Her chestnut hair is full of fire in the late afternoon sun, her cheeks are tinged with pink where the harsh summer rays wore down her sunscreen. Green eyes catch the light, flashing like emeralds.
My throat clutches, myheartclutches, until I have to leave, taking the stairs two or three at a time, my pulse thundering in my ears, the deep distress of failure clinging to me like the oily smoke from Sunday.
Upstairs, I don’t stop. I get back into my car and drive into the city.
Wilder has a dorm room at the school, a concession he fought and won from his parents during the first bitter months of their still-to-be-settled acrimonious divorce.
He lets me in, even though he’s got a girl in there. A girl who isn’t Dahlia, despite his promise, a rule we both knew he would never keep.
But, in the moment, I don’t care he takes nothing seriously; that he’s a gigantic man whore who treats the girl who adores him like she’s nothing.
Not when he makes space for me without question, cajoling me out of my misery with a series of terrible jokes.
Not when he forces me out to test drive a ridiculously expensive car that neither of us have the slightest interest in buying, speeding over the hilltop ridges along the west side of the range, leaving the painful memories behind me in the dust.
CHAPTER TEN
EVIE
It’shard to remember the last time I looked forward to something. For years there’s been lists of things to do, goals to accomplish before I can move on to the next thing… and the next.
But to actually fall asleep, excited about the coming day?
That just doesn’t happen.
So, the anticipation coursing through my blood stream right now is incredible. My skin buzzes as I elbow Ant out of the bathroom, grumbling that he better not have used all the hot water again.
It’s exhilarating to get my hair ready and care how it looks. To use the new mirror and the new makeup and dress in the new clothes… and to have the new worry that Maddox won’t show and this gorgeous investment in the coming day will fall apart.
I pace. Back and forth until it would wear a hole in the carpet if we had one covering our faux-wood-panelling floors.
“Sit down,” Ant grumbles. “You’re making me jumpy.”
I side-eye my brother, thinking how he’d react if I explained how much of this was his fault for sending me out to collect the drugs he should have fetched for himself.
But I won’t because I’m nice like that.
My anxiety gains momentum when I check the time on my phone and see it’s now ten minutes past the time Maddox should have collected me if he was going to. Something I shouldn’t be upset about, considering I’m perfectly capable of making my own way there. It’s just I thought he said he’d take me.
I could text him now to check but if he’s already in school…
You coming or what?
My face sports a gigantic smile as I reply:
All right, grumpy. Try ringing the doorbell next time.
Not that we have one.
“Gotta go,” I tell Ant, waving as I scoot out the door. “See you later.”
Maddox waits, leaning against his car, ankles and arms crossed, like some rich quarterback hunk from a teen movie. Despite wearing the same school uniform as every other boy at Tiaki, his hangs from his frame with the clean lines of a new season Brioni.
He steps forward when I stop short, opening the door and holding it as I slip into the passenger seat, closing it when my legs are safely inside. As he rounds the front of the vehicle, my breath catches in my throat. Yesterday, there’d been too much of everything to pay attention but right now there’s nothing else splitting my focus.
There isn’t a single piece of him I would change. From the tips of his sunny blond hair to the soles of his polished black shoes, he is absolute perfection.
I want to pinch myself as he gets into the driver’s seat, smiling at me, reaching over to adjust where my blouse has caught on the belt.
