CHAPTER ONE
KINLEY
THE COLOREDstrobe lights glide across the crowd of people writhing and sweating on the small dance floor, which seems to become smaller by the hour because the dancing bodies seem to multiply as the evening progresses. My friend Allison, who insisted we go out dancing for my birthday, is grinding against some guy who looks like a douche.
My ponytail is sticking to my bare neck, shoulders, and back. But that’s just the price I have to pay for wearing this dress. I coveted the dress online for weeks and it finally dropped in price. On my birthday. It was Kismet. And the back alone was worth every penny, coming to a low V right over my ass.
I’ve been told my whole life that I have great legs, so I don’t mind that the skin-tight skirt scarcely covers my ass. I have to show off what I have since, when God was handingout boobs, I was not blessed with more than a handful for a man with average hands. The halter cowlneck of this dress makes the girls look a little bigger behind all the material.
Waving to get Allison’s attention, I point at the bar and mouth ‘drink’ and she nods, her back is pressed against the front of a guy much taller than her, one of her arms thrown over her head to grasp the back of his neck, and his hands are roaming all over her front.
With a roll of my eyes, I turn and wobble through the dense crowd on my too-tall shoes that I regret wearing. I kind of had to buy them because, one, they were too cute to pass up and, two, they match the coral color of my dress perfectly. Some might call me shallow, but if I’m anything, I’m fashion conscious.
Allison has always had an uncanny ability to just follow where the night takes her. She is unashamedly open to whatever. She always says whatever is meant to be, will be, and if that means going home with a guy, or two, who she’s never met before, she goes.
I’ve tried to be as blissfully carefree as that, but I’ve learned that, unfortunately, everything I do depends on my mood. I overthink everything. If I don’t want a guy touching me while I try to dance whatever irritation is in my system out, then they don’t touch me.
Then there was the one New Year’s Eve, when I followed her lead, that sent me to the drugstore two weeks later to buy ten pregnancy tests. Just to be sure. Later, I ended up giving one to my sister-in-law, who wasn’t my sister-in-law at the time and who now has a toddler.
The bar itself is packed three people deep, and I have to wait even to get close to the wet, sticky surface. When I finally get the bartender’s attention, I yell ‘ice water’ and he nods. I’ve already had three drinks tonight, and I’m driving. I don’t want to end up at the police station again, calling my oldestbrother to come get me. It only happened once, but he told me he would leave me to sit in the drunk tank next time and get me in the morning.
He would do it too. I don’t dare call my dad. Spending the night in the drunk tank would be better than the lecture I would get the entire drive home. I hate disappointing my dad, and I especially hate his lectures. So, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
Now would not be the time to call anyone out in the middle of the night. In the past three years, it feels like our family has exploded with new spouses and babies. Lots of babies who cry in the middle of the night.
So, ice water it is.
The irony of the whole thing makes me chuckle to myself. When I was turning twenty-two, I would have got shit-faced without a care in the world, but ten years later, I’ve become the old person I used to mock Gray for being. Gray always takes care of everyone and makes sure we’re all safe and happy. It’s just how he’s built, he was old before he even turned twenty.
Now? I’m tempering my alcohol intake on my birthday to make sure I don’t bother anyone else. If you had asked twenty-two-year-old me if this day would come, I would have told you, hell no. On some level, it kind of pisses me off that I’ve turned the maturity corner.
It’s bad enough that I have to worry about fine lines on my face, now I have to think like an adult.
A tall glass of ice water is shoved at me, and I grab it and turn to get out of the sweltering herd of people shoving each other to get to the bar. When I do, someone shoves me, and I fall into a wall of muscle, and half of my water sloshes onto an expensive-looking silky-cotton blend button-up shirt. Large hands grab my upper arms and hold me to make sure Idon’t fall.
“Shit.” As I lift my eyes from the broad, muscular chest in front of me, it’s like slowly looking up a tall mountain as I tip my head back into a pair of dark brown eyes that do not look happy with me. “I’m so sorry.”
He’s gorgeous. Short black hair, styled back and off his face, and a beard, on a very defined jaw, just as black as his hair. Everything is meticulously cut and styled. His cologne smells expensive and amazing, with subtle notes of cloves and something smoky. Not one single note of the yucky chemical smell in those spray-on colognes from Walmart.
But his eyes are hard, and I can see just how irritated he is with me right now. His eyebrows are pulled down, and there is a very defined upside-down V-shaped frown line between them.
“You should be more careful in those shoes.” His deep voice is loud and clear, and I’m not sure if he’s truly concerned for the safety of my ankles or if he’s belittling me for the shoes I wish I didn’t have on.
Well, if it’s the latter, I have to defend a pair of shoes that I’ve decided I don’t like because they are too effing tall and the balls of my feet are killing me. Damn it. I hate it when I have to get on a hill I don’t really want to defend just on principle alone.
I meant it when I told him I was sorry, but now I’m not sorry. Silently, I take it back.
Smiling up at him, I give him the most friendly fuck-you eyes I can, and say, “So sorry, it’s just water, but I have a twenty in my purse if you want me to replace the shirt.”
His eyebrow cocks up, and I think I see the corner of his mouth twitch before I step back out of his grasp, he should have let me go already anyway, and walk around him. Why are all the good-looking guys such jerks?
With a huff, I find a quiet corner, well, as quiet as you can get in a bar, and lean against the wall, my eyes searching thedance floor for Allison. I finally find her sandwiched between two guys who look strikingly alike, I think she found herself a set of twins.
It’s plain she’s forgotten about me for tonight.
I smile to myself and enjoy having some space as I sip my water and watch all the people dancing. Lifting my hair off my sweaty neck, I press the cold glass against my nape. Damn, it’s flippin’ hot in here, so I drain what’s left of the water in my glass. I need some air.
Pushing through the throng of bodies, I make my way to the front doors and get my hand stamped so I can come back in. It’s not much better outside, mid-July in Oklahoma is equivalent to being inside an oven, even at night.
