Absinthe

by Winter Renshaw

  Halston

  “About damn time. Guys, Halston is here!” Courtney loops her arm around my shoulders and pulls me into her apartment in downtown Rosefield Friday night. Vic and Tab think I’m sleeping over at Emily’s tonight, and she’s covering for me. I should be in the clear. “Look at you!”

  She points at my outfit, a skimpy tank top and short shorts I wore underneath my other outfit, changing in the bathroom of a nearby gas station on my way over. I shoved my other clothes in my bag, touched up my makeup, changed into some heels, and trekked over to the Mayflower Apartments on Hillside Drive.

  Courtney’s place is nice—which I guess she can afford since she “makes the big bucks” at Big Boulders. It’s a two-bedroom on the ground level overlooking the complex’s sparkling pool, and everything is new. The carpet. The cabinets. The building itself.

  “Guys, this is Halston.” Courtney leans on me, her words slurring. “She works with me.”

  About twenty unfamiliar faces fill the place, but I don’t let it rattle me.

  When Court gets distracted by the newest guest, I head to the kitchen, rummaging through the bottles on the counter.

  “I can make you a drink.” I glance up. A tall drink of water with sandy brown hair and pale brown eyes stands on the other side of the granite island.

  “I’m good.” I force a smile. He looks at me the way the customers at Big Boulders do, like I’m on display for their personal enjoyment.

  “You don’t recognize me, do you?” he asks.

  I study his face. “Should I?”

  “I work at Big Boulders. I’m the weekend bartender.” He starts clearing out the empty bottles and cans, tossing them in Courtney’s trash. “I’m always coming when you’re going. You’ve probably never noticed me before.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I haven’t. I’m sorry.”

  We both reach for a bottle at the same time, an open bottle of whiskey.

  “You can have it,” he says, turning to grab me a red plastic cup. “Would probably taste better with Coke. That’s the cheap stuff. It’s going to burn going down. And you want ice. This has been sitting out for hours.”

  “You’re the expert.”

  “Just let me.” Within thirty seconds, the tall drink of water mixes my drink and hands it over. I take a small sip, a trick I learned years ago. If you drink too much at one time, it could make you sick or send you into a coughing fit. “You like it?”

  I nod. “Not bad … what’s your name? I’m sorry.”

  “Gage,” he says. “And you’re Halston. Is it weird that I know that?”

  “Yeah.” I take another sip, fighting my smile. He’s cute. But I’m not in the market for trouble. “Kind of.”

  “Nah.” He shakes his head. “I just heard them talking about you, that’s all. You don’t forget a name like that. Or those green eyes.”

  “Talking about me?” I ignore his flattery. “Hope it was juicy, whatever they were saying.”

  Gage laughs. “It was nothing bad. They were just saying that you could be very good for business and they hope you didn’t quit.”

  “Good for business …”

  “Look, sometimes we scrape the bottom of the barrel when it comes to servers,” he says. “Not a lot of, uh, beautiful women, aspire to work at Big Boulders. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but, like, you’re one of the prettiest ones we’ve had in a long time.”

  I take a bigger drink this time, willing myself not to cough. “Can you please stop saying I’m pretty?”

  His expression falls. “I’m sorry. I thought girls liked to hear that kind of thing.”

  “Let’s cut the bullshit, all right? You want to fuck me tonight,” I say. “And it’s not going to happen.”

  Gage freezes, saying nothing for a second. I’ve sucked the words right out of his mouth, but that’s the only thing I’ll be sucking tonight.

  “Look, you’re cute. And you’re nice. But you’re still not getting laid,” I say. “What kind of girl would I be if I gave it up to the first guy who approached me?”

  He’s still silent, but at least he’s blinking.

  “I’m on the money, aren’t I?” I laugh, eyes scanning the room, and I find myself wondering what Kerouac’s up to tonight.

  The alcohol turns warm in my veins and suddenly my cares drift away on a cloud of nothingness.

  Gage mutters something under his breath before shaking his head and walking away. I don’t ‘do’ the nice ones anyway. I have standards, damn it.

  Standing alone in the kitchen, I watch people come and go, grabbing drinks and making messes. Checking my phone a few minutes later, I press the Karma app.

  Congratulations! You’ve reached thirty Karma points! You may now communicate with Kerouac using our Karma-issued phone numbers! Press here to make your first call!

  My heart pounds in my ears, whooshing and rushing the way it does when I’m about to do something I know I shouldn’t be doing. With heated skin and wicked intentions, I push my way through the partygoers and end up on the patio outside. The air is chilly for an evening in July, but I’m too distracted by what I’m about to do to care.

  Pressing the flashing green button, I take a seat when the line begins to ring.

  I cross my legs, ankle bouncing as I bite my thumbnail.

  “Hello?”

  Holy shit he sounds hot.

  “Kerouac,” I say, my voice low and breathy.

  He’s quiet.

  “Absinthe.”

  “Hi.” I chuckle. This is weird.

  “Hey. What are you doing?”

  I check the time. It’s almost ten o’clock. “Hope it’s okay I’m calling so late.”

  “It’s fine. I’m in bed.”

  “On a Friday night?” I ask.

  “Family’s still in town,” he says.

  “And if they weren’t, where would you be tonight?” I ask.

  “I feel like you’re looking for an exciting answer, but I don’t have one for you.” Kerouac sighs. “I just moved to a new place. Don’t really know anyone yet. I’d probably be drinking a glass of Macallan 18, enjoying the fuck out of a Cuban cigar, and reading James Joyce.”

  “Sounds magical.”

  “You’re making fun of me.”

  “I’m not.” I sit up, chin resting on my hand. I could listen to him talk forever, his voice worldly, experienced, confident. It’s deep but not too deep, relaxed yet cadenced. “It’s exactly the kind of answer I hoped you were going to give.”

  “What are you doing tonight?” he asks.

  “I’m at a party.”

  “Having fun?”

  “Not really. It’s a bunch of work people and people they know. Not sure why I thought it sounded like a good idea. Really not in the mood to be social.” I take another sip of my drink. It’s almost gone. There’s not an ice cube’s chance in hell I can get Gage to hook me up with another. “Kind of want to leave.”

  Maybe in another version of our lives, he’d ask me to meet him somewhere. We’d walk around at night, under the cover of a moonless sky, discussing literature and basking in our insane chemistry. He’d kiss me. Then he’d take me home. Fuck my brains out—but not break my heart—and in the morning, I’d make him pancakes before going for round two.

  In a perfect world, I suppose …

  “Why don’t you want to be there?” he asks.

  Dragging in a lungful of heavy, night air, I contemplate my response. “I don’t even have an answer for you. Didn’t feel like hanging out at home tonight but now that I’m here, it’s kind of lame.”

  “Do you need a ride?” he asks.

  My heart gallops. I was thinking of calling Emily a second ago.

  “Why? You offering?” My response sounds more eager than I intended.

  “I’m offering to call you a Lyft.” He chuckles. “I feel the need to remind you that we’re never going to meet. I have this idea of you, and it’s perfection. I want to keep it that way. Now get back
to your party, Absinthe. Make some bad decisions for me. Try to have some fun. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Such a fucking tease,” I say with a smirk before hanging up.

  Chapter 15

  Ford

  The Saturday morning news fills the silence of an empty, Arlo-less house as I unpack the last of my boxes. It’s kind of lonely without that little guy, but I’m glad to be done with Bree invading my space—literally and figuratively. Each day, her clothes would get progressively skimpier, her smile would get progressively sultrier, and her pathetic attempts at flirting would get progressively bolder.

  Not to mention Arlo couldn’t stand her. He said she was on her phone the entire time and when she wasn’t, she was grilling him about me.

  So much for the superintendent’s daughter being a safe choice.

  Never. Again.

  I’m mid-reach for my coffee when the Karma app on my phone begins to vibrate, telling me I have a call.

  “Good morning, Absinthe,” I answer. “I was just thinking of you.”

  “Liar.” God, I love her voice. Picturing this voice coming from those sultry lips in her photograph makes me hard as a rock.

  “How was the rest of the party?”

  “Fun,” she says. “I made some bad decisions, just like you told me to.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I fucked a guy in the bathroom,” she says, her tone matter-of-fact. “He was big, and he fucked me so hard, Kerouac. I thought he was going to split me in two. And when we were finished, he ate my pussy until I came three times.”

  “Bullshit.”

  She laughs. “I know. You believed me for a second though.”

  “I did.” So much so that it was beginning to make me envious of the faceless, big-cocked stranger who got to devour my Absinthe.

  “I like your voice,” she says after a silent lull. “It’s sexy. You should read to me sometime.”

  “That’s a strange request.”

  “Just do it. Grab the nearest book and read to me,” she pleads. “Come on. My hand is down my pants right now, fingering my pussy. I want to cum to the sound of your voice, Kerouac. Please?”

  My throat is tight, my cock straining against the fabric of my sweats. Grabbing a book from the coffee table beside me, I flip to an open page and begin to read, taking my time, keeping my voice steady and rhythmic. “And I know I am deathless, I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass, I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue, cut with a burnt stick at night. I know I am August …”

  Absinthe exhales a sweet, soft moan, her breath quickening with each word I utter.

  “Keep going,” she whispers, and so I do.

  I turn to the next page, and I read another line, and another. Her breath grows forced and impatient and then quiet altogether.

  “Walt Whitman.” Her breathy rasp mixed with her intelligence is like sexual napalm. “Very nice.”

  For the first time in weeks, I find myself wanting to touch her—physically touch her. And knowing it’s an impossibility makes me want her even more.

  The ache in my cock is a distraction that refuses to go away, and while I’d love nothing more than to lie around on this lazy Saturday, waxing poetic with Absinthe and getting lost in the sound of her sweet, sexy voice, I’ve got a little problem to take care of.

  “I should shower. Work and all,” she says. The image of her in the shower does nothing to help my current situation. “Thanks for … that.”

  Absinthe ends the call, and I close my eyes, slipping my hands down my shorts and jerking the length of my throbbing cock while a fantasy plays out in my head. In my mind’s eye, I’m punishing her for teasing me about fucking another guy at the party. And I’m showing her how good I can make her feel, how she’ll never need another man but me so long as she lives. I gift her with demanding kisses, animalistic thrusts, her ass cheeks red and warm from the slap of my palms.

  And in my reverie, she gazes at me, her green eyes full, and she declares that it’s only me.

  I’m the only thing she wants.

  The only thing she’ll ever need.

  Chapter 16

  Halston

  I count the weekends.

  There are five.

  Five more Saturdays, five more Sundays, then I’ll be done with Big Boulders. I’ll have saved around three grand, purchased my car, and burned my uniform.

  My back and feet are throwing themselves a pity party, but at least I have tomorrow off. Mondays and Tuesdays are officially my off days now, though I’m not opposed to picking up a few shifts here and there. So far, no one’s asked. I think they know I hate working there, but no one’s actually come out and asked me yet.

  That said, I think I do a pretty decent job at hiding my true feelings. I’ve learned to smile on command, walk with enough bounce in my step that my breasts bounce, and I’ve yet to screw up anyone’s order, which apparently puts me in the running for this month’s top server bonus.

  Not to mention gratuities are getting better by the hour.

  Who knew I was such a hustler?

  Tugging my pajama drawer open, I reach for my vinyl makeup bag to add today’s tip money to my growing collection. Last week I asked Vic about my birth certificate so I could open a bank account, but he said he knew nothing about its whereabouts, that I’d have to request another copy from the state, so I submitted my request online and received an email stating it could take three to twelve weeks unless I paid two hundred bucks for a rushed copy.

  But tonight the cherry red pouch feels lighter than usual …

  Yanking the zipper, I’m seconds from throwing up when I see it’s empty.

  Bree.

  That fucking twat.

  Marching toward my door, I pull it open so hard it slams against the wall. Storming down the hall, I burst into Bree’s room. She’s lying on her stomach on her bed, earbuds in her ear as she does homework, her feet bopping to the music.

  I yank the earbuds.

  “Hey!” She rolls over to face me, resting on her side. “Oh. It’s just you.”

  “Give me my money.” I try to appear intimidating, keeping my shoulders lifted and my hands on my hips, but my eyes are burning and my mouth feels wavy and I’m seconds from simultaneously puking, crying, and screaming. “Now.”

  Bree leers. “No clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do. You stole my tip money.”

  “Oh, you mean, your tip money from the Waterfront Sea Food Restaurant?” She sits up, her blonde lashes fluttering as she fights a bitchy smirk.

  “What’d you do with it?”

  She shrugs.

  I want to smack her. I want to rip her hair from her scalp, one handful at a time.

  “I thought it was odd,” she says, brows furrowed. “You were making so much money waitressing, like even for a nice restaurant. So, I did some checking. I went into Waterfront for lunch one day, when you were supposedly working, but the manager there said she’d never heard of you. So, then I asked myself … is she selling drugs?”

  Rolling my eyes, I tune her out, rifling through her drawers and closets, looking under her bed, turning over pillows.

  “You’re never going to find it,” she says, admitting what I already knew. “It’s gone.”

  “What. The fuck. Did you do with it?” My jaw tightens, aching.

  I’ve never hated anyone this much in my life.

  All those weekends. The aching feet. The tired backs. The grease-scented skin. The disgusting customers. The blatant stares. The selling of my soul.

  All of it was for nothing.

  “You know, you really should’ve kept it in a bank account,” she says. “That’s what normal people do. They put their money in a safe place, where no one else can touch it. Guess your parents didn’t teach you that, did they? I bet they never even had bank accounts.”

  Before I can stop myself, I lunge at Bree, pinning her scrawny body beneath mine. She’s s
creaming, but the house is so big I doubt her parents can hear her.

  It’s only when I have my hands around her throat and her lips are turning a mottled shade of blue that I realize I’ve gone too far.

  I let her go, my chest rising and falling as I struggle to breathe with all the adrenaline coursing my system.

  She reaches for her neck, coughing, choking on spittle as she scrambles toward the head of her bed like I’m some serial killer about to murder her.

  I’ve scared the hell out of her, but to be fair, I’ve just scared the hell out of myself as well. I’m not a violent person. I don’t have these tendencies. I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone in my life. But I want to hurt her. I want to inflict pain. Teach her a lesson. Make her sorry.

  This is fucking war.

  “You’re paying me back.” I point a shaking finger at her. “Every last fucking dime. And if you don’t? I’ll make your senior year a living fucking hell. That’s a promise.”

  Bree looks like she’s about to cry. “I told you. It’s … gone.”

  “Where is it?!”

  “I donated it to a charity,” she manages to squeak.

  My gaze falls to the diamond pendant around her neck, then to the Gucci watch on her left wrist. Come to think of it, her entire outfit is new. And this morning, I spotted her carrying a little Louis Vuitton handbag.

  “You lying bitch,” I growl. “Hope you kept the receipts.”

  Bree scoffs. She doesn’t need to answer. I already know. She destroyed the evidence, and since she paid with cash, it’ll be impossible to return those items without any proof of purchase.

  Refusing to look at her disgusting face a second more, I run back to my room, slip on the first pair of shoes I can find—pleather ballet flats—and get the fuck out of here.

  I walk until my heels throb with the threat of blisters, down several tree-lined blocks, past beautiful houses with manicured lawns and expensive cars in the driveways, and finally past the iron gates that guard this stupid neighborhood from the rest of the world.

  I’m not sure how long I’ve been walking, but I manage to find a little park at the end of a cul de sac in an older part of town.