Page 8 of Watch Your Back (Devil’s Backbone #2)

I hate the fact that hurting her hurts me. When the fuck did I start giving a shit whether she’s crying herself to sleep at night? Not my problem. She’ll get over it.

R eality TV was my best friend. I couldn’t have told anyone what exactly happened in the shows I spent the days after Christmas watching; all I knew was that I couldn’t stop.

When the TV asked if I was still watching, I took great offense.

Of course I was! I needed to know what the pretty Mormon moms would do in Vegas, dammit.

“What are you doing?” Mom exclaimed, startling me as she turned off the TV, plunging the living room into darkness.

Confused, I sat up from my couch nest. “Mom, what the?—”

“Do not finish that out loud, Ashley Layne,” she scolded, flicking on the bright overhead lights. “Why are you still here on the sofa in your dirty jammies? We leave in twenty minutes!”

“Huh?” I rubbed my gritty eyes. “Leave for what?”

The look on her face should have been enough to snap me back into action, but I was way too groggy from my TV binge. “Ashley. It’s New Year’s Eve and we are going to a party at the Covington Hotel. Get up. Shower. Get dressed. Now!”

I exhaled heavily with relief. “Oh, that. I told you yesterday, I don’t want to go.”

“Same,” Nate agreed, dropping onto the couch beside me and grabbing my half-eaten bowl of popcorn. “I told Royce I’d battle him in Call of Duty tonight while the servers are quiet.”

Mom’s eye twitched and I stiffened up. We were in trouble. Big trouble.

“Nathaniel Essex, Ashley Layne, I was not asking you if you wanted to come to this party, I was telling. You do not have a choice. Sometimes, I understand we don’t always want to do the things our parents ask us to do and that it’s frustrating.

” Her tone had mellowed into a sickly sweet…

gentle parenting voice. I shuddered. “So we’re going to take those messy, angry feelings, and do you know what we’re going to do with them? Hmm?”

I swallowed, glancing at Nate.

He winced, his jaw tight. “Whisper them to our hand and hold on to them for later?” he guessed with a growl underscoring his words.

Mom smiled, fluttering her lashes. “That’s right! Good boy, Nate. Now off you skip, shower first, then get dressed. Max and I will be waiting with the car out front in half an hour. Chop, chop!”

Her glare hardened when she shifted attention back to me. “You too, missy. Move it.” No sunnily sarcastic gentle voice for me. Rude.

I sighed but accepted defeat as I hauled my ass up from the couch. “I don’t have anything to wear,” I grumbled in a weak final argument, already heading for the stairs to do as I was told.

“I bought you a dress and left it in your closet,” Mom called after me. “Matching shoes too. Hurry up!”

I groaned as I dragged my feet up the stairs, and Nate glared as he passed me with those long legs of his.

“Your mom is a psychopath,” he muttered.

I snorted a laugh and nodded. “Yep.” But I loved her anyway.

A quick sniff of myself verified why Mom had specifically mentioned showering several times, and a glance in the mirror told me a simple freshen up wasn’t enough.

I needed to wash my hair to detangle the bird’s nest I’d somehow grown.

Shit. No way would half an hour be enough to get party ready but Mom would have known that.

Resigned to my task, I scuffed my feet into my bathroom. I kept my actual shower as quick as possible, even with the need to shampoo and condition. It was blow drying and styling that took the bulk of my time because my hair was long and thick.

Even so, I did my best to haul ass and slapped on my makeup as fast as humanly possible while my curls cooled.

“Ashley!” Mom called up the stairs when I emerged from my bathroom a solid forty-five minutes after her thirty-minute warning.

“Five minutes!” I yelled back, spotting the white garment bag draped over the end of my bed with a shoebox beside it. The designer name—Portia Levigne—seemed familiar but I couldn’t place why.

Inside the garment bag, I found a gorgeous bloodred, beaded cocktail dress with drop shoulders and a flirty skirt. It fit beautifully, like it was made to measure, despite the fact it had to have been off the rack for Mom to have picked it up today.

“Pretty,” I whispered, running my hands over the bodice as I inspected my reflection in the mirror. Turning back to the bed to grab the matching shoes, I paused. A tiny little resin duck sat on top of the shoebox and I picked it up between my fingertips to take a closer look.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” I murmured, frowning like I expected the little red duck to reply. Then Mom yelled my name again and I jolted back into action. Shoes first, ponder ducks later .

A quick knock on my door made me roll my eyes as I fiddled with the delicate buckles on the red satin heels.

“Patience is a virtue, Mother!” I snapped in frustration.

“Just me,” Nate replied as he pushed open my door. “Are you—” He broke off abruptly and I looked up at him in irritation.

“What?” I barked, sweeping my hair back from my face. “I’m nearly ready—tell Mom to chill the fuck out.”

His brow arched, then he gave a small headshake. “I’d rather wax my own balls than tell your mom to chill the fuck out. Need help?” He gestured to the fiddly, little buckles I was trying and failing to fasten around my ankles.

My frustration gusted out in a huge sigh. “Yes. I do.”

I expected some kind of snarky response to that, where he told me tough luck or something and left me to fend for myself…but he didn’t. Instead, he silently crossed the room and knelt in front of me, taking one foot into his lap.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice coming out in a breathy whisper for some stupid reason.

He said nothing, just deftly threaded the strap into the delicate clasp and fastened it. Then he shifted to my other shoe to do the same before looking up at me with a shuttered expression.

“You need to lose the necklace,” he finally said, his tone oddly dark. “Earrings are enough.” Then he straightened up and brushed his hands down his suit pants. “I’ll tell Carina you’re almost ready.”

Words failed me as I watched him slip out of my room once more, and I blinked like an owl for a solid moment. What the fuck was that all about?

Confused and off balance, I stood up and crossed back to the full-length mirror leaning against my wall.

Grasping my necklace in one hand, I shifted it off my chest and squinted at my reflection, then cursed and took it off entirely.

Nate was right—the dress was more striking without the distraction of a necklace.

With a sigh, I returned the necklace to my jewelry box in the bathroom and grabbed a clutch purse for my lipstick. Then I hesitated and scowled at my reflection before quickly swapping my peachy nude lipstick for a deep scarlet to match the dress.

At the last moment—and for no discernable reason—I tossed the little red duck in my purse before heading downstairs to the waiting limo.

“Ashley, you look stunning,” Max gushed as he held the car door open for me.

I grinned, feeling a hell of a lot more put together than I had an hour ago in my sweaty jammies. “Thanks, Max. You scrub up all right yourself.”

Nate was already seated in the back and handed me a glass of champagne when I settled into the seat beside him. “We can dip out early,” he said quietly, clearly not wanting Mom to hear him. “Just make an appearance and pay lip service to the Covingtons.”

Surprise had my eyes widening. “I thought it was just at their hotel?”

Max overheard that as he settled in the seat beside Mom and the car started to roll down our snow-lined driveway. He spent the next little while explaining the relationship between his company and the major international hotel chain family.

I’d have been lying if I’d said I listened to everything, but I smiled and nodded as I sipped my champagne and otherwise just relaxed for the rest of the drive into Prosper City.

The presence of actual paparazzi outside the hotel when we pulled up was a surprise, but given the guest list Max had mentioned, it made sense.

There were actual celebrities, A-list movie star guys like Brodie Keller and Steven Harrison attending.

It was basically the Met Gala on New Year’s in snow-covered Prosper City. Wild.

I hung back as Max smiled, waved, and greeted dozens of people on our way into the hotel, introducing them all to his beautiful bride as Mom blushed and laughed.

“This is full-on,” I admitted under my breath when Nate offered to take my coat as we paused at the cloakroom. “I’m surprised the guys aren’t here. Isn’t Heath’s dad some big-deal rock star?”

“That’s his uncle, Zeth, and his cousin…also called Zeth. Older Zeth did a lot of drugs.” He handed over our coats to the attendant and took the claim ticket in exchange. “Also his family sort of figured a party like this wasn’t the best environment for him right now.”

I rolled my eyes. “He didn’t overdose or anything. It was…depression, I guess?”

Nate shrugged. “Rehab’s rehab as far as tabloids are concerned.”

Max and Mom handed over their own coats, then gestured for us to follow them through to the impressive ballroom of the six-star hotel. I marveled at the impressively high ceilings, then grinned when I eyed the huge crystal chandelier in the center of the room.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Spark?”

The words were whispered directly into my ear, and I couldn’t help the grin that spread over my face. His hands circled my waist even as I spun around to get a better look.

“Carter Bassington Junior…what are you doing here?” But fucking hell, I was happy he was.

His dark brows lifted. “You didn’t know I was coming? But you wore my dress…” His gaze dropped lower and one of his hands traced the beaded neckline. “And it looks even better on you than I could have imagined.”

My jaw dropped for a moment, then I laughed. “The duck. I should have known.”

“You really should have,” he agreed, a sexy smile playing across his lips. “When Nate mentioned your mom might make you attend this party, I knew I had to show up. No way was I leaving these lips unkissed at midnight.”

Just as Carter dipped to brush a kiss on my mouth, someone called out his name, and I groaned my frustration.

“Later, Spark,” he promised with a smirk, then released me to respond to the guy.

With a sigh, I accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waitress, then drifted over to where Mom was raiding a canapé table. She shot me a wink, then handed over a mini tart.

“Try these,” she mumbled around her mouthful. “They’re kale but actually taste good. Trust me.”

Trust me. Fucking hell, my mom knew me better than I knew myself some days. Trust me, she said, and she very rarely ever let me down. So I ate the kale tartlet and loved it, just like I loved the fact she’d forced me to come to this opulent party instead of staying on the couch.

“Love you, Mom,” I mumbled as she handed me some other tiny food to sample.

She beamed back at me, pure happiness radiating from her very pores. “Love you too, Ash. Now, go dance with Carter. He can’t take his eyes off you.”

Christ, she was right again. My breath caught as I locked eyes with Carter across the dance floor, and I was powerless to resist when he gestured for me to join him. We really badly needed to hash things out and figure out what was happening with me and Heath…but for right now, it was just us.