“And Luke,” he continues, “he’s too distracted. He’ll probably change his major ten times before he graduates. And that’s okay. It’s his choice to make.”
He squeezes my hand tighter. “But you, my dear Leah, have always been strong in your conviction and bright in spirit. You have the gift, the gift to make people laugh and sing, and the brains to balance books and solve problems others don’t foresee. You’ve known from a very young age what you wanted to do, and you’ve never let up.
“The difference between you and Emma is, you know how to live. One day, your sister is going to crack. She is too focused, too determined. But you? You find joy in everything. That is a rare and blessed gift. The work will be hard, the days will be long, but you’ll always enjoy life, no matter what.
“That is how we know you’ll succeed. Your mother and I, we’re not investing in a bar. We’re investing in you.”
Tears rise up behind my eyes. I know they’re glassing over because I’m curling my brows in to keep them from falling out.
He tilts his head down to catch a glimpse of my eyes. “For someone with so much confidence, you sure act insecure. That pains me. It’s like all this flair you present on the outside is your way of protecting your heart from being broken.”
A stray tear falls down my face. I wipe it away. “I know I’m amazing. I also know what others think of me. I don’t care what they think. All I care about is my family.”
“And?” he pries.
“My friends.”
“You’re forgetting someone.”
His words make my heart ache.
“Adam has thought the worst of me for years. And I…well, I suppose I’ve been doing the same to him, too.”
Dad pats my hand. “The consequences of idealization. Just in reverse. You have both created monsters out of each other.”
“He started it.”
“He was brave enough to create an opportunity for you two to find common ground.”
I blink back at my dad. “No.” I shake my head. “There’s too much to our past. It was wrong to think we could even be friends.”
He leans back in his chair. “Life is a series of commas, not periods.”
I look up at him. My mouth opens and then closes, confused by what my ears think they just heard. “Did you just McConaughey me?”
“I believe I did.”
Bowing my head, I laugh. The man never ceases to amaze me.
I rise and lean down to give him a hug. “I’ve never been prouder to be your daughter.”
He grabs my arms and looks me square in the eyes. “And I’ve never stopped being proud that you are my daughter.”
I walk across the living room and up to my room. Closing the door, I flick on the lights and walk over to my vanity. I’m taking my earrings out and looking out my window. Across the way is a black pickup truck sitting on my street. Adam is leaning against the driver’s door, wearing blue jeans, that T-shirt from earlier today, and construction boots. He looks devastatingly handsome.
The worst part is, now, I know what it feels like to have that body in my hands. I know that, if I run my fingers down the outside of his torso, he’ll push his hips into me to fight the shiver. I know that his hair is silky and thick. My fingers can rake through it and tug when I want to draw him closer. And, if I flick my tongue on the inside of his lip, he’ll swoop in and suck on it.
Shame is, I also know what it’s like to be lied to by that man. I don’t know what his motives were, and I don’t care. He played on my greatest insecurity. He played me for a fool.
Even still, it’s not as bad as the words he said to me years ago. The words that kept me at a distance for seven years.
It rained the day of Brad’s funeral. I stood on the grass, my heels digging into the wet sod, as I clutched on to Emma, who was holding a hot-pink umbrella. It was the only one I had. My parents were in the crowd with a sensible blue one. Emma and I stood out in a sea of dark with the hot pink dangling above our heads.
It wasn’t like we had an aging uncle or a sick grandmother. No one had expected a vibrant, healthy, happy eighteen-year-old guy to die. And we certainly hadn’t expected it to rain on his funeral. If I had, maybe then, I would have bought a black umbrella.
I cried on Emma’s shoulder, ruining her silk dress she wore to performances. She never said a word. She just held me and let me mourn the first boy I’d loved. The one I had given all my firsts to.
Yet, even as I cried into my sister and prayed for the boy I’d lost, I couldn’t help but think of the one person who wasn’t there. Everyone asked, and no one knew why Adam wasn’t at the funeral.
His mother didn’t even have a good excuse other than, “He’s taking this really hard.”
Brad’s family received guests at their home after he was laid to rest. I drove to their home with my family. My dad had made a casserole. My mom had knit an afghan. Emma played the violin, and Luke sat awkwardly on the sofa, too young to know what to do with himself at such an event.
I talked with friends and relatives of Brad. All were wondering what I knew, and most of them were eyeing me up, wondering if I, too, was using drugs. The only people who didn’t ask were my parents.
For the last three days, they’d sat with me and talked to me about death. They’d asked me how I was feeling and encouraged me to write down my feelings. I didn’t know what to write, so I’d made a collage of images I’d found in a magazine. My dad had been pleased but had warned me that he was going to sit down with me every day to talk whether I liked it or not. I was okay with that. I felt like I could use someone to talk to.
That was why I left Brad’s house the day of his funeral and walked in the rain. My hot-pink umbrella in my hand, I let my feet carry me through the streets, over two miles, until I was in front of a home with green shaker-style shingles and a wood porch.
It was warm out, but my feet were wet and cold as I knocked on the door to Adam’s house. I knocked, and no one answered. I knocked again. Still, there was silence. I started ringing the bell. Again and again. I rang that bell consecutively until, finally, he opened the door.
He didn’t say a word. He just opened the door, wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. His feet were bare, and his eyes were red-rimmed. For a moment, he looked relieved to see me. Quickly, that relief was replaced with something morbid.
“Why didn’t you come today?” I asked.
He tried to close the door, but I leaned in and pushed it open. His eyes looked up at my pink umbrella with utter disgust.
“That’s how you show respect?”
I looked up at my umbrella and closed my eyes in embarrassment. “I came to see if you were okay.”
His nostrils flared, and his eyes glazed over, tears threatening to break through. “You left my best friend’s funeral to see if I was okay?”
I nodded my head. I was confused as to why he had said that like it was a bad thing. “I couldn’t be there anymore. I couldn’t stop thinking of you. It’s been three days, and you haven’t left your house. Not even to say good-bye to Brad.”
“Don’t tell me how I should pay respects to my best friend!” he yelled, forcing my feet to jump. “He’s been dead for seventy-two hours, and you’re already done with him, moving on to the next thing.” He looked like he was about to spit. “I shouldn’t be surprised. You were a whore when he was alive, and you’re an attention-seeking brat now.”
The air whooshed from my lungs. His words struck me in the gut like a knife. I put my hand on my stomach to see if I was actually bleeding.
“How…how can you say that?”
His eyes narrowed, his body filling the doorframe. “Do you know where I was supposed to be that day? I was supposed to meet him at the park. He wanted to talk, and I stood him up. You know why, Leah? Because you just can’t stop. You think life is a game. You had a boyfriend, yet here you were, trying to push me. You were pushing me to talk about something that neither of us had any business discussing. Because you
were his girlfriend. Because you were supposed to be with him.” He stopped on that last sentence, tears falling so fast down his face.
I leaned forward, needing to console him. I wanted to take his hurt away, but he wouldn’t let me.
He sharply turned his shoulder. “You were here with me, and you know what he was doing when he died?”
I shook my head.
His eyes met mine, harsh and sinister. “He was drawing you.” His eyes roved over me, looking for an answer. “Did you know he was using?”
If I could have died in that moment, I would have. “No. I had no idea. We hadn’t been spending time together. Not like we used to.”
My words did something to him because he screamed, “Go away!”
“Adam—”
“Don’t say my name. We are not friends. We are not acquaintances. I don’t want to see you ever again!”
I ran. I dropped my hot-pink umbrella on his doorstep and ran. By the time I made it home, I was out of breath, drenched, and completely heartbroken.
I hadn’t just lost my first love that day. I’d also lost my last.
chapter TWENTY-THREE
I worked at The Bucking Bronco until eleven, and now Suzanne is over to blow out my hair, and she’s adding some ringlets to the bottom. I apply my own makeup, adding lash extensions, and go heavy on the eye shadow.
Wearing my tightest leather mini and a low-cut baby-blue halter that brings out my eyes, I slide on hooker boots and large hoop earrings. As they say, the bigger the earrings, the bigger the ho. Tonight, I am getting my ho down.
Jessica, Suzanne, and I head down Main Street and walk into Velocity like we own the place. Hell, tonight, we do since it’s Ladies’ Night, and we get in for free. We order drinks at the bar and immediately have three gentlemen offer to pay. Jessica goes to say yes, but I pull her back and decline. I have their hands in each of my palms as I pull the girls onto the dance floor.
Partying at The Bucking Bronco is fun, but the one thing Velocity has over us is the sound system. With a DJ mixing at the front of the club, the bass creates a pulse for our feet, the vibration of the speakers making the room shake. It’s loud, the rhythm pounding on the dance floor, while strobe lights move in sync to the music. The dance floor is packed tonight.
The girls cheer me on as I drop my hips and roll up. The rhythm slows down. The lights hold still in their colors and then fade with the music.
Suddenly, the beat starts up again, softly at first. It builds and my body starts to orbit, my midsection swinging. My arms are out in front of me, moving with my hips.
The beat grows louder, faster, and the lights pick up their pace. The electronic music breaks away. The fast tempo has me kicking up my knees, one at a time, and dancing to each side. The bounce in my chest rolls with each beat, and I am totally free.
A few songs in, we’re a little sweaty, and my heart is racing from the exercise. We move our threesome to a booth and take a breather.
“This is just what we needed!” Jessica shouts over the music. “We haven’t had a girls’ night like this in forever.”
“Agreed,” I say.
Even though Velocity is the competition, it is a lot of fun. Since the Victoria incident, I’ve become friends with the owner. He, too, is worried about letting the wrong kind into his establishment, especially since drug use in nightclubs is prevalent
A waitress comes over, and we order drinks. Cosmos for Jessica and me. Suzanne asks for a club soda since she’s driving. While we wait for our drinks, a guy comes over. He has dark hair and a darker complexion with a smoldering stare and a smile that has Jessica practically drooling.
“You ladies having a good time tonight?” He’s talking to the table but only looking at Jessica.
Her eyes light up as she answers him, “Better now that you’re here.”
Suzanne pinches my side. I look over at her and see her smoothing her lips together to keep from laughing at Jessica’s super-cheesy reply.
The waitress arrives with our drinks. Suzanne and I take ours and watch the flirting going on in front of us like it’s a Wednesday matinee at the Cineplex.
“I’m Derek,” he says.
Jessica tells him our names and follows up by asking where he’s from. In a matter of minutes, they’ve shared each other’s life stories. He’s from Cincinnati, in town to celebrate a friend’s birthday. He’s a nurse at the children’s hospital. That alone has Jessica’s panties practically falling off.
“Looks like someone’s over her broken heart,” Suzanne says into my ear.
“He is tall, dark, and dreamy,” I reply. “I could totally get down with him.”
We clink glasses with a laugh.
Suzanne pushes her glasses up her nose. Her hair is up, so she has this sexy librarian thing going on today. “Now, it’s your turn. Let’s find you a guy.”
“No, thank you.”
“Why? Do you only have eyes for Adam?”
I take a ginormous gulp of my drink. “Absolutely not.”
“That’s a shame,” she says, sipping the teeny-tiny straw in her club soda.
I cock a brow at her. “Why is that?”
She smiles at me with her glossy, pink lip-stained mouth. “Because he’s walking over here right now.”
I turn my head so fast and see Adam walking toward our booth. He is inches above almost everyone in the club. He has on a crimson button-down with the sleeves rolled up three-quarters. His blue jeans are hugging his thighs, and that gorgeous tan face is looking so stern and sexy that I want to punch him square in the jaw.
My head swings back to face Suzanne. “Why is he here?”
She holds up her hands in defense. “I didn’t say anything.” She takes a sip and speaks with her lips wrapped around a straw, “But Rory did.”
I give her a seething look and then turn back to Adam. He’s feet from the table. I don’t let him approach. I’m on the move, walking past the booths and tables, making my way toward the bar. This is pretty pointless since I had a fresh drink at my table. I look back toward the table and see my drink sitting there, and Suzanne is looking my way.
Adam is nowhere to be seen.
Turning back to the bar, I order another drink. I want to get wasted tonight on overpriced liquor and cheap feels.
As I pay for my drink, a guy slides in next to me. “Hey there.”
I know the guy from The Bucking Bronco. He went to my high school and is one of those overly confident douchebags I tend to stay away from.
“Hey, Joe.” I lean with my elbow against the bar, pushing my boobs up and out toward the one-time high school quarterback.
His eyes rove over my cleavage. Even though I’m pushing them out, I didn’t technically want him to be the one staring at them.
“Surprised to see you at the club. Thought you lived at the bar.”
I roll my eyes and give him a fake smile. “Yeah. It does feel that way.”
“You want to dance?” he asks.
“No,” I say as I look around the room.
What is wrong with me? Here I am, talking to a guy I have no business flirting with.
The bartender taps me on the shoulder as she puts my drink on the bar. Joe puts his hand in his pocket to pay for it, but I halt him.
“I pay for my own drinks.”
He’s pulling a twenty out of the leather. “Let me.”
Pulling a fifty out of my bra, I put it down on the bar before he does. “It’s a thing. I don’t let guys buy me drinks.”
Joe laughs like he thinks what I just said is absurd. “Is this a feminist thing?”
I have no desire to explain to him that it’s a matter of not having to owe him anything in return for buying me a drink, but I don’t. On the other side of the bar, I see a stunningly gorgeous man. He has copper hair and onyx eyes that are staring at us with a look of vengeance like I’ve never seen on him before.
“You know what? I’d love to dance.” I take the change from the bartender, tip h
er, and shove the rest in my bra. I inhale my drink way too quickly, grab Joe, and escort him to the center of the dance floor.
I don’t want him to touch me, but there’s a game that needs to be played, which means his vile hands are caressing my midsection. I keep mine low, ready to grab his if they roam too far, and dance to the music. I don’t need to look over to see Adam’s hateful gaze because it’s penetrating me like a laser beam of disgust.
Swinging my head back, I let the platinum strands run wild. Joe’s hands are starting to lower, so I bend down with my dance moves, forcing his hands to move up.
I step back, away from his arms. He moves in closer, so I spin to avoid his grasp. He takes ahold of me as soon as I’m back. I really can’t blame him. I am the one who asked him to dance. His mouth juts out as he makes this face, which I’m sure he thinks looks sexy when he dances.
He pulls me in tight, and I push back.
He pulls tighter, and I push back harder.
I think he’s getting the hint until his head moves toward mine, and I divert to the side, giving a strong push and spin away from him.
I’ve twirled my body into the crowd of people and smack directly into the chest of Adam, who grabs me by the wrists and pulls me in close.
“Cut the shit, Leah.”
I pull my arms from his and look at him in the eyes, showing I am not intimidated in the least. “Get your hands off me.”
His face is stern. He’s here for business, and that business is me. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re coming with me.”
Before I can utter a word, Adam grabs my hand again and puts his other hand under my ass, and then he’s flinging me over his shoulder.
“Put me down!” I shout as Adam carries me off the dance floor. My hair is swaying down over my head.
He pulls down the leather material of my skirt, which I assume is to keep me modest. He should have worried about that when he had me half-undressed against a hundred-year-old spruce.
I kick and scream, but too many people know Adam as the good ole arm of the law. He’s like our very own Andy Griffith. No one is going to argue with him while he’s dragging the sullied Leah Paige out of a club. In fact, people part ways like the Red Sea, and a bouncer even opens the damn door for him.
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