“Hey.” Daisy squeezes my shoulder in a side-hug. “It’s probably just some loser from Penn who’s pissed you never put out for him or something.”
Tears prick my eyes. She couldn’t be any further from the truth.
“Oh no, please don’t cry.” Daisy spins me around and grabs my hands, swinging my arms like she could dance with me at any second. “We’re in Cancun. Spring Break. The best week of the year. Don’t let some asshat get the best of you.”
She’s right, so I sniff and wipe my eyes. She pulls me in for a real hug, and her fingers go through my hair. She sighs enviously. “So short and pretty,” she says with a smile.
I rub my nose as we separate a little. “It’s greasy.”
She waves me off and her eyes wander towards the stage. I follow her gaze and spot the guys plus Melissa retiring from the huge crowd. I’ll have to tell Lo what happened. Not only does the blackmailer know I’m in Cancun, but they know my parent’s address.
He’s trying to unnerve me.
It’s kind of working.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
LOREN HALE
On the balcony,the music blasts from the pool below, but at least it’s more private than the bedroom. Everyone throws on nice clothes for the club tonight—our last outing in Cancun before we travel back to the real world with responsibilities and commitments.
I stare at the screen of my phone. Five missed calls from my therapist. I should call him back, but talking to Brian makes me feel like a failure. He carries this hypersensitive tone like I’ve already fucked up, and I can’t listen to that. I don’t want to hear him try to calm me down or to tell me that I should be tucked in my bed at home where alcohol doesn’t exist, where my vice isn’t staring me in the face.
Lily has made a better effort to stay in touch with her therapist. When I see her on the phone, Allison is usually on the other end.
I sit on the plastic chair and open a text message that my father recently sent.
Emily Moore
789 Huntington Drive
Caribou, Maine 04736
Whether he was feeling particularly generous, forthcoming, kind—he spontaneously gave me my birth mother’s address. I asked him for it only once. When he denied my request, I wasn’t about to grovel for it. Now that I know where she lives, I don’t know what to do. Seeing her will open new gates that may crash me backwards.
I’m not sure I’m ready to handle that.
My hand trembles, and I glance over my shoulder. No one watches me, but if I dial a number, they’ll believe my therapist is on the other end. No one will disturb me. That’s my hope at least.
I punch in a familiar number, and when the line clicks, he speaks before I have a chance. “Long distance calls aren’t fucking cheap. How do you expect to pay for it?”
My father’s words drill into me, bringing up an insecurity with such ease. “That’s really not your concern.”
“Greg Calloway gives his daughters an allowance. Lily can’t afford to support your apathy forever.”
I clench my phone tightly in my hand, trying so hard to focus. I had a reason to call him after all. “Well, since I am paying per minute, can you stop talking about money and let me speak?”
“Make it quick, I have to get back to a meeting.”
He stepped out of his meeting to answer my call?
That’s all that processes. Greg would have never stopped a meeting for one of his daughters. If Lily needed her father, he’d send an assistant and then find her after his work was finished. My father—he dropped everything for me growing up. If I called him at school, he was the one walking into the principal’s office. But I only needed him when I was in trouble, and he’d yell at me for causing it.
“Have you found the guy?”
“These things take time, Loren,” he says curtly. “Answers don’t just fall down from the goddamn sky.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a sharp breath. “Look, something else happened,” I say quickly. “He sent a package to the Calloway’s house.”
