Page 2
For six months, he sleeps in a room full of things he’s afraid to touch.
They don’t talk about the girl in the pictures, so he doesn’t ask.
“Make a wish.”
Rolling my eyes at the smirking, blond dumbass waving a lit Zippo in my face, I blow out the flame before he can spark up the joint in his other hand. “It’s not my birthday, and you can’t smoke that in here.”
Ricky pouts, and I steel myself against a nauseating wave of ick .
Have I always found him so damn annoying?
Obviously not or I never would’ve started dating him in the first place.
Not that we’re dating; we’re hanging , as Ricky likes to say.
Hanging in my apartment since his roommates kicked him out.
Hanging in my car when I drive him to work.
Hanging at my job because his shifts got cut and he’s got nowhere else to be, apparently.
He has all the time in the world to pester me for free drinks I can’t give him, and make other customers uncomfortable, and piss off my boss to the point it’ll be a miracle if I walk out of here tonight with my job still secure.
“Babe,” the man who’s more of a dependant than he’ll ever be a boyfriend whines—and again, ew . “I’m bored.”
How nice that must be. “I’m working.”
“Cut out early.”
Huffing a laugh, I gesture vaguely the very, very busy bar. Even if there wasn’t close to a hundred bodies filling a space meant for half that, I wouldn’t ditch. I need the money—a concept I was wholly unfamiliar with until it slapped me in the face.
One-on-one time with Ricky, on the other hand, I need like a hole in the head.
Using the lifted hand of a customer on the opposite end of the bar as an excuse to dart away, I wonder how I got myself here.
Well, I know how I got myself here here.
I needed a job and, with a whole lot of nothing on my resumé, it was a miracle that The Angry Ginger even hired me—a miracle I suspect had a lot to do with the definitely not ginger, but nevertheless extremely red, shade of my hair.
I know that I’m here, in this city, because it’s where my car ran out of gas two years ago and I considered the five hours of distance from Haven Ridge good enough.
I know why I left home—God, do I know that.
The Ricky of it all, though, I’m not sure how that happened.
How what was meant to be a one-night-stand became so…
permanent. A trauma bond, I guess, considering where we met.
That’s the only thing that explains how I’ve been hanging out with the same guy for so long when I can’t even remember why I was attracted to him in the first place.
I can’t fathom how this greasy-haired man-child whose last name I honest to God have to really think about to remember, has become the closest thing in my life to family—him, and the couple fighting their way through the crowd.
As he folds his arms on top of the counter and flashes me a slick smile, I really do try not to grimace at the sight of Ricky’s older brother.
I’m not sure Ethan means to be such a creep; I think it’s just his nature.
The same way I’m pretty sure his girlfriend, Vic, doesn’t mean to be a bitch, she just has Resting Bitch Face.
And Resting Bitch Attitude. A Resting Bitch Personality, really, but hey, who the fuck am I to judge?
I’m pretty sure bitch is the first descriptor that comes to mind when anyone thinks about me.
Case and point; when Ethan makes like his brother and slaps a pout on that debatably good-looking face, I tell him to fuck off before he can beg for a drink.
“Jesus, Lottie.” Leaning over the counter, he steals the beer I’m in the middle of pouring. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
I tense.
I take a deep breath.
I snatch the glass back and consider it a real feat of personal development that I don’t throw the contents in his face. “Get out of here. And take your brother with you.”
“Trouble in paradise?”
Vic wishes. I swear, she’s got this weird territorial thing for both brothers. I get it, I guess, since as far as I know, they’re all each other’s got. Plus, I remember how I acted when I had to share someone I loved with someone I didn’t even really like.
But that doesn’t mean I tolerate it. However, a snarky reply, I don’t get the chance to make—did I mention it’s a Friday night and it’s happy hour? I only have time to heartily return her snide expression before moving my attention to an actual paying customer.
Instead, a cowboy hat in the distance steals it.
I don’t mean to freeze. It’s ridiculous, actually, that I do.
It’s a hat, for God’s sake. I don’t even recognize the guy wearing it, nor any of the others with him, all clad in the same get-up.
But I recognize them. In the sense that I spent most of my life surrounded by good country boys—and some not-so-good ones—so I can spot them a mile off.
I can tell that’s a group of bonafide cowboys edging their way into the pub, and while I wonder where the hell they rolled in from, I’m struck with the irrational urge to roll them right back.
I’m struck with more than that—memories hit me too.
Memories of a hat just like that on top of my head, shielding me from the baking summer sun.
I drop my gaze and it lands on the chunky black boots I’m wearing, makes me think of different boots, hardier boots, dirtier boots, caked in mud and God knows what else after a day mucking out stalls or traipsing through fields.
Fields that went on forever, that I’d escape to when things in my life, in my house, in my head, got too loud and I needed the expanse of silence, nothing but the huffing of a gentle mare keeping me company.
Snickering cuts through my thoughts.
“Is the rodeo in town?”
My head whips towards Vic and Ethan, my face automatically, instinctively , settling into a scowl. “Shut up.”
“Someone’s touchy tonight,” Ethan teases, the end of his sentence coming out a little garbled when his brother hooks an arm around his neck.
Ricky winks at me. “Lottie’s a cowgirl, didn’t you know? Those are her people.”
Though something in my chest twinges, I don’t let it show. “What’s it gonna take for all of you to piss off?”
“Come out with us.”
“I’m—”
“Working.” Ricky rolls his eyes. “I know. Meet us after.”
A refusal sits on the tip of my tongue, but I bite it back.
My gaze drifts towards those damn cowboys again before quickly averting, not liking where the sight of them steers my thoughts—the same place they’ll likely end up if I spend all night alone in my shitty room in my shitty shared apartment. “Where?”
“I’ll text you.”
I cluck my tongue at the vague response. “Ominous.”
“I’m a man of mystery,” Ricky croons. “That’s why you love me, remember?”
No.
I most definitely do not remember that.
A bad feeling settles in my gut the moment my car’s GPS lets me know I’ve arrived at my destination. Peering out the windshield with a grimace, I’m one-hundred-percent positive that the only thing my friends could be getting up to in a place like this is trouble .
With the engine still running, I think for a second. I consider reversing back down the long, empty driveway leading to the mansion I know damn well doesn’t belong to anyone I or my friends know. A voice in the back of my head urges me to call it a night, to just go home, to make the right choice.
I’ve never been very good at listening to that voice. It sounds like my older brother, a lot of my older sister in it too, and I guess that’s why I’ve always gone against it. I guess that’s why, even though I really don’t want to, I get out of my car.
I don’t bother knocking—no one would hear me over the obnoxious music floating through the air. Bypassing the front of the house entirely, I circle around to the backyard, fighting my way through some extensive, expensive greenery until I find a patio covered in shattered glass.
“Really?” I remark, unimpressed as I step over the remains of a sliding door and into a living room that’s easily twice the size of my entire apartment. “I thought you guys were done with this shit.”
Ricky scoffs as he stumbles towards me, bringing the stench of vodka with him. “No,” he corrects, snaking his hands around my waist. “ You were done with it.”
Technically, I was never really with it in the first place.
Breaking into rich people’s houses was something the drunken trio around me did long before I came onto the scene—it was their thing, and I just tagged along.
Sure, it was fun at first. Exhilarating or whatever.
But that initial rush wore off pretty quickly, and then it was just… not.
Contrary to popular belief, I’m not some monster hellbent on causing destruction at every turn.
I don’t enjoy wrecking people’s shit the way the others do.
The extent of my criminality was helping myself to stolen booze— is , I guess, considering that’s what I make a beeline for now, searching for the strength to get through the night.
I ignore the open bottles of liquor strewn across the kitchen counters, hunting for something better and finding it tucked inside the wine fridge installed in the island.
Pulling out a perfectly-temped bottle of Pinot Noir, I snag a glass from the temperature-controlled cabinet—God, and I thought my family was stupidly rich.
Popping the cork with a flourish, I pour until the deep red liquid teases the brim before swigging a greedy mouthful straight from the bottle.
“God, you’re such a snob.”
I flick my middle finger up at Vic, though it’s pretty hard to care about anything coming out of her mouth when there’s an award-winning red in mine.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2 (Reading here)
- Page 3
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