"Lee Lee! Can I have that drink, baby girl?"
I pause while bent at the waist, my long hair hanging over my shoulder, one hand on the oven door. Crap. I'd been hoping she'd forget.
"I can get that for her."
I look up. He's standing in the doorway to the kitchen, leaning against the frame, but his eyes? They're definitely on my partially exposed cleavage, thanks to the bent over position I'm in.
Spinning on my heel, I slam the oven door shut, then almost jump at the loud noise it makes. Why does this guy rattle me so much?
"I got it." I grab the glass and rinse it, then procure three more ice cubes from the freezer. I grab the bourbon from the counter top and loosely pour a shot in. I'm about to turn and add some water to it—hopefully it'll last longer that way—but the heat of his body is too close behind me.
"She can 'ave more than that." He reaches one arm around my shoulder and grabs the bottle, twisting the top with his other hand so I'm effectively penned in against the bench. I freeze, unable to move. He's not touching me, he's not technically doing anything wrong—
So why do I feel so uncomfortable?
Goosebumps break out over my skin, even though the afternoon is quite warm, the golden sun streaming through the orange and brown floral curtains. He smells like sweat and bourbon and something else, something rotting and horrid. Something I hate.
The moment ends more quickly than it began. He's pulled away, drink in hand, swaggering back to the doorway, as if he wasn't just the world's biggest creep.
It makes me question the action myself. He probably just sees me as some dumb kid. He's got to be at least forty or something—there's no way he'd be sleazing on me.
“My mum … I don’t want her to drink so much.” I manage to voice the words.
“I get it.” Smith nods, then turns and slowly walks away. All I can think is, does he really?
"Hey, kid?" he says in the doorframe, as if to emphasise my thought. See? My subconscious all but screams. He was not being weird. Just ... fatherly.
Ew.
I don't know which thought grosses me out more.
"Yeah?" I smile sweetly.
"I really like your mother," he says, an easy smile warping his lips. "You gotta give me a chance."
I nod, slowly but steadily. "I can do that."
And I can.
CHAPTER FIVE
My eyes are glued open. Mascara makes my eyelashes heavy, but it also seems to stick them to the layer of foundation along my eyebrow.
I wonder if this is how actors and actresses do it. Put on a face to help them play a part. Add the accessories, the outfit, and the hot-pink lipstick to make them stand out from the rest.
Sometimes, I feel like an actor. And the whole damn world is my stage.
"Jeans? Reeeeeeally?" Kat rolls her eyes as I walk up to her and Duke. They're huddled together out the front of what I'm guessing is Aiden's house, waiting for me.
Behind them, the house is lit up, and the garden even more so. From the street, I can see fairy lights swinging from trees, and colourful globes hung from the eaves blowing gently in the wind. Loud music pulses from a sound system somewhere, the unmistakeable sultry line of a bass sending tiny vibrations through the ground.
"Jeans," I agree as I hug Kat. The smell of vodka washes over me, and I stand back. She's definitely had more than a few.
Then I press my lips to Duke's. He looks good tonight, really good, his white shirt making his skin look even more tanned than normal. All thoughts of acting and pretence flee from my mind. He's here. I'm here.
This is where I belong.
"Sucks you couldn't get here earlier," Duke slurs, and leans in to plant a second kiss on my lips, only this time his toxic booze breath blows me away.
I cough. "Dude, you need a breath mint." Or about a litre of water. I wave my hand in front of my mouth.
"S'cause I missed you, Leeeeeya. I missed ... you!" He punctuates the last word with a stab to my stomach that has me clutching at it, sucking in a cool breath at the pain that ripples through my body in distaste.
"You hurt her!" Kat stamps her feet, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're not supposed to hurt Lia."
There's something in her tone I don't like. Something that makes me slightly uneasy.
Something that makes me think they might know.
"Let's go in." I smile too brightly.
"We've been there for aaaaages." Duke sighs. "You took so long! Can't your mother feed herself?"
No.
"Sorry, baby. I just ... I needed some time. You get it, right?" I ask, trailing a finger along his jaw. I hope I'm a seductress tonight, sultry, tempting, and enough to take his mind off what we're really talking about.
I know I'm not.
I can pretend to be a lot of things, but I can never pretend to be that.
"Whaddabout how you're leaving, huh?" Duke slurs, a frown shadowing those icy blues. "What about how you don't even freaking love me?"
"I do!" I protest. And I do. He doesn't know how much I rely on him. How he makes everything better. "You mean so much to me. You take me to a better place ..."
But even as I say the words, I hear how hollow they sound. How despite my love for Duke, he's also serving a purpose.
An escape from the nightmares.
Sleep.
"I ... love you," I whisper, and it's true. I do love him, and his soft, black hair and those dangerous blue eyes. He's everything I will never be.
"Forget it, Duke." Kat slings her arm around his shoulder, her cool fingers tapping my elbow that's already draped in place. "Less go and pardy."
I pause for a moment, studying her. Kat doesn't usually drink this much, and I wonder what's triggered it?
I shake my head. I'm analysing things too much. Not everyone has a sinister reason for hiding from the truth.
Not everyone.
She charges forward, and Duke goes with her, and before I realise what's really going on, I'm heading in, too.
As soon as I'm in the light of the garden, people come up and start greeting me. Someone presses a drink of something in a red plastic cup into my hands, and the sticky liquid inside sloshes over and paints my fingers.
"Lia's here!" someone somewhere screams, and a general cheer seems to go round the group. Some of their names I know, and some of them I don't. That's what happens when you start a new school in your second-last year and immediately date the hottest guy in the grade. Insta-popularity with those who know you the least.
Warm lips press against my neck, and I shiver. I turn into Duke again. "I'm sorry."
Because I truly am. I don't want to leave him here in Emerald Cove.
I just hope he can come with.
"It's okay." He takes the plastic cup from my hands and downs it in one go, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows.
"Hell yeah! Finnegan's on it!" Paul, one of Duke's best mates, yells from across the circle.
"Not even a challenge." My boyfriend crunches the plastic cup in his hand and throws the ball at an open bin on the other side of the bonfire. It lands in perfectly, and I can't help but wonder if everything in life is a hole-in-one for him.
"Here." Paul shoves two more plastic cups of beer toward us and I take one again, and this time, I even manage a small sip of the amber-coloured liquid.
It tastes like home.
And I hate it.
"I'll drink that, baby." Duke wraps his hand around mine, and I smile up at him. He's got my back. He may not know why I don't party like the rest of them do, but he's there for me anyway, and that's what counts.
And a part of me aches at the thought that in 152 days, I won't have him around anymore.
***
After midnight, the paddock is lit with the flashing red and blue lights of the police, and the party disperses. Some kids run and hide, afraid of being stung with fines, but Duke, Kat and I? We know better. We know just how busy the police department in this town really is.
"Want a lift?" I ask, and they both nod. We walk to my car, our tension from earlier forgotten.
I turn the key and we all shuffle in to the Corolla. Light flashes in the distance, and it takes me straight back. Straight back to then. I press my eyes shut and try to fight, but memories of that day so long ago flash through my mind as if part of a slow-motion movie.
Mum, her hands gripped tightly on the wheel.
"I'm sorry, baby."
The scream.
Then the tears.
I try to focus on the things in front of me, the road, the houses, but everything seems to drag me back, and I'm driving in a haze of past meets future. I wonder how long I'll be able to keep hiding from the truth.
You only need 152 more days ...
"Lee Lee? I'm asking you a question." Kat's frustrated voice jolts me out of my thoughts, and this time, I do manage to keep it to-freaking-gether long enough to join the conversation again.
"Sorry."
"S'okay," she says, a slur in her voice. She leans forward, thrusting her body through the gap between the two front seats where Duke and I sit. "Soooo, what are we gonna do for your birthday? 'Cause Dukey-boy here wants to throw you a surprise party, and I know you'll hate—owwww, what was that for?" Kat rubs her side just under her breast, and I can't help but laugh.
"Surprise, Kat. That's the key word," he says, but there's no cruelty in his voice. He ruffles her hair, as if to make it up to her, but the action only seems to make things worse, because two seconds later, when I glance at the rear-view mirror I see Kat’s face has turned a weird shade of green.
"I'm gonna be sick. Pull over."
I swerve to the left and Kat throws open the door and ejects herself from the car as if she's a jack-in-the-box wound too tight. She clutches her stomach and doubles over, hurling into some poor local's front garden. Even from the car, I can smell the sweet and yet bitter, acidic stench. I scrunch up my nose in disgust, grateful it's not happening in my lap or in my car.
"So ... no surprise party, then?" Duke asks, and I have to laugh.
"Duke, you know that's not my style," I say. Kat retches again, and I reach over the gear stick and wrap my hands around his strong leg. "I just ... can't we do something low-key?"
He sighs, and stares out the window into the blackness ahead. "I want to do whatever you want."
"You are what I want," I say, furrowing my brow.
"Am I?" He directs his gaze right into me. "Because sometimes, with all this talking about leaving—I don't know whether we're good or we're shit."
I open and close my mouth, unsure how to answer.
Kat saves me by sliding back into the car, moving into the middle of the back seat and strapping her seat belt around her.
Or, she would have saved me.
"Kat?"
"Yes, Lia?" She leans forward over her knees, and Duke turns back to look at her. His eyes nearly fall out of his head.
"Where's your shirt, honey?" I ask, while trying not to look at Kat's very impressive chest, clad now only in a red lacy bra.
"Oh! I spewed on it a little." She thrusts a balled up wad of material at me. "Can you fix it?"
"I ..." Duke's still staring, and I shoot him a look. He widens his eyes, then rips off his own T-shirt underneath his seatbelt, handing it over to the back seat. "Take mine."
"Thanks, Duke." Kat's face lights up, as if a one-thousand megawatt bulb just smacked her right in the mouth. She struggles to get the shirt on, her arms getting stuck, coming out the same hole as her head, but after a lot of giggles and rolling around on the back seat that has me concerned about the legalities of driving with a drunk-arsed passenger who's clearly blocking any attempt at a rear-view mirror glance I might make, she finally gets it on.
"Phew," she huffs out, and I giggle. It's all so utterly ridiculous.
"Want me to turn the heating up?" I glance at Duke. His new silver nipple ring glints in the light cast by the moon.
"Yeah, thanks." He leans forward to adjust it, and my little green tin box of crap shudders and then makes a high-pitched keening sound, but, as promised, heat does radiate from the vents, even if it smells a little funky.
Kat leans forward and flails her hand out between the two front seats, going for the dials. "Have you broken it?"
Duke captures her arm with his. "No, Kat, I—"
"Whoa." I do a quick look to Kat. Her eyes are fixed on Duke's chest. "Your nipple ring ..." She licks her lips. "That's hot."
"Hey! My boyfriend, remember?" I frown.
"I'm not asking to sex him, Lia. Gosh, I just wanna ... I wanna lick it! Am I allowed to—"
"No!" Duke and I shout in unison.
"All right, all right!" Kat slumps back to the seat behind her. "Farrr out, you guys are touchy."
We spend the rest of the trip in silence. Or, Duke and I are silent. Kat may have passed out.
I pull up in front of their houses twenty minutes later. Kat's mouth is open and a tiny sliver of drool is snaked from her lips to her chin.
"Come on." I open my door and Duke does the same with his, and together we manage to haul Kat’s arse out of the car so she's standing upright, with the assistance of the metal frame behind her.
"Kat ..." I push her hair back from her face, and then she squints open her eyes.
"Lee Lee." She smiles. She wraps her arms around my neck. "I'm sorry. I won't lick your boyfriend."
I stifle a giggle. "That's okay."
"It’s just ... it’s that I've known him forever, and I've loved him forever, and—" She claps her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. She looks to me, then to Duke, then back to me. "Do you think he heard?" she whispers in a voice so quiet, I'm sure they heard it in a neighbouring street.
My mind spins. Kat. In love with Duke.
Can it be? Surely not. Why would she be my friend if she wanted him?
"He's just ... perfect," she gushes, her eyes getting this odd gaze of lusty love, or lovey lust, or maybe just drunk washing over them.
Then I think back through all the things I know.
1. She's not had a steady relationship since I met her
2. Even if she acts confident, she hasn't got the highest self-esteem
3. She's very close to Duke. In fact, Duke, Kat and I possibly hang out more often than just Duke and I.
4. She always asks about our relationship. The sex. The problems.
My feet stick to the ground. My heart jumps to my throat.
I think Kat is in love with my boyfriend.
"You're just talking drunk shit." Duke snaps out of it before I do, and thank God, because words do not seem to be something I possess right now. He slings an arm around her shoulder. "We've known each other since we were kids. You love me like a brother."
"Like a brother." She nods, but even I'm not buying it, and I have the biggest investment in her performance.
Together, we walk Kat to the front door, and she spends what feels like forever searching for her keys and then stabbing them blindly at the keyhole. A light shines up somewhere in the house. Busted. She stumbles inside and wishes us good night.
She doesn't try to kiss or lick my boyfriend.
And that is nice.
CHAPTER SIX
Duke and I walk to his front door in silence. He doesn't even ask if I want to come in. It's understood.
We sneak up the stairs to his room. His house is quiet and warm, welcoming after the chill of the air outside. The scent of roast meat hits my nostrils, as if perhaps his mother had created a feast earlier and the ghost of it lingering for us to enjoy.
Everything about this place feels like home.
Duke ushers me down the hall, far away from his parents' and Olive's rooms, and into his. He shuts the door behind us, and flicks on the light switch.
"So ..." I start. He flops down on the bed, and pats the space beside him.
It's hard not to obey, especially when I hate to admit it, but Kat was right. His chest does look incredibly good tonight. He
ll, even I want to lick his nipple ring, even though I know the wound is only a week old, and I'd possibly do more harm than good.
"She doesn't mean anything by it, Lia." Duke hooks his feet behind my knees and I shuffle to the bed, standing over him. "You know it was just drunk talk."
"Yeah ..." I nod. "Do you ... have you ever felt anything for her?"
Even as the words leave my mouth, I know they shouldn't. It's such a typical insecure girl question, but I can't help it. I need to know.
"I haven't thought to have feelings for her." He sighs. "I kinda already have this hot girlfriend right here." He sits up and wraps his hands around my waist, runs them up my sides, over my breasts and then behind my back, pulling me so I lie over him.
Our bodies press together, and the heat is addictive. "I ..." Duke leans in and kisses me once. "Love." Kiss. "You." Kiss.
Then the time for talking is over, and his mouth claims mine with a desperation perhaps born of needing to prove a point, or perhaps purely instigated by his own drunken desire. Either way, in seconds he's reaching for the hem of my shirt, and I'm fighting to pull it down against him.
"C'mon, Lee," he whispers, still pulling the thin lacy material up.
My lips still, and I think quick. I pull back and stand again, then run my tongue over my lips, hoping like hell I look sexy, and not like someone who needs a damn Chapstick. My hands move to my fly, and I flick open the button on my jeans then slowly pull down the zipper.
Duke swallows. His eyes are fixed.
Safe.
Because no one sees me without a shirt on.
Ever.
I kick off my jeans and lie over him again, our bodies tangling as we kiss. He slides his hands up under my strapless top and brushes his hands over my breasts, and I let my fingers do exploring of their own.
Then he tries to take my shirt off.
Again.
"Baby, can't we leave it on?" I ask, hoping there's the right amount of coy in my tone. "Or turn off the lights?"
"Lia, it's been more than a year. Surely I can see you without a shirt on."
How To Save A Life (Emerald Cove #1) Page 4