Other Side of Beautiful (A Beautifully Disturbed #1) by Sarah Zolton Arthur

Branagh could kick you out permanently. As it stands, so long as you don’t put up a fight, I won’t say anything.”
    “Put up a fight?” Callum tries to sound indignant, and put out, and a couple of other inflections of emotion, but he just ends up sounding like an ass.
    “Hey, you know the rules of group as well as the rest of us. You’ve got four weeks now to think about why crushing someone’s spirit isn’t the same as constructive criticism.”
    “Bullshit, Hayes! It’s bullshit and you know it.”
    “What you did tonight is unprofessional and totally uncalled for. The rules are the rules. See you in a month.”
    Benton turns his head from Callum, who stomps out of the conference room. He honestly stomps out like a four-year-old having a temper tantrum. The others look at me and then Benton, still standing too damn close. Gathering up their papers, they excuse themselves, and then we are the only two left.
    “You know everyone is heading down to Rounder’s. You should come.”
    “I don’t know, that was so embarrassing…and besides, Kelly will pitch a fit. She’ll want to go to The Mix tonight.”
    “But what do you want, Elle?” He pulls me up from the seat and spins me around to pin me with one of his challenging glares. It should be intimidating, but instead I feel hot, that familiar flutter in my belly, the one telling me my feelings for him hit DEFCON5 crush mode tonight. He said my name. Maybe he didn’t meant to. It’s only a name, but coming from him it feels so much bigger than that.
    What do I want? Loaded question there. What I could have—“I want Rounder’s.”

 
    Chapter 8
     

Ben
     
    Sabrina hands her off a shot glass as soon as she steps inside Rounder’s. They walk over to the bar where Errol, Collin, and I stand in a small group waiting on them. Her gorgeous brown eyes stray to find me leaning with my elbows on the bar top. In that position, the gray Henley I’m wearing has risen up slightly in front, exposing a strip of skin above my jeans. It’s the landing strip hopefully dragging her eyes where they really shouldn’t go. But damn, I want them there. Yeah, I’m laying it on thick tonight. I want her to want me so badly that maybe with a drink in her to loosen the poor girl up, she can’t keep her hands off me.
    So much for being discrete. Of course when she tears her eyes away from my crotch, I pin her again with a raised eyebrow, the stupid smirk that never fails to catch her attention, and tsk her with my fingers. Usually this would be the point where she turns away with an embarrassed blush to her cheeks, but she actually stands her ground, refusing to let her embarrassment show through. She’s awkward. I hope she always will be; it’s one of her most endearing qualities. Tonight though, I think she might be riding high off her success in group. Which she deserves to be. That piece kicked ass, no matter what Callum said. So we stand locked in a staring contest. Collin sees us and leans over to whisper in my ear. He’s being an idiot, because he can see how thick I’m laying it on, which makes me burst out laughing. Like the loud, obnoxious kind.
    “To Elle and Benton,” Errol calls out and raises his shot glass.
    “Unbelievable work tonight,” Sabrina finishes.
    They all hold up their glasses at Elle and me, and I don’t know where her lady balls grow from, but I see them grow. Irritated that Collin and I would laugh at her, she pushes forward until she stands directly in front of me. Leaning in she whispers, “If you don’t want people to look, then you shouldn’t look so…” Elle gestures to all of me. I’m not stupid. I knows what she’s intimating. And then she shoots back her drink. I nod and shoot mine too. Wow. It is strong.
    Absinth. Sabrina had ordered us shots of Absinth to honor the writers of the future by paying tribute to the writers of the past. Of course, our Absinth tastes of licorice, not the anise, fennel, and wormwood spirit of