Page 10 of A Summer Thing
“No—no, you’re right. I’m sorry,” she apologizes. “I didn’t mean to insinuate that he’s a bad guy. He’s not. He’s actually really… nice… when he wants to be.” Her thoughts echo mine. “It’s just that, well… You’ve been through a lot, Declan,” she says quietly. “And I think Jude may have, too.”
Her admission sends my heartbeat racing.
I don’t know how I didn’t see it before, but somehow, without even having to think too much about it, I know she’s right.
I’ve seen the shadows lurking in his gaze when he looks at me.
Like maybe I remind him of a few of them when they’re already so hard to forget.
“You’re both fighters, you know,” Addy continues.
“Fighting for your place in this world, fighting just to be standing here. I think you might need someone who is the opposite of that. Someone who isn’t down in the trenches with you, but who can offer a hand to help pull you out when you need it.
” She blows out a long, thoughtful breath.
“Or maybe… Maybe you two could relate on that front. Who knows. Just be careful, okay?” she says. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I’ve seen enough of that already, she doesn’t say, but I feel the words in the way she looks at me, her gaze conveying how much she cares about me, and I can add it to the infinite number of reasons why I love her so much.
But again, I don’t think she has anything to worry about there.
I’m pretty sure the draw is one-sided.
Jude is the one with all the walls, urging me to walk away.
______
“Upsy-daisy, Decky! I have something fun for you!” Addy squeals as she bounces onto my bed a handful of hours later, shocking me straight out of sleep. My heart pounds, and I feel its beats reverberating through my entire body, the boom, boom, boom, boom echoing through me too quickly.
I turn over, my mouth falling open in a yawn as I pull my blanket off my too-warm skin, and immediately throw it over her, pouncing onto her covered body in retaliation for tearing me out of my peaceful, mid-to-late afternoon nap.
One induced by her vodka lemonades, thank you very much.
She shrieks beneath me, laughing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
I give in easily, sleepiness keeping my movements weak. I tumble over to her side and tug the blanket off of her. Her hair points in five different directions, and I fall against the headboard with my laughter, bruising my shoulder in the process.
“Shit, that hurt.” I’m laughing, and rubbing at my arm, and kicking Addy’s feet away from mine when she flings two slivers of plastic my way from between her fingers.
They go flying in two opposite directions.
I pluck one off the pillow right next to me, and the other from the edge of the bed.
They’re Oklahoma driver’s licenses. One with my face staring back at me even though I’ve never owned an Oklahoma driver’s license.
My lips tug up at the corners. The birthdates on these put us at twenty-one years old.
I glance up at Addy and finally crack a full smile. “How the hell did you get these?”
“Boss.” She blushes, the pink hue rising over her cheeks. “He has connections.”
Connections. That would be an understatement.
Addy finally told me who Boss is—why the party gave him such a wide berth, and why so many girls were looking at Addy with their gazes swimming in the depths of envy.
His father is a local football legend, having graduated from the same college and heading straight into the NFL twenty-plus years ago.
He’s played for some major teams, and though I’m not one to watch sports, even I’ve heard of the guy.
The loft we went to, the friend of a friend of a friend’s, is owned by some other bigshot football player, too. A friend of his dad’s, in the NFL.
I knew something was up with Boss, and it made perfect sense when Addy finally told me.
I guess she wanted me to get to know him for him, without any outside influence or expectation of who he might be.
I don’t think it would’ve changed my opinion of him either way, but I do understand where she was coming from.
“It took me weeks to convince him,” Addy says, breaking through my thoughts.
“But what fun will New York be if we can’t get into a few nightclubs, you know?
So,” she plucks the IDs from my grasp, “I think we should test them out tonight. See what kind of trouble we can get into.” Her caramel apple eyes sparkle with mischief and excitement.
She makes it impossible to say no, which is probably how she convinced Boss to get these in the first place.
I breathe out a laugh and shake my head. “You’re impossible, but I’m down.”
Her resulting squeal pierces my ears as she throws her arms around me in a tight hug, making us fall back against the mattress yet again. “It’s going to be so much fun! And Jude will be there, too—you know, if you’re still interested,” she adds with a knowing gleam in her eyes.
Despite every reason not to, my breath hitches, my heart pattering against my insides with an emotion I’m not used to feeling.
I can’t even put my finger on what it is, exactly.
Interest? Excitement? Anxiety?
Truth be told, it all feels the same.
______
“So, the place is called Club Vee. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard it’s really cool,” Addy says a few hours later, as we’re getting ready in her bathroom—her more than me. She knows how to glam with the best of them. “Think dark, luxurious dungeon vibes,” she tacks on.
I pull her mascara wand away from my face before I leave a streak of brown trailing up my forehead, my body falling forward toward the bathroom counter with my laughter.
I brace the impact of my weight with my forearms at the lip of the sink and fully crack up.
I don’t know what’s so funny about that statement, it just is.
“‘Luxurious dungeon vibes?’ What does that even mean, Addy?”
She snorts out a laugh of her own at my comment. “Shut up,” she says, but there’s no bite whatsoever to her words. “You’ll see,” she adds with an amused puff of breath. “You’ll like it, trust me.”
She’s not wrong when we enter the dim nightclub a few hours later.
It’s a room full of iron bars, steel beams, and dark concrete floors, but there are velvet couches the color of deep emerald, and halos of muted, diamond-encrusted light painting the room in a galaxy-like mural.
Hexagon-shaped, mirrored panels lining the ceiling help to add to the starlike illusion.
I spot my reflection in them as Addy leads me through the club, and I smile up at that other version of myself, imagining I’ve crawled through constellations and galaxies, slipping my way into this parallel universe to find me.
I laugh at the idea but find it oddly comforting.
Now would also be a great time to mention that Addy brought that flask along with her again but gave me almost the entire thing this time.
My skin buzzes along the surface, a playful hum whispering through my limbs. And I can feel that I’m still smiling, when I raise my fingers to my face, feeling the gentle curve of my lips.
Addy tugs me through a throng of bodies that pass by in a blur, guiding me toward a roped-off area of the club. When we arrive, Boss motions to the bouncer that it’s okay for us to enter.
What a strange life that must be, I think, to hold such an odd power because of who your father is, and the expectation of who you might someday become, too.
We’re all just people. It’s never made sense to me why some are valued more than others—unless you’re a teacher, or a doctor, or a first-responder, or a scientist, someone contributing to the betterment of the world.
Those are the people who deserve special recognition.
I want to be one of those people someday, the thought drifts around in my alcohol-soaked mind. Not so much booze that I can’t hold my own, but enough that the number of bodies crowding the club isn’t even a thought in my brain right now.
I pull my focus back to the room around me.
The picture tonight looks a lot like the one at the party last night. Girls dancing along the bounds of the roped-off area in an attempt to catch Boss’s—or one of his friends’—attention, sending heated looks their way from where they’re grinding on each other on the dance floor.
Boss only has eyes for Addy, though. They catch on her as we near, and a smile brightens up his already bright face.
He comes to a stand and sweeps her up in his hold, unapologetic as he gives the crowd another PDA-filled moment much like last night, but it ends as quickly as it began this time.
Addy steps away and pulls me in close to her side.
I’m not sure she’s going to let me out of her sight tonight.
Because I finally told her about last night.
About Jude and our small moment on the balcony, and the even smaller one in her dark hallway two nights ago.
But mostly, about how I freaked out at the loft and almost completely lost it.
She felt awful even though it wasn’t even close to her fault.
Leaning down to bring her mouth closer to my ear, she asks, “What are you thinking? Are we heading to the bar for some drinks, or are we just chilling here for now?”
“I’m good for now.” I smile warmly and tug her even closer. “Doesn’t that bother you?” I ask after a moment, eyeing the girls who are eyeing her man.
She rolls her eyes with a tilt of her lips, not giving them an ounce of her worry.
“They can all suck a big fat one for all I care, every single one of them.” The little growl in her words forces a breath of laughter from me.
Addy might be adorable, but it’s what can make her all the more threatening when she truly wants to be.
These girls wouldn’t have the first clue her claws had been extracted before blood was already drawn.
Because the thing about Addy—she loves hard, but she fights harder—when there’s good reason to.
And that reason is almost always to protect the people she loves most.
I would know because I’m one of those people; she’s told my parents off a few good times in my defense, even when we were just fourteen years old.
The memory of those buried moments threatens to darken my mood, dropping a leaded weight into the pit of my stomach.
I swallow them down and brush them away—the vision of her balled-up fists and her tear-streaked face, the pitch of her voice when she screamed at them to remember they still had a daughter.
One with a beating but broken heart, who had lost someone, too.
“Her brother, our best friend!”
The way her voice cracked and splintered open with those three words is something I’ll never forget.
I squeeze Addy’s hand, and it serves as the sturdy rope I need to drag me back into the present. Back into the club, back to the shimmering walls surrounding us, and back into Boss’s VIP booth. Back into the quieted space where an intense and captivating guy is currently staring daggers into me.
I look down at the short black skirt of my dress, running my hands over the silky material in an attempt to find my breaths and collect myself.
But when I look back up at him, his stare is granite, cold and penetrating my senses.
It makes my heart stall. Makes my skin feel as if icy hands are running over every inch of my body with his gaze alone.
Memories of last night flood past the walls of the dam I built around them.
His easy smile, and his relaxed state as he made small talk with me against the wall on Boss’s balcony. Smoke blowing out past his full lips and into mine. The soft brush of his mouth, and the way the consuming feeling of that closeness skittered up my spine and left a lingering ache in my chest.
And today. The subtle smirk and passing interest as he stood on the porch.
All of it —is gone tonight.
He sits at the farthest edge of a velvet couch, quiet and withdrawn. A calm exterior to anyone else looking, but there’s something deeper churning behind his eyes.
He looks… Well, he looks pissed the fuck off. Proven when his scowl deepens, and he stands up and storms away.
What the hell?