They found everyone.
That was the problem.
I gave her a grin that was just as fake as hers. “Tell me about the latest, then?”
She shifted in her seat. “Well, he’s a model. Editorial, not catalogue, obviously.” She flipped her hair and sipped her drink, glancing around the half-full bar. “And he does the most amazing thing with his—”
She abruptly cut herself off, eyes focusing on something at the bar and turning hard.
I followed her gaze.
Not something.
Someone.
That someone being Luke, the deputy sheriff of our fair town, the enemy of the Sons of Templar… oh, pretty much since high school. Well, he was Cade’s enemy in high school. Then when he got the badge he made it his mission to bring down the club.
At any cost.
Rosie’s heart might just be that price.
He’d had it in his large hands ever since… well, ever since he began to hate her family, her brother and everything her family stood for.
And he was completely blind to that. They say love is blind. Not true. It was hate that made the person the blindest to everything.
His large hand was currently on the small of some blonde’s back. A blonde wearing a very short rip-off Herve Ledger dress and knockoff Jimmy Choo’s. She was leaning into him in a way that said she so wasn’t his sister.
That and we’d known him since high school. He didn’t have a sister.
“And—” Rosie gulped down her drink in one swift swallow—“let’s just say his tongue should get awards from women everywhere.” She gave me a sneaky smile and then looked to my almost-full glass.
She pointed to it. “You gonna drink that?”
I shook my head.
She snatched it and drained that too.
“Zee,” I said softly.
“We’re not speaking of it,” she snapped firmly.
“It’s been a decade of not speaking of it. Maybe talking—”
She abruptly pushed back her chair, the motion so rough that it tumbled to the ground, the sound drawing the attention from the sandy-haired, muscled lawman at the bar and his bottle-blonde date.
She glared down at the chair as if it had done her a personal affront, then bent at the hips to snatch it off the floor.
Her dress, that was technically a tee, rode up with the motion, exposing the curve of her butt that was accentuated by some truly kickass suede Prada booties.
My Prada booties. The universe was looking out for us when it gave us taste in shoes we couldn’t afford but the same size feet.
Luke’s eyes, which had been drawn by the noise, stayed for the view.
I didn’t miss the hunger in them before Rosie straightened. He lingered just a hair too long before moving his attention back to his scowling date.
Rosie hadn’t noticed, too busy trying to pick up the broken pieces of her heart along with the chair.
“I say we hit a club. Dance. Make bad decisions. Wake up with those same bad decisions and then exchange notes over a greasy breakfast,” she suggested, forgetting for a moment what tomorrow was and the fact that we didn’t do anything on those mornings. Or maybe she wasn’t forgetting. There was only so much turmoil the brain could handle at one time; it was a defense mechanism to block out the rest.
I knew what she was doing. Saw the slight shake to her hand as she put it on her hip. The tightness of her blood-red painted smile.
The look of someone still intent on running. Even if it meant when she stopped it would all be that much worse.
So, I did the only thing a best friend could do.
I ran too.
I pushed my own chair back, keeping it upright. “What are we known for, if not our excellent taste in clothes and our even better taste in bad decisions?”
We walked out without a second look.
Well, Rosie did.
I gave Luke a sideways look, and his eyes lingered on Rosie’s back before he met mine. He gave me a slight nod before turning back to his date.
He might have been stationary but he was running too.
Though, who wasn’t?
From: [email protected]
Subject: Bad Decisions
Hey.
So, I know I said to find another pen pal, but that was sober Lucy. This is new Lucy, the one who has had enough cocktails to find the sense that she lost, or lose the sense that she found.
I’m running.
And I’m tired. Do you ever run? Like not recreationally, but for survival. Like if you stop running, you don’t know if you’ll survive what catches you? I’m sure you don’t. Because you’re a big strong soldier man who probably is the thing that does the chasing. Or you could kill whatever it is (the chaser) with enough force on a pressure point.
Side note: Can you do that? Kill someone with just a touch?
Maybe I don’t need to know the answer to that. I’ve got a friend. He got killed and nothing even touched him. Or maybe everything did. Burned him up to ashes, and it killed him. Except he’s still around. Walking. Talking. I don’t know if that’s the good news or the bad news.
Anyway, the thing that did that? The person who did that? Her name was Laurie. I knew her since… well, since I’ve been here. On this earth, that’s the here I mean.
Her mom and my mom were in the hospital together. Our birthdays are… no, wait, were three days apart. We used to have joint parties. Though it was funny because she always wanted pink and princess and I wanted black and… not princess.
We alternated. One year we had Cinderella, I was Maleficent, and the next we had a Darth Vader, she was Leia.
Our twenty-first party was in one room, and we split it down the middle. Half yellow, half black. Even the drinks.
It was tradition.
Until three years ago. Three years ago today. I can say today because it’s exactly 12:01 a.m. Today. The worst today in the history of todays.
She died today. Not today today, but three years ago today.
Did you know that someone who lived their life in pinks and yellows and was afraid to kill spiders could die in an angry and violent, vile way that even the worst of us don’t deserve?
Yeah. I didn’t think someone so good could attract people so bad. That they could touch that.
They did.
They ended it.
Today.
And that just sucks.
But I wanted to say, that kiss? It was the first time I stood still in three years.
Since, before that, actually.
Since him and the ice and the blood and the chaos.
Please make it back so we can stand still again.
Always Lagerfeld’s
L
I stared at the screen, despite the brightness of it puncturing my throbbing head like a jagged needle. Since today was still technically a work day, and I had a story to file, I’d grabbed a quick and greasy breakfast with buckets of coffee with a bright-eyed Rosie and a healthy Ashley. Rosie was only bright-eyed because she’d yet to go to sleep.
We’d decided to brave the elephant this year. Because we had to endure. And all we had was each other.
So we’d had breakfast, Ashley completely sober and Rosie still drunk from the night before.