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the hotel window, in nothing but my black boxer briefs, with a bottle of red wine in my hand. I had decided to go without the glass after after I finished the first one too quickly. It was the second bottle of Pinot Noir Aubrey and I had opened and, truth be told, she hadn’t gotten much of either. I had drank enough to try to clear my head and then, finding that the drinking only cluttered it, continued drinking in the hopes of making more sense of it.
     
    It hadn’t worked so far.
     
    Behind me, Aubrey was in the bed. She was dressed in one of those satin nighties that wasn’t quite so provocative as to be called lingerie, but it was sure as hell several steps above a simple night gown. It was black, with lace fringes around the chest—which was cut very low – and the bottom—which was cut very high. A photographer could have walked into the room and made a fortune off of a photo shoot with Aubrey in that little piece. She was still wearing her makeup and her long dark locks looked absolutely perfect, like they always did, hanging around her face like soft, wavy curtains.  Aubrey Henning was certainly a knock-out.
     
    I took a pull from the wine and turned from the lights of New York to give her a lingering stare.  The hell of it was, she wanted me. She had told me so three different times since we had gotten back to the room. I had almost given in. We had kissed for a good ten minutes. It had gotten heavy enough to the point where I had her pressed against the wall, she lost her shirt and I was down to my underwear.
     
    But I managed to catch myself. As the night went on and I got slightly more inebriated, the thought of having sex with Aubrey started to seem more and more appealing. But I didn’t want her…not really . I wasn’t interested in her beyond her body. And that wasn’t how I was raised. I knew that Hollywood types often got a horrible stereotype about sleeping around and trashing relationships at every corner. I’d be damned if I was going to fall victim to it.
     
    I faced back to the window to stare out into the vastness of the night, lifting the bottle of Pinot to my lips once more.
     
    Aubrey’s last advance had come fifteen minutes ago. I turned her down as politely as I could, taking the bottle to the window and looking out at the New York skyline. I could see her in the reflection. Her long slender legs were exposed to almost her thigh. Her breasts might as well have been totally uncovered, as the nightie was tight but left very little to the imagination. She had taken to playing some game on her iPhone. It was hard to tell from the murky reflection in the window, but I thought she had a spoiled, almost pouty look on her face.
     
    The TV was on, but neither of us were paying much attention to it.
     
    That is, not until the late-night gossip show played footage form the premiere. It still blew my mind how fast the media worked when celebrities were involved. I looked to the screen and saw the five-second kiss that Aubrey and I had shared on the red carpet. The splash text that came racing across the bottom of the television screen read: NEW HOT COUPLE!
     
    “ Jesus,” I groaned, my shoulders sagging.
     
    “What?  I don’t see the problem,” she said with a delighted smile. “We look good together. Hell, it even looks like you’re enjoying that kiss.”
     
    I shook my head, turning from the TV to look back out the penthouse window at vibrant New York City at night.  It glittered like a thousand colored stars scattered about as far as the eye could see.  I leaned a hand on the cool glass and stared passed my reflection.  “I didn’t not enjoy it,” I shrugged.
     
    “ Well... how about the kissing after we got here?” she asked, feigning innocence... but I knew what she was getting at.
     
    “ Aubrey, it’s not going to happen.”  I had another big gulp of the wine. 
     
    She frowned and went back to her phone. I looked the tv and watched them show the kiss over