Page 60

With a single sentence, his Lottie becomes someone else’s.

I blink.

I rub my eyes until I see stars.

I shake my head until my vision blurs, but still, Ricky remains.

He grins, he rolls his eyes at what I’m sure he’s silently deeming my dramatics , he blows me a goddamn kiss, and I want to be sick. He steps forward and I abruptly back up, wincing as the sharp corner of the table jabs my thigh—wincing again when a hand wraps around it.

My gaze drops to Finn. Frowning, confused Finn, who’s already looking at me. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I have no words. No explanation for this fuckery. Nothing.

The next thing I know, I’m outside.

Without a word, without a goodbye, without really a conscious thought, but with phantom fingertips still burning the skin of my inner thigh, I drag Ricky out of Bishop’s.

I shove him out the the double doors. He doesn’t stumble enough for me so I plant my palms on his chest and shove him again, hard enough to send him reeling across the sidewalk.

So hard that he almost falls on his ass, but he recovers quickly, too quickly, so I shove him once more. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Came to see you, baby,” he croons and I don’t find the nickname cute. I’m not endeared. It doesn’t make me weak-kneed and gooey; it makes me want to separate his head from his body and roll it down the street until it hits the wheels of the car I assume belongs to him.

Because two more woefully familiar people climb out of it.

Resisting the urge to scream at the sky, I scream at Ricky instead. “How did you find me?”

“It’s a funny story actually.”

My head swings to Ethan, where he leans against the shitty, dusty car. “I highly fucking doubt it.”

And I’m right. I don’t laugh like they do when I learn that they found Serenity through a fucking suggested ad on social media and thought there was something awfully familiar about the owner.

I don’t think there’s anything funny about the universe deciding to exact some karma in such a bullshit, dumbass way.

“ Charlotte Jackson .” Ricky punches me on the shoulder. “You’ve been holding out on us. You’re rich .”

And that’s why they’re here. Of course. Of fucking course . “You need to go.”

“What?” Victoria calls out from where she’s tucked beneath her smarmy boyfriend’s arm. “You embarrassed of us?”

“Oh, deeply .” And I am. Not of them, exactly, but of me.

Of my past with them. Of who I was with them, the things I did with them.

I’m mortified and I’m fucking panicking and I’m seized with the overwhelming urge to get them out of Serenity, to get them away .

“So you can fuck right off, all of you.”

Vic sneers. “You can’t seriously still be mad at us.”

“Oh, I seriously can.”

“Listen, bitch—”

A single, threatening step forward is all I manage before Ricky catches my forearm and yanks me back. “Vic, get in the car.”

She glares, but she obeys.

When I bark like a dog in her wake, Ricky laughs. “Fuck, I missed your crazy ass.”

I shake him off. “Don’t touch me.”

“Don’t be like that. I…” He sighs, and I recognize the noise.

I know that fake, forced regret. I’ve heard it so many times before, every other time he did something worthy of an apology and coughed out something lacking.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened.

I’m sorry, Lottie. I’m so fucking sorry. ”

“Wow. It took you three months to come up with that?”

“You know me. I’m a little slow.” Because apparently I haven’t made it clear enough that I would rather stick my hand in a vat of acid that holds his, he reaches for me again, repeating, “I missed you.”

“Keep trying to touch me and you’ll be missing something else.”

“What, you don’t want your new boyfriend to see?”

I flinch. Fuck . He noticed Finn, of course he noticed Finn. “I don’t have a new boyfriend. I don’t have an old boyfriend either. I have a creep who won’t keep his hands to himself.”

Ricky pouts—he still thinks I’m playing, that I’m only pretending to be mad.

“Leave,” I say, clear and concise and so fucking serious. “I mean it, Ricky. You shouldn’t have come here.”

“But I did. I came all the way out here. We’ve been driving for, like, five hours—”

“Do you want a medal?”

“I want to talk to you.” Again, he tries to grab my hand, and again, I evade, shoving both in my back pockets. Sighing, he messes with his hair before propping his clenched fists on his hips. “Look, just come out with us for a bit, yeah? I’ll buy a drink.”

“I don't drink anymore.”

He snorts. “Then I’ll make it a double.”

“Ricky—”

“Or,” he interrupts, adopting a slick smile that has my hackles rising, that makes my stomach hurt.

“Maybe I need to go back inside and ask your sister for permission. Lux, is it? Y’know, while I’m here, I should probably introduce myself to all your sisters.

Your friends too. Your not boyfriend. Tell them all about how much fun we used to have. ”

I open my mouth to tell him to go right ahead, to call his bluff, to insist I don’t care, even if he is being serious.

Except I don’t. I can’t. Because I do care. I hate it, but I care a whole lot.

Which is why, through gritted teeth, I concede. “One hour. And then we’re done.”

“One hour,” Ricky agrees.

I’ve never believed him less, but he’s left me with no fucking choice. I’m backed in a corner with no good options, nothing to do but locate the nerve to go back inside and suffer the weight of the half dozen gazes that track my approach.

“Lottie…” my twin starts, hesitating when I shake my head sharply.

Lux, predictably, isn’t silenced quite so easily. “What’s he doing here, Charlotte?”

“I don’t know.”

She doesn't believe me. I don’t have to look at her to know, I don’t have to hear the skepticism in her voice because I can feel it. “Did you tell him to come here?”

“Yes, Alexandra.” Huffing a humorless laugh, I snatch my bag from the booth, leaving my phone on the table so I don’t have to suffer the inconvenience of ignoring it for the next hour. “That’s exactly what happened.”

“Where’re you going?”

I don’t tell her. I don’t know. I can, however, assure her that, “I’ll be home soon.”

She protests, Grace protests, Eliza and Yasmin and I think even fucking Alex, I think Caroline , call after me, but I don’t look back as I stride towards the exit again. I don’t stop until, right as I’m stepping outside, someone makes me stop.

Beyond murmuring that damn nickname that freezes me in place, Finn doesn’t say anything. He just waits, quiet and patient, for me to explain myself.

But the only thing I want to clear up? “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“I believe you.” He shifts, puffing his goddamn chest as he crosses his arms. “That’s him, isn’t it? Your friend who left you.”

I follow his gaze to the dickhead leaning against his car—to the dumbass who has the audacity to waggle his fingers in a cheeky-ass greeting, like I’m not already one wrong move away from strangling him.

I don’t confirm, but I do make sure Finn knows, “He’s not even my friend either. None of them are.”

“Then why are you going with them?”

“I have to.”

Swallowing deeply, Finn palms the nape of his neck. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Ditto. “I gotta go.”

“Lottie.” He catches me by the forearm. “Don’t.”

The force behind the command—the fact that he’s commanding me at all—hits just the wrong spot. At the just the wrong time. In just the wrong mood. “A couple makeout sessions doesn’t mean you get to tell me what to do.”

My hissed tone has him sucking in a sharp, surprised breath, has his face falling with confusion. “I’m not telling you. I’m asking you.”

I shake him off. “Don’t do that either.”

“Then let me come with you.”

“ No .” God, that defeats the whole purpose. “What, you think I’m gonna trip and fall into bed with him?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He didn't not say that. He doesn't not say that. He doesn't deny it, doesn't reassure me otherwise, doesn't do anything to ease the knot growing in my chest, festering until the space behind my eyes itch.

He doesn’t trust me. No one trusts me. Everyone assumes the worst of me, I can see it on their faces, the doubt and the distrust and the complete lack of faith that I can, in fact, be a decent fucking human for once.

With a bitter laugh, I back up a couple of steps, shaking my head. “See. I knew it. Bad idea.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“This morning never should’ve happened. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Stop, something screams at me. Shut up, shut up, shut up. “You can wish all you want, Finn, but you’re not my boyfriend. Stop acting like one.”

Another one of those breaths. More of that confusion, coupled with disbelief, with frustration . “Don’t do this, Charlotte.”

“Do what?”

“You’re upset and you’re taking it out on me.”

“I’m irritated,” I correct, “and I’m wishing I could rewind about twelve hours and leave your drunk ass at the wedding.”

Finn stumbles. He physically fucking stumbles like I pushed him, and I did, I guess.

With pointy, spat words that I can’t take back, I don’t have time to fix because Ricky is a malicious presence looming only a few feet away.

Staring daggers in our direction and emanating a rank, vindictive energy that scares the ever-loving fuck out of me.

“Just relax, okay?” I try to be soft, I try to be reassuring, I fail miserably on both accounts. “It’s not a big deal. I just—”

Finn walks away. I reach for him, and he actually walks away, pushing through the double doors with enough force that they slam shut in his wake.

Every ounce of my being screams in protest as I walk to the car. Stiff with the utter sense of wrong gripping me by the throat, I duck through the door Ricky opens for me and drop with a thud onto a leather seat that smells like smoke and weed and stale beer.