I look down at his shoes, stained with the spill of margarita now gone from my cup.
I finish off what’s left.
“Does he know?” Landon turns his steady stare on me—as steady as it can be while he uses the wall to keep himself upright. “Does Dray know?”
I shrug before the lie comes smooth, “If he does, he didn’t say anything to me about it.”
It’s a half-lie.
Dray didn’t specify it.
He left me to wonder.
But I get the sense Dray knows all about James and Landon, like he’s had a niggle every time James walked by, and Landon lingered a look too long, or maybe he saw them like I did, and keeps the secret in the vault for a time it might come in handy.
Landon doesn’t know it yet, but he might be deeper in Dray’s pocket than he ever imagined.
“You can still help me,” Landon says.
The sorrow paints onto my face in a sad smile. “I can’t even help myself.”
Landon doesn’t care about that.
He cares about himself.
About our alliance—and how it elevates him.
So I’m not surprised as he snubs my self-pity. “What should I do?”
I slide a look over the room, from the dancing crowd to the ones gathered around the pool table, and the ones on top of tables, or pouring drinks—
I pass him the empty cup. “Get me another.”
He grunts, but swipes it all the same, and dips into the crowd.
For a beat, I watch him go, then he’s swallowed up by the dancers, the ones squatting and shaking their asses, moves that would have my mother striking me again, no hesitation.
If Grandmother Ethel saw these moves…
I shudder to think of the welts from the cane. She might just beat everyone in here.
I sag against the window, no doubt getting dust and grime all over the back of the slip dress, but I care nothing about it.
My mind is on Landon’s great invasion, while I plot my great escape. Both drowning, but I’m trapped on the inside, while he drowns on the outside.
My gaze snags on Serena—standing with Asta under the strings of fairy lights, as though someone gave up, tangled them all together, and just stuck them to the beam.
Asta goes without a drink, so her hands flail with frantic urgency as she mouths words I can’t hear.
Serena’s face is firmer than stone, her eyes harder than steel.
Whatever Asta is saying to her is falling on deaf ears—but it strikes something in me, a thought, an idea…
And Landon bustles back to me, a whirl of staggered steps and filled cups.
I steal one.
Before I even bring it to my lips, I voice my idea, “Marry Asta.”
