I didn’t listen to Layla.
The next day, I kept running. I ran right into the weekend without talking to Dominic more than I had to and planned to run right out of the house as soon as Heather got home Saturday night.
6 o’clock hit, the front door swooshed open, and the click of heels echoed up the stairs.
I’d already set Maya and Charlotte up with a movie, and Meredith had agreed to keep an eye on them for the night when Heather neglected to. With me, Dominic, and his mother around, I hadn’t seen Heather so much as look in Maya’s direction now that she wasn’t being forced to.
In the guest bedroom, I jumped up and down on one foot, trying to work the heel of my foot into my sneaker. I didn’t exactly pack any going out clothes, but I’d been able to makeshift an outfit for tonight that worked.
My black sneakers, pitch black jeans with rips on both thighs, and a blood red tank top that cut off right at my belly button. I was gonna use it for sleeping, but desperate times call for desperate means.
And I was completely desperate to get out of this house.
Sneakers on, I padded over to the mirror and swiped a red tinted gloss over the curves of my lips. I’d braided my hair after showering last night and had let it set all day so my natural waves were primed in true fashion tonight.
I felt bad about lying to Layla that I’d been cleared to go out by Dominic, but not bad enough not to do it.
We wouldn’t do anything crazy. A few drinks. A few bars. A few hours of blowing off some steam. Dominic wasn’t supposed to get home until around 11pm tonight anyway. I’d be home and tucked into bed by then, and he’d be none the wiser.
Plus, the mace he’d given me was sitting pretty in the back pocket of my jeans just in case.
See? I was being smart about being stupid.
Readying to leave, I gave Charlotte a kiss on the cheek goodnight—and Maya one too when she pouted—and raced down the stairs, phone and I.D. in hand.
My speedy steps were nearing the bottom when they slowed and then stopped altogether, my gut gripping into a tight, uncomfortable ball as I saw her.
Watching me descend into an evening of rule-breaking and lies was the bitch in Prada heels.
“Going out, Ms. Sanders?”
Her voice had become like nails on a fucking chalkboard, clenching all my muscles as I stiffly finished the walk to the bottom of the stairs. Heather tracked my movements with eyes like a serpent, slitted and calculating and likely with fantasies of my demise playing behind them.
I planted myself flat-footed in front of her, standing my ground and tipping up my chin.
“You gonna tell on me?”
There was no reason she shouldn’t. It would probably earn her some points with Dominic, and she was seriously lacking on those. If there was even the slightest opportunity for this woman to throw me to the wolves, I was dead sure she’d take it and make sure she stuck around to watch the feast.
Which is why I was so surprised when she shook her head and purred, “No. You should go out.”
—and get hit by a bus.
Her subtext wasn’t exactly subtle but whatever.
There was about a fifty-fifty chance she was lying, but at this point, I really didn’t care. I had to get out of here for just one night. I needed to feel like me again, and I couldn’t exactly do that with soon-to-be ex wives hanging around or mothers who were already planning my future out with their son.
“Thanks,” I said.
Neither of us went to move.
Layla was waiting outside to pick me up, but I could spare a few important seconds to remind and prove to this woman that I wasn’t afraid of her. Last time we sparred wasn’t fair, because she had all the advantage and all I had was a panic attack.
This time, I held her gaze, and I held it fearlessly. Even as she drew herself a devilish grin. Even as she refused to blink.
Her goddamn perfectly plucked eyebrows raised an inch on her smooth forehead. The ice blue of her eyes glinted.
“Be careful.”
AKA: I still mean get run over by a bus.
“Thanks for your concern.” And I grinned right back at her, throwing in an unintentional wink that hit her square in her rich bitch face before I left out the front door.
Layla’s car was parked down by the mailbox, base thumping her windows and shaking her doors. My grin turned up with excitement, feet traveling down the driveway with an added pep. I ripped the passenger door open on her silver SUV—I called it her mom car—and plunked right down next to her.
Tonight, she’d gone all purple from head to pointed toe. Even purple glitter eyeshadow swept her eyelids, and I almost laughed at how opposing we were tonight. She looked like she was about to go to a rave, and I looked like the chick at parties that you couldn’t tell if they were homeless or a hooker.
She wriggled her eyebrows at me. “Ready?”
“So fucking ready.”
Three hours, two bars, and one round of shots later, I was finally feeling like myself again.
Layla and I stuck to the outskirts of downtown, keeping close enough to the car that our walk back wouldn’t be excruciating, especially for Layla in the skyhigh heels she’d chosen to wear.
Everything was going great. The bar we’d landed at wasn’t packed, and the music didn’t totally suck either. Everything about the evening was fun and careless, and the buzz I had going was one of those miraculous ones you only achieved once in a blue moon.
Then my phone rang, and that happy buzz made a U turn into a headache real fast.
Dominic’s name lit up the screen, and I clicked it off and shoved my phone in my back pocket. Then, a slightly sober thought needled through that made me pull it back out and send a quick text that said, ‘I’m fine.’
His response was immediate.
‘Kat, go back to the house. Please.’
Annoyance kicked back my head with a groan, and Layla flashed me a curious side-eye at the bar while she waited for our drinks. I brushed her off, diving my nose back into my phone.
‘Am I in any immediate danger?’
‘If you’re out without supervision, yes.’
“Sounds like you’re assuming, sir,” I mumbled to myself, blinking slowly at the screen.
“Everything okay?”
My head popped back up as Layla met me at the end of the bar, smiling a thank you as she handed me my gin and whatever. I couldn’t decide what I wanted other than gin, so I had Layla surprise me.
“Yeah, it’s fine.” I slid my phone back into my jeans. “So, whatcha get me?”
“Something called a Gin Gimlet? I don’t know, the bartender suggested it.”
Humming in interest, I plucked the glass from her hand, condensation already slicking down the sides as I brought the straw between my teeth. Sweet notes and a splash of lime flooded my tastebuds, and I perked back, pleasantly surprised.
“You are the only twenty-one-year-old that I know who likes gin,” she mused.
I shrugged, nursing the drink. “I think it’s more nostalgia than anything. My grandparents both liked gin a lot and would always bring their own bottle over whenever they came.”
“Ah, what every granddaughter wants. Alcohol.”
“It wasn’t so bad. They’d always let me try some.”
“And how old were you?”
I took a deep breath, filling my head with smoke-tinged oxygen to fuel the answers. “The first time I ever drank with them or the first time they gave me gin?”
Layla smacked her plum painted lips. “How old were you the first time you had any alcohol?”
“Eleven.”
Her doe eyes bulged, and I chuckled a dark laugh. “Yeah, I know. Dad wanted a drinking buddy though.”
“That’s so fucked up.”
“If it helps, he always cut me off after one drink.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Well, I tried.”
This time, it was Layla’s phone that chimed with a message, and her face lit up in a dopey grin.
Elbows on the table, I leaned closer with a smirk. “That wouldn’t happen to be Ryan, would it?”
They hadn’t seen each other since the hotel; I knew that much. Well, I knew that and about every lurid detail of their encounter the night Dominic and I were in the pool. From the stories Layla told, they’d had a very good time. Oh, and Ryan was apparently a screamer.
Her purple-lidded eyes rolled as she tried to hide her excitement, teeth clamping down on her bottom lip before the force of her smile ripped it free. She nodded, flipping her phone over so the screen was facing the bar top.
“He’s such a dork.”
I wondered if he was with Dominic right now. “Is he working tonight?”
“No, he got off about an hour ago.”
A little bubble of relief popped inside my stomach. “He tryin’ to get you to ditch me and go hang out with him?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t read it. I’m out with you.”
Air puffed between my lips as I blew a raspberry, tossing my stare behind her to where the sign for the restrooms glowed.
“All right.” I sucked down a mouthful of my drink, licking the residue pebbles off my lips. “How about I go pee and give you a few minutes to blow his mind and blow his load, and then when I get back, we’ll do another shot?”
“Another?”
“Yeah, another. I’ve had a shitty week.”
Tack that onto a few shitty years, and I think I deserved another shot, thank you very much.
Layla held her hands up in surrender, and then used them both to snatch up her phone, a greedy enthusiasm vibrating around her. I rounded her with a stupid smile, glad she’d found someone who put some shine behind her eyes.
The bar’s bathroom wasn’t as tragic as I pictured it would be. Tonight was the first time I’d ever legally been in a bar. I hadn’t really thought about it until the night was already in motion. It didn’t feel like a big deal since I’d been in bars with my parents when I was younger and just sat in the corner while they got hammered. Those ones were always hole-in-the-walls that smelled like piss and depravity.
This place was much nicer, and I did my business and washed my hands, taking a few extra moments to fix up my waves of hair. I waited around for another aimless minute or two to make sure Layla had enough time with Ryan before kicking the bathroom door open and stepping out.
“Woah!”
I stumbled back, nearly slipping and falling on my ass if it hadn’t been for the arms reaching out to stabilize me.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!”
Slapping my hand over my thrumming heart, I hit Layla with a confused glower. “Jesus Christ. Thank fuck I already peed. What’re you doing?”
“Oh—” For a split second, she looked totally and completely frazzled. Her eyes zapped wide, mouth hanging open while no words came out. I cocked her a questioning hook of my brow, and it seemed to break her out of whatever weird brain fritz she was in. “I was coming to get you! My friend just texted about this house party that’s apparently pretty chill. We have to go.”
“Uh,” Her wide gaze dropped to my bottom lip as I pulled a frown. “What friend?”
“Some new guy we hired at work. You’d definitely like him because Marty hates him.”
Now that brought a laugh as I pictured Marty’s round face all burnt with rage. I made him wear that tomato look countless times over my years there. His ears always got the reddest.
Still, I was having a good time here and really wanted that next shot.
“Can we raincheck?”
“No, come on,” she whined. “I swear it’ll be fun!”
“We’re having fun here, aren’t we?”
She rolled her eyes and scoffed, slinging her arm through mine to slowly drag me away from the bathroom and towards the exit. “Yes, and we will have even more fun at this party. Plus—”
A hardly shameless glance was thrown my way over her shoulder. “I kinda already told him we were coming.”
“And what if I said no?”
She stopped just shy of running over this couple waiting for the drinks, pinning me with a no bullshit look. “It’s a party with free booze. You’re not saying no.”
Touché.
After that, I let myself be pulled through the scattered crowd, some grinding their hips to the music and others blowing plumes of smoke towards the already hazy ceiling. The force she was dragging me with boiled my brain in confusion, and a small voice was chirping at me to stop her and ask why going to this party was suddenly so important.
I ignored that voice and got in my best friend’s car anyway, letting her drive us off into the night.
We only drove for about ten minutes before pulling into a complex as average as any other suburban neighborhood that existed. Layla parked the car on the street in front of what I guessed was our party house?
Nothing about it exactly screamed rager to me.
It was a one story beige home, a rod-iron gate over the front door, and one lonely car in the driveway. Stepping out into the street, the sound of party music was seriously lacking too.
“Lay, are you sure this is it?”
She pitched me a nod over the roof of the car as she got out too, sizing up the house with glittering eyes. Had she never been here before? “It’s not supposed to be anything huge, but we might also be some of the first people here.”
“Oh great.”
My perfect buzz was already on its way out. I was gonna need to fix that fast if I was about to be stuck in a house with strangers. Layla came up behind me, and I caught her shooting strange looks up and down the street as we walked up the paved driveway.
Her bizarre behavior finally cemented my steps in place, pulling her to a stop with me.
“Are you okay?”
She batted down at me, expanding her stare. “Yeah! Definitely. It’s just cold out here.”
I paused, feeling the air hover over my bare arms and chest, the chill slight and damp. “It’s like 65 degrees out.”
“That’s basically freezing.”
“Oh my god,” I laughed, letting her pick up our trek to the quiet house.
“If we walk in there and this is some weird orgy thing, you have to promise to stick with me the whole time, okay? You’re not leaving me alone to be fucked by some rando you work with.”
She barked out a laugh, wrapping her arm through mine again. “If we were ever in an orgy together, you are the last person I would bail on. Unless, like, Chris Hemsworth walked into the room for some reason.”
“I give you full permission to leave me if you have the chance to fuck either of the Hemsworth brothers.”
We blew through our soft chuckles as we made it up to the rod-iron gate over the door. Layla peeled the black gate back, rasping her knuckles on the white door that had seen better days. We waited not even three seconds before the door yanked open—
And my jaw dropped open too.
“Ryan?”
He was standing there in jeans and one of those old ass ‘Vote for Pedro’ shirts. He didn’t seem surprised to see me like I was sure I did to him. My eyebrows slammed together, and I swiveled towards Layla to ask her why the fuck we were at Ryan’s house.
Her entire face cracked, guilt seeping through.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t like lying to you.”
My lips formed around the beginning of the word ‘what’ when I steered my head back in Ryan’s direction. He pressed his mouth together, driving his head towards the floor as he stepped to the side.
The muscles in my ready-to-spew mouth laxed all tension.
Dread gut-punched through me. Every ounce of alcohol I’d consumed tonight vanished from my blood, leaving me stone-cold sober and wishing the exact opposite.
Standing inside the house towards the back, his hands flattened against a bar counter and head hanging low, almost at a ninety degree angle with his body, was Dominic. Even from here, I could make out every harsh angle of his imposing frame that was cut with tension.
Aw shit.
I was in very big trouble.
