We spent the rest of the evening at the bar, Emery chugging down amaretto sours until I’d asked the waiter to switch them to water.
As soon as we entered the car, Emery shimmied into her oversized sweats, ordering me not to look. She flipped the dress over her head and replaced it with a white t-shirt that read, Easy, Tiger.
Settling into the seat, she stroked the trim. “What type of car is this?”
I pulled into the gas station and handed an attendant my card with orders to fill up the tank. “A Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster.”
“Hmm… doesn’t seem like something you’d drive.”
That’s because I’d taken an Uber to the nearest car dealership and picked the first car on the lot after my Honda broke down. It happened to be a luxury car dealership. Eastridge, North Carolina for you.
“You know what I noticed about Virginia?” she asked once we’d driven for an hour, the only car on the road now.
“What?”
“She never looks happy. I want to be happy when I grow up.”
“You’re not happy right now?”
“Hmm… I think I am. Maybe. Just a different type of happy. I want to be balter type of happy.” Another made-up word, no doubt. She didn’t give me a chance to ask what it meant. “Are you ever sick of the lies?”
“Whose lies?”
“Lies in general.” She massaged her temples, probably to fight off all those cocktails she’d downed. “People hold back, say what they don’t mean, and hide everything inside.”
I didn’t answer her, merely inclined my head and let her make of it what she wanted. My car careened down the concrete. The first splash of rain hit Emery’s side of the windshield. She reached up and stroked it, the movement reverent.
When she pulled her fingers back, she’d left marks on the glass. “I hate lies. You know what I realized, Nash?”
“Enlighten me. I’m on the edge of my seat.”
“You don’t hate me.” She flung her arms wide as if she’d just made the most profound statement in the world. “You hide behind this rough exterior, because I’ve found my way beneath your skin, and it scares you. You don’t like how I make you feel, because I actually make you feel.”
I swallowed, contemplating an answer to whatever the fuck that was. “You’re plastered.”
“Not really.”
The devious smile forced my fingers to adjust on the steering wheel. She pulled out her phone, gave me her back, and began typing.
I cut a glance at her. “What are you doing?”
She slid the phone back into her pocket and shifted. Her leg jostled the box of my notes she’d taken from the Winthrop Estate. “Just Googled something.”
Stretching her arms above her head, she rested her hands on her neck. We drove for a few more miles before her hand slithered behind my headrest.
“What are you doing?” I repeated. Second time in ten minutes. I was a parrot at this point.
The rain splashed across the windshield harder now. I turned on the wipers, placing the speed to its highest setting.
Her hand retreated at the same time she said, “Pull over.”
“What?”
“Pull over.”
She leaned over me in a flash, moving quickly for how much she had drunk. A second later, the roof of the convertible flung off, flying behind us with the speed I drove at. I flicked my eyes down to my lap. Her hand still clasped the lever that released the roof.
Emery looked half a second from snorting with laughter.
Glee brimmed her cheeks while I cataloged the past hour.
She’d asked me my car’s make and model, Google’d something, reached behind both our headrests where two of the roof levers were, and leaned over my lap to pull the final one.
Fucking hell.
Water splattered both our cheeks. Rain came down harder as if it knew what she’d done and wanted to taunt me.
“Jesus, Emery. You need a blanket, psych eval, and a drunk tank. Stat.”
“I’m not drunk,” she insisted. She shot up from her seat, stretched her arms Titanic-style, and screamed to the empty road, “I want to balter!”
I tried to recall how many cocktails she’d had.
At least six.
Probably more.
I slowed the car. This chick was out of her goddamned mind, begging to fall out of the moving vehicle.
She slanted her eyes to me, her body swaying to no music. “Is it the heavy rain? Would you balter if it were mizzling?”
“Balter isn’t a word.” I pulled onto the side of the road, remembering that she’d written it on her Polaroid of the night sky. “Mizzling is most definitely not a word.”
“Yes, it is. It’s a portmanteau. It’s mist and drizzling together, like smog is smoke and fog and motel is motor and hotel.” Her brow arched, and she looked at me as if I were the crazy one. “Are you sure we graduated from the same high school? Could’ve sworn Eastridge Prep had higher standards.”
I ignored her words, watching her swing her arms with the rhythm of a one-footed kangaroo. “The fuck are you doing?”
“I’m baltering. I don’t have a dad who loves me. I have a high-society mom that dangles my future over my head every chance she gets. I have an angry boss, staring at me like he wants to fuck me.” She nearly toppled over the passenger seat. “I’d rather not deal with any of that at the moment, so I’m going to balter.”
“What the fuck is balter?”
Her white shirt clung to her skin. Two nipples pointed out. The Easy, Tiger taunted me. My own words, used against me. Her hips rolled, chasing something I refused to address with so much alcohol in her body.
“To dance.” She peered up at the sky. “Artlessly, with no grace, no skill, but always with enjoyment. Dad used to say, all you have to do is ask. I will always be here to balter with you. What a lie. Is everyone I know a liar?”
“You literally just lied to me when you said you’re not drunk,” I pointed out, mostly because I had a long list of lies under my belt, too.
“You have to stop assuming I’m drunk. The integral of one over x is the natural log of x, plus the constant C. The twenty-fourth U.S. president is Grover Cleveland. And that Area 51 party is the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.” She sat down—finally—and leaned closer to me. “I’m telling you, Nash. I’m not drunk. I’m chasing happiness. I want to balter.”
“It’s raining.”
In fact, water soaked the entire interior of my fucking car, and even if I did drive back, I had no chance of finding my roof in working condition.
“Wow, you have a career as a weatherman if this hotelier gig doesn’t work out for you. It might not,” she taunted, “considering we’re building a lobby around a sculpture we’ve never seen…” Her fingertips traced my cheek, jumping from one subject to another like leapfrog, because that was clearly sober behavior. “I wish you were happy, Nash Prescott.”
My jaw ticked, teeth grinding against each other. “How do you know I’m not happy?”
“You have too much going on in here”—she tapped her temple—“to allow yourself to let loose and be happy.” Her sigh suggested she pitied me. “I’m doing something. Don’t look.” She gave me approximately half a second to turn away before she stripped out of the oversized sweats and said, “I can’t dance in these.”
“Fucking hell,” I muttered.
Dad used to shout, “Heavens to Betsy!” when he found something to be insane. I’d never found a more applicable situation than this one.
Emery stole her panties from my pocket, slid them on before I could process what I’d gotten myself into, and darted out of the car. Twirling in circles, she managed to look petite despite her height.
She was small and fierce, and if she was to be believed, a collector of tears, sweat, and blood. Her Chucks—the only pair I ever saw her wear—trampled over the mud. Was this what mental breakdowns looked like?
Because this wasn’t normal behavior.
It wasn’t even normal drunk behavior.
But it was a little pathetic and more endearing than I’d like to admit, almost enough to make me get off my ass and “balter” with her.
I didn’t.
I stared, waiting for her to sober up.
She spun in circles. Water dripping down her white shirt. Without a bra, all I saw were hard nipples. I could have sucked one of those nipples into my mouth, right over the G in Tiger. But she was drunk, and I was more of a tear-you-to-shreds type of asshole than a take-advantage-of-you one.
She laughed, the only source of heat in this damn rain. Even under this starless night, she reminded me of the sun. So fucking warm all the time. Inside and outside. And I legit had no clue where this girl came from.
How she bulldozed her way into my life time and time again. How did it make sense for her to show up everywhere? Fill up every crevice of the universe?
“Look!” She jerked her hand above her. “It’s a beautiful night. No stars. Aren’t you at least gonna look at it?”
“No.”
I watched her instead, taking in her arms swinging back as she whirled in circles. Reaching into the center console, I stuck a confiscated joint in the corner of my mouth, wishing I could light it and replace one addicting substance with another.
Fuck this rain.
My eyes dropped to her nipples.
On the other hand, I didn’t hate the rain.
I toyed with the joint and observed Emery. As far as mental breakdowns went, this one was cute. Her smile never left, which was a miracle, considering she possessed absolutely no grace when it came to dancing.
Her limbs were too long for it. They got in her way as she twirled and swayed, two-mile-high legs peeking out beneath her shirt. Fucking perfect as she was, she didn’t even look like a fantasy, because no mind on this earth could conjure her up.
Emery caught me staring. “Thinking about me?”
“In case you haven’t realized, I’m always thinking about you, and I like it as much as I’d like waking up to Rosco licking my face, but here we are.”
“Do you think it’s lust?” Keen eyes studied me, waiting for an answer to the question we always skirted.
“Tell you what… Ask me when you’re sober, and I’ll answer.”
Zero chance she’d remember any of this tomorrow.
Emery didn’t reply. She continued to dance, gracing me with a smile that suggested she knew something I didn’t. Cocky, yet somehow sweet. A drug too addictive to be on the market.
I sat in my drenched, six-hundred-and-forty-eight-thousand-dollar car, picking apart the ruined joint. Her lips muttered so many of her words, I couldn’t keep up, and even if I could, I was sure most of them didn’t exist in any dictionary alive except the walking dictionary baltering in the pouring rain.
“Fuck!” Emery dove suddenly for the passenger seat, toppling over the door until her legs stuck up in the air and her head landed somewhere on the floor of the car.
I set the joint down. “If this is part of baltering, I’m out.”
“Shut up. I’m saving it.”
“Saving what?”
“Pop your trunk and help me up.”
“Tell me what you’re saving.”
“Please, Nash… Just do it?”
“You’re a shit show,” I muttered, but I popped my trunk, opened my door, trampled through the mud, wrapped an arm around her middle, and hauled her against my body until nothing but soaking wet clothes separated us.
She cradled the box she’d taken from her room to her chest. It was a tin box, waterproof by nature, which she would have realized if she wasn’t hammered out of her mind.
Curiosity plagued my thoughts. I was tempted to ask her why she’d kept the notes, but I carried her to the trunk and set her down.
I wanted to crack open her mind like a book and read it, but I was fucked if it became my favorite book to read.
I obsessed.
When I loved a book, I didn’t read it once. I read it over and over again—until the pages fell off, until I could anticipate the words before I read them, until they sunk into me and melted inside my bones in a way that never happened with books I’d only read once.
I couldn’t dip into her mind.
She reeked of my downfall.
Emery used one of my gym shirts to wipe the rainwater off the lid before shoving the entire box in the corner with a bunch of my shirts covering it for good measure. When she lowered my hood, she sat on it.
“What’s your barrier?” She swiped at the wet hair plastered to her cheeks. “What’s stopping you from giving in? I’m not talking about just sex. I know if I told you I’m thinking of you bare and inside me”—fuck—“you’d give it to me. But what if I like who you are and want more than that?”
“You don’t know who I am.”
“I do,” she argued. “More than you think I do, and it’s driving me crazy.” Her ankle hooked around my leg. “Is it the age difference? Reed? The fact that I’m a Winthrop? Because I think it’s stupid when two people like each other but aren’t together.”
I grabbed her calf and stepped into her body. She hooked both legs around me.
“What if I don’t like you?”
“I’d say you’re a liar. Is it the taboo element that’s stopping you? What if I told you, as long as I don’t touch you, this isn’t wrong,” she whispered, getting closer. “You aren’t ten years older than me.” Lie. “You aren’t my best friend’s brother.” Lie. “You don’t hate me.” Finally, a truth. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Actually, what I wanted was absolute confirmation she had nothing to do with my dad’s death.
Legit the only thing I wanted.
Fuck revenge.
Fuck my brother.
Fuck the company.
Fuck the fucking age gap.
I just needed to know, with absolute certainty, she did not have anything to do with my parent’s losing their savings, with Dad losing his spot in the medical trial, with Hank Prescott dying.
For that to happen, I needed Gideon’s location.
I cupped her cheek, leaning in to inhale the petrichor on her skin. “Tell me where your dad is living, Little Tiger, and I will give you everything you want and more.”
“Enough with the subject changes.” One of the smartest people I knew, and she still didn’t get it. She leaned against my palm and closed her eyes. “For god’s sake, take a leap, Nash. You will always be older than me. I will always be younger than you. Maybe we’ll always ‘hate’ each other, too. But will we always feel like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like our fingertips can shoot lightning, but the only target they can hit is each other.”
“Talk to me when you’re sober.”
“I’m not wasted. I’m happy. And I’m finally realizing that two souls don’t just find each other by accident.” She leaned forward and bit my lip, harder than any sane woman would. “You taste like sin, Nash. So delicious. So wrong. So right.”
It wasn’t a kiss, but it could be. If I gave in, gripped her neck, and closed the distance, it could be. Was the last time a fluke, or did she really taste and feel as delicious as she looked and acted?
I stepped back from her. “Sober up, Tiger. It’s damn near freezing, and we’ll get sick if we stay long. You have twenty minutes before I’m taking us to the nearest hotel.”
She didn’t budge. “Is it about Hank?” Finally, she got it right, and I wanted her to think it was about our ages again. “You know he’d want you happy, right? Life is fucked up. It’s a roller coaster ride without an exit, and you’re smushed into the same tiny cart with eight billion other people. You can either push everyone off, throw up until you’re miserable, or enjoy the ride. Let’s enjoy the fucking ride, Nash.”
I swallowed, rounded the car, and sat on the driver’s seat. “Eighteen minutes. You should probably start baltering.”
Her disappointment filled the space between us.
She exhaled. It was loud and long and made me uncomfortable in a place that had laid dormant for a while now. When I thought she’d return to the car, she skipped across the mud and twisted to a pattern only she knew.
“Thirty seconds,” I called out after her twenty minutes had been up ten minutes ago.
She ambled over and rested her forearms on the door. “Thanks for letting me balter.”
I nodded, wrung out her wet sweats, and handed them to her. “You’ll get sick.”
They made flapping noises when she slid them on. “This is why I like you.”
“Why?” I humored her.
“I don’t want someone who holds an umbrella over my head when it rains. I want someone who doesn’t even own an umbrella. Someone who watches me balter in the rain when they don’t know the word exists. Someone who stares at me instead of the stars in the sky.”
“Sounds like a fantasy.”
Fuck, I need Gideon’s location, especially if she’s gonna keep talking like we’re already together.
“Think what you want.”
After she shut the door, I blasted the heater. I tore through the road, hoping we’d find someplace to stop soon. The heat gave us seconds of relief before it escaped into the air. I shut it off to save gas and ripped off my shirt instead.
“Put this on.”
Her hungry eyes ate up my scars. One of her fingers reached out and traced one. “I liked you today.” She slipped the Henley over her head and dipped her nose down to inhale it. “You are phosphenes, Nash. You are the stars and colors I see when I rub my eyes. You feel real in the moment, but you fade away. Don’t fade away this time.”
What does that even mean?
“And you speak like you’re a walking, talking dictionary twenty-four seven, and especially when you’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled over when I realized I’d missed an exit with a motel. Emery unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Put on your seatbelt. We’re not stopping. I’m making sure there are no cars here before I drive the opposite direction on a one-way road.”
She ignored me, wearing a content smile on her face. I considered that maybe I hadn’t been watching her break tonight. I’d been watching her heal herself.
“I know your secret,” she whispered, climbing onto my lap. “You’re my Ben.”
And then she kissed me. Hard. On the mouth. And I realized I wanted to own all her kisses. But she’d been drinking, and I was reeling. Spiraling into disbelief.
Ben.
As in, Benkinersophobia.
As in, Emery Winthrop was my Durga.
What were the odds?
Fucking tell me Fate didn’t exist.
