Page 4

Unfortunately, when I’m that drunk, I do what they want. And that would explain why my ass is getting ready to sing tonight in front of hundreds of people I’ve known my entire life. It’s the only way they could have convinced me.
After my morning shift at the coffee stand, Frankie and Ethan thought I might back out of tonight because I was worried about Shane, so they started handing over the beers at two o’clock this afternoon.
That isn’t even my biggest mistake of the day either. It was letting Frankie help me get dressed. Not only am I wearing heels, but the black dress she stuck me in barely covers my ass.I’m not even joking. I think I see my ass cheeks hanging out the back.
Frankie, oh sweet Francine, she makes me crazy most days, but I can’t live without her. She has an obsession with making me do things I don’t want to do, and her greatest pleasure in life is telling everyone how to live their life. And then saying, “But do what you want. I won’t judge you.”
She will. Don’t let her fool you.
She’s also the most caring, protective, fierce girl you will ever meet. Probably why she’s a nurse. She enjoys controlling people and taking care of them.
How we are friends is beyond my realm of understanding because of how different we both are. I’m a little more southern, so to speak. A simple and somber kind of girl, who wears flip-flops and cutoff jeans any chance I can. I’m moody, easily annoyed, and the only men who are ever attracted to me are assholes. I have the astonishing ability to attract any prick within a hundred-mile radius of anywhere I go.
Hello, Shane? Need I say any more? Didn’t think so.
“I don’t understand why I have to wear this, Francine,” I seethe. She knows I mean business when I use her full name.
“Because you need to look good on stage. You never know who might be in the crowd.” I take the last pair off and try to smack her with them. Doesn’t work. She holds another pair of heels in the air, dangling in front of my face. “How about these ones? Think you will kill yourself in them?”
“Probably.” I rip the heels from her hand. “And I hate you for making me do this.”
“You do not.” She bats her impossibly long eyelashes at me. “You love me. And Ethan is making you do this, not me. I’m simply making you look amazing.”
As I set the heels on the floor, my phone buzzes on the speaker next to me with a message from Shane.
Can we talk?
My stomach lurches at his words. “Can we talk?” I knowwhat that means. This is the part where he’s past the begging me to take him back and moving onto the threatening. I’ll hear things like, if you don’t forgive me, your mom won’t have a job. That’s the worst part about all of this. My mom works for his dad. It wouldn’t be so bad if she hated the job, but she loves it and Mr. Larson pays her well for the work she does for them.
I flip the phone over without replying to him.
“Who was that?” Frankie digs through her makeup bag searching for eyeshadow.
Drawing in a breath, I down the remnants of my drink and force a blank expression. “Who do you think it was?”
Frankie rolls her eyes. “He’s a prick, Evie. You could do so much better.”
I haven’t been honest with Frankie. I haven’t been honest with anyone. Because if anyone knew, they’d kill Shane. I close my eyes, wishing the situation was different. “I know.”
Because of her hate for Shane, Frankie is constantly trying to set me up on dates. I can’t blame her on that one. If she was dating someone like him, I’d be doing the same thing.
Staring down at an abundance of concealers, eyeshadows, and mascaras, I think about what she said earlier. “Why are you doing this to me? I know everyone in this town. I don’t need to dress up for them.”
She blinks away an expression I don’t recognize. “Just relax and I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Smiling at me, she disappears for a moment, and then five minutes later, returns with a bottle of tequila, limes, and my mom’s salt shaker.
Now this is a plan I can work with! See what I mean? Once I start drinking, it’s all in.
We take a few shots and then it dawns on me what she said. Something threw me off at the way she said you never know who will be in the crowd. I can only think of one person I’d love to see right now. The same guy in that photograph I can’t bear to get rid of.
But that’s impossible. It couldn’t be him. He literally fell offthe radar once he joined the military. Completely shut himself off from everyone.
She would have told me if it was him though. I think. At least I’d hope she would because she knows how I would feel about seeing Grayson Gomez again.
God, that name. It still sends a rush to my chest. It probably always will. Doesn’t even matter who says it. My heart is in my stomach every time.
By the way I describe him, and the way his parents talk about him, Grayson might seem like the perfect guy, but on the inside, he’s like every other guy with the same faults. Like leaving me without saying goodbye. Just throwing that one out there. I’m still bitter. He has a temper, not like Shane’s temper, but some things set him off. He couldn’t make up his mind about what he wanted in life, always let me take the fall when we got in trouble because he knew I could talk my way out of it, and annoyed his older sisters to the point they tied him up in the basement when he was seven and told their mom he ran away. But then there was the caring, seductive side that lured you in and wreaked havoc on your heart in turn. He could draw you in with the slow southern smile and you were a goner for good. Believe me, I was head over heels in love with that boy before I knew what hit me.
Not long after my dad went fucking crazy, we were four and moved from North Carolina to Pinckard, Alabama. Grayson’s parents came over one afternoon to see if my mom needed anything, and the rest is history. The Gomez family and us were inseparable from that point on, spending nearly every day at their house. But Grayson and me, we spent every minute together. He was the hot athletic boy next door, my protector from everyone and everything I had been terrified of, like lady bugs, and I was the shy, timid girl from a broken home looking for stability.