably only showing off for Emma's sake. Mitch knew Shawn mostly talk, though if Mitch had slept with Maria and bailed on her, it might be another story. "If you're lying to me again..."

"He's not," Emma said. "But what the hell happened since then?"

"Ask Maria," Mitch said.

Emma puffed out her chest. "I have, and she won't give me anything specific. Just that you're either being a ghost or a major prick."

"Then you should focus on something else," Mitch said. "Clearly, she is." His leg shook as he wondered again if he took the wrong pill. If he started tripping in public, he could get in a lot of trouble, trouble that could forever remove him from paradise, not that resembled that this week.

Emma sighed. "It's one thing to hook up with people and walk away. I won't hassle you over that, but if you treat her like your girlfriend for weeks then stop for whatever arbitrary reason you've chosen, that's pretty damn cold, even for you."

"I haven't treated her like a girlfriend."

"No?" Emma leaned closer and raised an eyebrow. Mitch pressed his side against the cab door and stared at the colourful signs from the international brands to fight memories of him and Maria. "You don't have cooking date nights or treat her to meals on your little exploring adventures? You don't snuggle up and watch movies together? You don't find any excuse to be close to her or touch her? Girls talk, Mitch, and I know what you've been up to."

Did she still care? She had enough to share this with Emma. But if Maria had hidden the offer she'd made, she must have regretted it.

"I've stopped, apologized, and won't do it again, happy?" he said.