I shook my head as I sat down to put my socks and boots on.
Sinna snickered. “I heard her earlier when she was talking to her boyfriend on the phone. My door was open, but I don’t think she knew that.”
My hands froze as I was bunny-earing my laces, and my head shot up so that I could see her expression. “When?”
Sinna shrugged. “Right after we finished with training.”
My hands came up to my head as I tried to remember earlier in the evening. Did she talk to him before or after I saw her naked in my shower? “She didn’t have her phone then,” I said.
She smacked her gum and blew a big bubble, then let it pop before responding. “I guess she used yours. Really, Ace, it was right after we got back. I didn’t even have time to get in the shower.”
Had she called him from my phone while I was in the shower? I grabbed the cell from my back pocket and turned the screen on, making quick-work with my fingers to get the recent calls pulled up. There it was. A call had been made to Cock Block at 2:07 p.m., and it had lasted for ten minutes and thirteen seconds.
Why? Why didn’t she wait until we finished with our showers to get her phone from outside and use it? Was it because she didn’t want me to overhear her conversation with him? What had she told him? She had talked to him for that long, and then got in the shower with me immediately after. That didn’t sound like something Andra would do. I was missing something.
“Earth to Ace… Let’s go,” Sinna said.
With a frown on my face, I quickly finished with the laces then stood.
“What ya want me to tell her when she comes down looking for you?” Slade said.
“Tell her I went to the concert,” I said, broodingly.
“With Sinna?” he inquired.
I nodded. “And if she says anything about that, remind her that it was her idea that we’re not dating.” Grabbing a set of keys from the key box, I followed Sinna outside.
We arrived at the parking lot beside the house and I pushed the unlock button to see which vehicle we’d be taking to the concert. In my state of confusion, I hadn’t even bothered to look and see which keys I grabbed.
The parking lights on Silvia, the silver Lotus, flashed at my finger command.
“Great choice,” Sinna said. “I love this car.”
“I guess she chose me,” I said, and wished that was true about more than just the car.
“Can I drive there? You can drive my drunk ass home.”
“Sure,” I said as I tossed her the keys. “Keep it under a hundred and fifty, will ya?”
She grinned as she opened the driver door and sat behind the wheel. “I make no promises.”
I let out a breath through puffed out cheeks. “Well, at least we’ll have fun before we die.”
“Totes ma gotes!” she said as she turned the key and revved the engine to life. “So,” she said after pulling out of the parking lot and turning the car toward the bright lights of Las Vegas. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” I said as I turned the volume up on the CD player and welcomed the heavy beat that pounded its way out of the Lotus’ speakers. It had a great sound system.
After a few seconds, Sinna turned it back down. “You are such a Debbie Downer. I hope you’re not going to act like this all night. I’ll have Clay kick your ass if you do.”
“I’m sorry I’m not great date material,” I said as I rolled my eyes.
“You should feel privileged. I rarely go on dates with guys.”
I looked over at her. “And why is that? Why do you like girls?”
She shrugged. “That can be answered with a question. Why do you like girls?”
I blinked. “I mean, why don’t you like dating guys?”
She laughed. “Why don’t you like dating guys?”
I huffed. “Did something happen to you when you were younger that made you change your gender flavor?”
“Gender flavor? I like that, and no, nothing happened to me. I just think girls are pretty. I’m attracted to them, just like you are. I can usually hold a conversation longer with a girl than a guy. It feels natural for me to like girls. I always felt like I had to pretend I was someone I wasn’t when I dated guys.”
I nodded. “Fair enough.” I thought about Sinna overhearing Andra’s conversation with Phoenix, and said, “What did she say?”
“Who?” Sinna said.
“Andra,” I said.
“When? Oh… when she was talking to the vampire? I don’t think I should be the one to tell you that. Actually, I figured she would tell you when she went back in your room. By the way you ran out of there, as if your pants were on fire, well…”
“Well, what?” I demanded.
“I think you should ask her if you don’t know, Ace,” she said. “I really want to have a great time on my date tonight. Clay will be pissed if you don’t show up. He has only seen you once since the accident.”
“You think that if you tell me what they were talking about I’ll make you turn around and drive back home?”
She nodded once. “I am positive that you will make me drive you back home. She really didn’t tell you? Why did you leave your room all pissed off?”
“She got in the shower with me!”
Sinna’s eyes popped wide. “And you didn’t hit that? Shit! She can move in my room. I won’t turn her down.”
“I didn’t—okay, I did, but it wasn’t like she was coming on to me or anything. She said she was feeling dizzy. I have a plan and she nearly ruined everything.”
She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “She nearly ruined your plan by getting in the shower with you?”
“Yes!” I said, exasperated.
“Okay,” Sinna said as she merged into nearly standstill traffic.
My temper was rising as I stared at her. “I’m about to give you a direct order to tell me what that conversation was about, Sinna—”
She stomped on the brake and turned to give me pissed-off brown eyes. Horns blared from behind us, but she didn’t move. “Don’t. If you want to know what she said, ask her when we get back home. You don’t want to hear it from me, Ace. Believe me. Go to the concert, have a great time buying me drinks and a t-shirt, spend some time with an old friend, and ask Andra why she called Phoenix when you get back home. But don’t abuse our friendship by threatening me. M’kay?”
I threw myself against the seat and sulked. “Yeah.” I raked my brain, but I had no clue what Sinna could have possibly overheard. It was going to drive me nuts until I got back home and talked to Andra face to face. Sinna was right. I couldn’t go back now. I knew how to have a good time. The bond would be satisfied for at least another seven hours. I needed to learn how to distance myself from her if I was going to be able to pull this off.
Turning back around in her seat, Sinna drove in silence to the Bellagio, where the concert was being held.
Dancing lights and water caught my eye, and I looked out the window at the exact spot where I had poured a bucket of water over Andra’s head earlier today. I smiled as I remembered the look she had given me afterward, and then the memory of her pulling away made me frown. She was always pulling away from me.
It was time she got to know the real me. I was tired of acting. The plan was shit. I was not going to be a slave to a bond or anyone else any longer. I would meditate and do this my way. No more games.
“Here,” Sinna said, and then something dropped on my lap. “I knew you’d forget to be discreet.”
I looked down at the black beanie and my aviators, and then sighed as I put them on. “Thanks, Sinna.”
Chapter 24
Thursday, February 5th 2015 11:56 p.m. PST
Las Vegas, Nevada
Andromeda
The room was eerily silent when Andra opened her eyes. She still couldn’t feel Ace, but the bond seemed to be satisfied for the time being. Had he come back and lain with me while I slept? she wondered.
Well, he wasn’t here
now. The anxiety she normally felt when he wasn’t near her was gone. The only conclusion she could come to was the meditation Ace did. Maybe he would teach her how to do it, too. It sure made the bond more bearable.
The absent sound of his heartbeat was a little heartbreaking as she remembered how he’d left her in the shower, fury radiating out of him in waves. She’d felt so small, so unwanted.
Somehow she knew what she would hear if she went downstairs and asked where he’d gone. It honestly didn’t surprise her that he would go to the concert without her, and take another girl in her place. She’d been pushing him away all week. It figured that the minute she allowed herself to want him, he wouldn’t want her back.
“Maybe fate’s telling you something, Mena,” she muttered to the silence, but got no response, not that she was expecting one.
Pushing up to her elbow, she looked down to see that her cell phone was beside her. The digital clock on the screen flashed that it was nearly midnight.
“I must have slept like the dead,” she said as she sat up and brought her phone to life. The battery was in the red, but she would have enough juice to read the text messages before she would have no choice but to take it to her new room and put it on the charger.
She’d missed several texts and calls. In fact, as promised by Alex, there was at least one text or call per hour from Roel, Heath or Alex since the sun had set in Montgomery. There was one text that was sent from Phoenix, before she’d spoken to him. She opened it first.
Mena,
I am finally home and safe in my bed. Wish you were here with me. Sunday night can’t get here quick enough. I’m counting the seconds. I love you, Lupacchiotto. ~ Phoenix
Her eyes welled with tears. She loved this man with her whole heart. Why had she let one moment of weakness nearly annihilate everything she had with him? After Ace left and she’d had time to rest and clear her mind, she realized that Phoenix had only told her what she wanted to hear.
He was giving her something he thought she needed, and it hadn’t mattered to him what it cost him. What a selfless man, and what a selfish woman. He’d done it. Even though he said that he never would, he’d found a way around his promise: he was no longer her boyfriend. They were only “dating” now.
She shook her head at her stupidity. She didn’t deserve either of them. Maybe calling it quits with the two men in my life is really for the best, she thought. Getting back to her pack and getting to know them better needed to be her top priority now anyway. That was exactly what she would be doing if the bond didn’t require that she touch Ace every eight hours.
Glancing back to her phone screen, she skimmed over the texts from Roel, Heath and Alex, noting that someone had changed Alex’s name in her contacts to Peanut. She laughed to herself, knowing Roel probably did it before she left, and she was just now noticing.
Roel’s earliest text was from that morning, letting her know the moonrising wolf was caged, and that they were waiting for it to shift back before interrogating it. All the texts from the guys, after dusk, said pretty much the same thing: Still waiting. Nothing new going on here. Hope all is well there. Miss you.
She frowned as she added their numbers to a mass text: I’m lifting the order to call or text me every hour and enforcing a new one. Call or text me if anything new happens. I know all of you have lives. I’m just worried and it’s killing me that I can’t be there. All is as well as can be expected here, considering. I know it has only been two days, but I will make Ace bring me home if you need me. Just say the word. I miss y’all, too. ~ Mena
Just as she hit send, a scratching sound came from the door. She quickly padded across the carpeted floor to open it. Chaos sat on the other side, looking up at her.
She smiled as she ruffled his ears. “Hey, boy,” she cooed. “You wanna come inside?”
Instead of coming inside the room, Chaos turned and walked toward the grand staircase, but stopped and looked back at her before descending the stairs.
One of her eyebrows rose in confusion, and then she heard a lot of noise and the unmistakable sound of a guitar being played. She ushered forward a few steps, and then paused when the music stopped and laughter erupted from below.
She pulled the ponytail holder from her wrist and smoothed her long hair back, securing it at the nape of her neck, before following Chaos down the stairs.
As she reached the first floor, she realized the house was full of people, and only a small fraction of them were pride members. There were literally hundreds of people mingling throughout the house, and nearly all of them had a red cup in their hand. They were having a party, a party that she hadn’t been invited to.
Feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden, she turned to rush back up the stairs, but then someone strummed a chord on the guitar and her head turned in the direction of the living room.
She could tell from where she stood that the room was packed full of people. At least ten bodies blocked the archway leading into the room. She couldn’t see anything beyond them.
Glancing to her left, she saw that a beer pong table had been set up in the long corridor that led to the hidden basement door.
“Andra!” a very chipper and drunken girl said. “You made it!”
It took Andra a few seconds to realize the girl was the one Ace had been talking with at breakfast that morning, the very same girl he had taken to the concert, instead of her. Sinner, maybe?
The girl pointed to her chest, sloshing the drink over the rim of the red cup in her hand. “Sinna,” she said, like she knew Andra was having trouble placing her or remembering her name.
Andra smiled as she nodded. “Right… Sinna. Actually, this isn’t my scene. I think I’m going to go back up—”
“Nonsense!” Sinna grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the kitchen. “We’ve been waiting for you to wake up. Ace said…”
Sinna’s voice was drowned out when they walked through the swinging doors of the kitchen to see that it was just as loud and crazy as the rest of the house. There was a guy doing a keg stand in the center of the big room and another guy doing a body shot off a girl who was sitting on the bar. Chanting filled the air as Keg Guy’s remaining seconds ticked by.
Andra shook her head. “I can’t—” Again, her arm was grabbed by Sinna as she tried to escape the chaos.
“Yes, you can,” Sinna said. “We just need to make you a drink first.”
A drink? Why was this girl being so nice to her? Hadn’t she gone on a date with Ace tonight? Surely Sinna would see me as competition, not as a friend, Andra thought.
At any rate, Andra planned to watch her make the drink to make sure no roofies got slipped into it.
“We pretty much have everything. What do you want?” Sinna said as she nodded toward the bottles lining the bar.
Andra spotted a blender half-full of frozen margarita, and pointed to it. “I’ll take one of those.”
Sinna beamed. “Great choice! I made that myself, and I don’t use the cheap shit, either. Patrón Silver or nothing at all. Sinna took a red cup from the stack and filled it with the icy green liquid, and then handed it to Andra, before grabbing her other hand and pulling her back through the crowd toward the door.
“Where are we going?” Andra shouted over the noise.
Sinna winked at her as she glanced over her shoulder. “If it was up to me, we’d go to my room or a dark closet.” Andra’s brow furrowed in confusion at Sinna’s words, and then the girl waved a hand through the air. “We’re going to watch them play.”
Was she still dreaming? This night just kept getting weirder and weirder. “Watch who play what?”
Sinna shook her head as laughter bubbled up her throat. “You’ll see,” she said as she pushed her way through the crowd in the living room, gripping Andra’s hand tighter and pulling her right along with her.
When Andra was finally allowed to stop, her eyes locked on a guy sitting on one of the couches. His fingers moved like liquid over the strings of the guitar th
at rested on his lap. What amazed her even more was the heavenly voice that was coming out of that man’s mouth. She’d heard the song before. It was her absolute favorite song by Salacious Limerick, but it wasn’t Clay Hays who was lead vocalist of this number. The guy who sung this song to her, at least a million times, through her headphones and the speakers in her car, had been in a near fatal car accident over two years ago, and had left Salacious Limerick because of the injuries he’d sustained. She’d heard he was in a coma for over six months and after he woke up he’d had no recollection of how to play the guitar or sing.
Andra’s heart wildly pounded against her ribcage when Ace lifted his head and their eyes met. As the last chorus left his mouth and the last chords were played, tears streamed from her eyes and fell to the floor.
Chapter 25
Friday, February 6th 2015 12:06 a.m. PST
Las Vegas, Nevada
Ace
The cheering around me sounded like static as I stared at the water falling from Andra’s eyes. The tightness in my chest had nothing to do with the bond. I knew those were a mixture of happy and sad tears. I never wanted her to be sad. I wanted to be the one who would make her laugh and cry only happy tears, but I had done nothing except fuck that up since we met.
Someone slapped me on the back. “You’ve still got it, Trey!” the guy said, breaking my eye contact with Andra. I wanted to kill the fucker when she looked down at her bare feet.
I could tell she wanted to talk. I did, too. I wanted to know why she got in the shower with me earlier, but Clay invited “a few friends” over for “a little” get-together, so the chatting could wait. Sinna was right. I had only seen my best friend once since the accident. That wasn’t his fault. It was mine. I shook my head at a memory I didn’t want to remember.
After how long I’d waited for Andra to see me for who I really was, the talk could wait a little while longer. If she’d only looked at my memories, the fact that I used to be lead guitarist and backup vocalist of the band wouldn’t have been such a shock to her. All those times she’d talked about how much she loved Salacious Limerick and Clay, I kept waiting for it to click. I was a little disappointed that it hadn’t until now. As far as I knew, she hadn’t even noticed Clay yet. Her eyes never deviated from mine until that jerkoff slapped me on the back and called me by my stage name.
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