“If you want to talk about LA—” Quincy says.
“I don’t,” I answer sharply.
Not with anyone, but especially not with her.
“Noelle, honestly.”
Shaking my head, I give her a look. “It’s fine, Q. Don’t worry about it. Everything is in the past. Hollywood was never gonna work out for me, right? You always said so.”
Disappointment lines her brown irises behind her glasses, but she relents, apparently not actually interested in unearthing old wounds. “All right. Text me if you need someone to pick you up, and please don’t drink a lot.”
“Okay,Mom.”
She frowns. “I just don’t want to have to tell our parents you got murdered in a creepy bar weeks after they barely got their nephew back. Sue me.”
I remain silent as she walks out, and the bartender comes back, asking if I still want the shots.
Shaking my head, I decline. Drinking alone is only fun if you’re an alcoholic hermit lamenting the loss of your beloved wife or career.
Oof. I push that last thought away, spinning on the barstool. My gaze catches on the only other patron currently in this part of the building, still chatting away on his phone. The bartender—a beautiful woman with short curly dyed-blond hair and warm brown skin—stops in front of him, saying something I can’t hear.
He glances up, nodding at her, and she replaces the wine with a fresh glass.
The breath stalls in my throat as his chin lifts, revealing familiar bone structure and electric green eyes.
I slip my hand into my coat pocket, wrapping my fingers around cool metal and one of the condoms I accidentally managed to leave the Stop N Go with.
“Just consider it a loan,”he’d said.
Maybe repayment could benefit us both.
4
SUTTON
“Hearda fire broke out on campus and wanted to check on you,” Beckett says over the phone.
I ignore the burst of giggling that comes from a table across Lethe’s main room, ducking my head as another migraine threatens the edges of my skull. It’s been a couple of hours since I left the Death’s Teeth party, but the filth still clings to my skin.
Normally, I’d have taken my meds by now, but after the incident at the dean’s house, I decided not to stay on school property in case board members showed.
“I’m fine,” I tell Beckett. “It had nothing to do with me.”
“Ah, right.” His exhale makes me cringe. “You know, Sutty, your life is pretty boring. You could stand to live a little.”
“And setting fires at my place of employment is the way to do that?”
“If that’s what you’re into.”
“I think one homicidal sociopath is enough in this family. Don’t you?”
The silence that ensues is deafening. I drag a hand over my face, considering the wine Angelica—Lethe’s owner—slid infront of me half an hour ago. For once, I’m tempted to down its contents.
Eight years. That’s how long it’s been since I had a drop of the stuff. Eight years I’ve spent lamenting my sister’s death and questioning whether things would be different had I not drank at that party.
Not that I can remember much. Just the general sense of violation and the stripping of free will. Broken memories that don’t leave, even if your brain shields the details.
The body remembers.
