I cleared my throat. “Ah, yeah. Are you and Lyria in town for New Year’s?”
He let out a small sigh. “We’re at Mom and Dad’s.”
That figured. But it was fine. “He was suggesting some plans for New Year’s Eve, and…and I think I might take him up on it.”
“Yeah?” Tollin sounded relieved, though he didn’t ask what kind of plans. He rarely did though. The only way for him to not stress about my well-being was to not know what I was getting myself into. “That could be really good for you. It sounds like you need a night out.”
I couldn’t tell him if that was right or wrong because I didn’t know what the fuck I needed besides to rewind a clock somewhere and go back to the moment Raleigh looked at me from across the quad and decided that I looked like a good opportunity. That I looked lonely and willing and a little desperate.
Which I was.
And if I’d had the spine back then, I would have laughed in his face. But I was weak and desperate for affection, and now here I was, trying to patch up those scars.
I sat back and stared up at the ceiling. There was a thick layer of dust on the ceiling fan, and in the chrome lining, I could see reflections of snow falling out the window. “I can do this, right? I can make a life outside of him?”
“Yes. I might not have agreed with all the decisions you made over the course of your life, but I know you’re fucking strong. I know you can do this.”
“I just wish…” I trailed off for a second.
“What?” he pressed.
“I wish there was a way to make sure I don’t ever go back, you know? That he can’t show up and somehow convince me that going back to him and the band is the right idea.”
“You’re strong enough,” Tollin repeated. “I can hear it in your voice. I know you’re done.”
I wished to hell I could believe him, but what proof did I have? It couldn’t hurt to try, but god, I’d lost trust in myself so long ago. “I should go. I need to call Tarik and then get a car. There’s not a chance I’m driving myself in this mess.”
“I hope you have fun tonight,” Tollin said softly.
I almost laughed, but I knew he was being sincere. “I think I will.”
Something in my gut told me this was big. That tonight was going to change everything.
I just wish, in that moment, I understood how profoundly things would be different by the time the clock struck midnight.
Two
RYAN
“Tellme that’s at least got porn in it.”
Dropping my phone onto my lap, I took a second to register what my partner was saying, and my head snapped up as I looked over at her. Graciela was smirking at me the way she always did when she knew she was either under my skin or about to be.
“Can we not tonight?” I’d been reading for the last half hour as we sat in the ambulance and waited for a call. It was the calm before the inevitable New Year’s storm, and I was not looking forward to it. But at least I had some time to go through the book I’d just downloaded.
“It’s not my fault you’re a nerd who reads porn instead of watches it.”
“Girl, please. Written porn was invented by nerds, okay? One of the first widely circulated fanfics that wasn’t biblical was Kirk and Spock.”
“God, you even somehow make romance insufferable,” she groaned. I knew she wasn’t being unkind. She was simply pointing out what everyone liked to point out about me.
It was hard to care, really. My parents had cooked that out of me with their long-suffering disappointment in who I was as aperson. It was why I was sitting in the ambulance, half-freezing my ass off because the heater was on the fritz and it wasn’t on the schedule for repairs, staring across the street at the kebab shop, where our dinner order was waiting to be picked up.
“I think the food’s done,” she said as though she was reading my mind. “Who’s going out to grab it?”
“Rock, paper, scissors?” I asked.
Gracie sighed. “Really? Be a fucking man and go grab it.”
