Page 18 of Before Eve

He lunges, his fingers wrapping around her throat. He squeezes tight, the veins in his hand popping, the muscles in his neck clenching. Mommy doesn’t fight him. She doesn’t even make a sound. She glares, almost like she’s daring him to do it.

He lets go and breathing heavily, he returns her glare. She turns away, going back to staring out the window at the Chicago skyline, her neck red where he’d squeezed.

Still breathing heavily, Grayson looks right at me. My heart pounds loud, thumping inside my ears.

Quiet as a mouse. Still as a cucumber.

He picks his phone up and goes back to scrolling and I don’t move one single muscle the rest of the trip.

Eleven years later and here I am, staring at the same nighttimeChicago scenery. It rolls by as we navigate the streets to our hotel.

From Memphis, it took us roughly ten hours to get here, stops and all. Luckily, I slept some, which isn’t always easy to do.

Now I stand in the hotel lobby, crowded with tech crew, performers, and staff. I find a spot in a corner while Anne waits in line to check us in.

Through the crowd, West comes right toward me, a little glimmer playing across his features. “You look a little caged in over here.”

“A lot of people,” I murmur.

“How is it riding with Tech? They seem like a bunch of stinky boys.”

My lips twitch. “No one is stinky.”

“I don’t know about that,” he jokes, casting a suspicious eye across the lobby and the hodge-podge of roadies.

I take a look at them, and yes, some of them do need a good scrubbing.

“Especially that one,” West mumbles, nodding to his friend Simon who is currently standing over in the corner, breath spray in hand.

“I’m going to tell him you said that.”

“He’s getting ready for Kirstie. She should be here soon.”

“That’s sweet.” I’m glad West seems chipper. Whatever funk he was in last night has obviously dissipated.

He leans in, closing all the space between us, and his sudden nearness makes my nerve endings stretch. “Maybe I can talk you into riding with me in our big, bad tour bus,” he says, and I want desperately to tell him to give me some room.

He leans in a little farther, and I don’t stop the words from tumbling out, “Can you back up, please?”

West doesn’t immediately move, and then my words mustsink in because he takes a quick and cautious step back. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” I say, releasing a breath, so very glad for the space.

He just studies me. I wait for him to make an excuse and leave, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “A few of us are going out for a quick bite in the city. Want to come?”

I’m so shocked at the unexpected invitation, I don’t know how to reply.

He teases, “What, you got a hot date or something?”

I huff a laugh. “That would be a no.”

“You make that sound like it’s a ridiculous idea.”

Itisa ridiculous idea, but I shrug. “I don’t typically date.” Who am I kidding? I wouldn’t even know how togoon a date.

“Let’s see, Eve and her hot date.” West ponders me for a second. “He would be a studious type, I think. Maybe into poetry. No, a painter. No wait! A welder. Yes, one of those tragic starving artists—”

“That lives in a loft.” I get in on the fun. “And gathers scrap metal, and he makes those weird, inspiring pieces that we would discuss until the early hours of the morning.” I ponder the image. “No, not my type.”You’re more my type,I want to admit.