“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll keep my distance.”
SIXTEEN
GEMMA
When I have you again, you’ll be sober.
When, not if, Grim said. A promise.
It had been over two weeks since I last saw Grim, and two weeks ago, I’d found my underwear. Used. I knew immediately it was Grim. I had picked them up to throw them away when, like a fucking psycho, I kept them.
I blame it on the drugs.
Now, it was sunny outside and warm, too warm for January, which meant the cold would come soon and harsh. We were due for a snowstorm, anyway. Kennedy, Blaire, and I lay out by my heated pool, smoking Kennedy’s newest hand-rolled joint, while near the garden, yet another anniversary party was being set up.
I shouldn’t even be thinking about him, wondering where he was. Because that was our relationship. Grim would disappear for stretches and then only reappear to demand something of me, or take it.
So I could never fully forget him.
I shouldn’t even be thinking about him, wondering where he was. Because that was our relationship. Grim would disappear for stretches and then only reappear to demand something of me, or take it.
So I could never fully forget him.
There were rules the Horsemen stuck to, a code. They never fraternized with their contracted, and they only met to discuss the terms of the contract.
I guess I got a little thrill knowing he broke them for me.
But those rules were there for protection—myprotection. Every time he broke them, it eroded that safety net.
Lust fogged my mind. It felt like I was in a steam room. As my friends talked about random shit, I thought wrong, dirty thoughts. Like wondering if Grim had ever done something like that in my room before. Picturing his thick and tattooed cock?—
“Gemma?” Kennedy said.
“What?” I blinked out of the fantasy.
I couldn’t think straight.
Obsessed. That’s what I am.
“Are we ever going to talk about Geoff?” Kennedy asked, half dipping her toes in the heated infinity pool that bled seamlessly into the horizon.
“What about him?” Blaire asked, taking the joint from Kennedy.
“He’s amissingperson,” Kennedy said.
“Right, but what’s there to talk about?”
“He’s missing?” I asked. “Since when?”
Kennedy shrugged. “Your mom’s party, I think.”
I ghosted my touch along my arm, along bruises that had long since faded, remembering the look in Grim’s eyes.
“It was leaked to one of the Crowne stan accounts.”
Stan accounts: people who dedicated their entire lives to either worshipping us or tearing us down—sometimes both.
“He’s probably on a bender. Remember last year when he stole his stepdad’s yacht to France and tried to join the foreign legion?”
