A year ago, when this all began, Lucy smiled more than ever.
Which was the obvious sign of her misery, since she usually put more effort into looking happy when she was miserable.
There was nothing I could do, apart from hope that the universe gave my sister peace.
And a year later, a year full of misery and pain disguised by fake grins, her smile was real. Genuine.
It filled my heart.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said once she released me, fighting the tears that prickled the backs of my eyes. Tears of utter and complete relief that my sister was getting exactly what she deserved.
She grinned wider. “Oh, you’re not late.” She turned on her heel and walked farther into Keltan’s impressive apartment. I took this as my cue to follow. “I told you to come two hours earlier than I wanted you here,” she called over her shoulder, shouting because of the low thump of the music growing as we entered.
Of course, she knew me so well.
I didn’t mean to be late.
I tried my hardest to be early.
But Rain really needed my feedback on her routine for this comedy show she was doing. She was nervous. Her. The girl that flashed a cop to get herself out of a ticket. So I stayed and listened and laughed and gave her a little of what she needed. Most of it was going to come from her, she just needed someone to help her figure that out.
“Sorry we don’t have any kale juice or kombucha or whatever it is you’re into these days,” Lucy continued as I caught up with her. “But how about a beer?”
I grinned. “Beer sounds great.”
I smiled at a few people I kind of knew, but most were strangers. I smiled at them too. Not enough people smiled at strangers.
I hadn’t exactly mingled with Lucy’s L.A. crowd. I didn’t do much mingling with her friends back in Amber either. Apart from Rosie, and Ashley. And the Sons of Templar now and again. But the three of them did their best to keep me away from the notorious biker club saying I’d “bring trouble even someone like Gage couldn’t handle.”
But that was okay with me. As much as I respected their free-spirited life outsides the bounds of society, I was kind of against violence. Kind of being utterly and completely.
And they lived violent lives.
My crowd veered to a little more peaceful end of the spectrum. Not that I stuck to one ‘crowd.’ I wasn’t in a group in high school, I was the nomad who was friends with everyone and no one, who had a different boyfriend who took her to different parties where she met different people every week.
I was addicted to that. Knowing different people, how they lived their lives, how I could fit into some version of it. Sometimes I did. For a while at least.
It was only here in my loft in L.A. with the group of misfits that I was thinking maybe I might fit. But since I was exploring that, I hadn’t hung out with Lucy and Keltan much. To be fair, they’d only just gotten their shit together after over a year of painful separation.
They definitely didn’t need Lucy’s little sister cramping their style.
I knew Keltan owned a security company. Knew it was kind of famous. I kind of guessed there would be hot guys at this party, because if Keltan was anything to go by, then yeah.
Not my type.
Maybe because they were too conventional alpha male for me.
Or maybe because they reminded me of someone.
When I saw him, I thought I was hallucinating. Thought I’d let my mind stray to him and for that reason, he’d appeared. But if I was hallucinating, then I’d see him exactly how he was imprinted into my memory. Not with almost everything about him different apart from his eyes and the way they stared into me.
“Holy shit,” I murmured under my breath as Lucy handed me the bottle.
She frowned, not yet catching on to who I was staring at. “What? Is it not gluten-free? Is it made by corporate America so you can’t possibly contribute to the capitalist pigs by drinking it?” she asked dryly.
I barely heard her, though it was the truth.
Something worse than the capitalist ethos taking over the minds of our society was happening right now.
He was coming over.
Oh shit, he was coming over.
At a loss of what to do, I lifted the beer to my face and chugged. Yes, faced with the man I’d been fantasizing about for years, instead of looking my best and giving him an intense look like he was giving me, I chugged my beer like a frat boy on rush week.
“Alright, so your latest boyfriend owns a brewery,” Lucy teased, still thankfully oblivious.
Then he was there.
In front of us.
And everything came crashing into me. The power of the memories I’d carried and nurtured and pretended that it was something but not the thing.
Because there was more than something, something exciting, something passionate, something a little like love. There was all of that, and then there was the thing.
That connection.
The stifling and uncomfortable vibration in the air the second our eyes locked. The tightness in my lungs as invisible hands squeezed at them. The needles pressing farther into my heart with every rapid beat. The pulsating throb in between my legs.
“Ah, Heath, of course you’d lumber over here with less than chivalrous thoughts about the newest beautiful woman to enter the room,” Lucy said with a smirk. “I’m afraid this beautiful woman is taken by a man I presume owns a brewery and sleeps in his mom’s basement.” She gave me a wink.
I was trying to remember how to breathe.
“Also,” Lucy continued. “There’s the fact that she’s my baby sister and I’d just have to castrate you with a dull butter knife if you even got any ideas,” she said sweetly.
I recovered quicker than I thought possible, reaching out to the hand Heath had extended after Lucy had finished her threats that worked as her version of an introduction.
“Nice to meet you,” I said with a voice that was little more than a squeak.
Lucy introduced us because obviously we were strangers. To her, there was no way this man who worked for Keltan, and me had ever crossed paths before. No way would I—or could I—educate her on the truth.
The handshake was a bad idea.
No, scratch that. The handshake was a terrible idea.
The second his hand engulfed mine, my entire body went flush. I was catapulted roughly and painfully into that beautiful and ugly past.
Everything was stark and blurry at the same time.
I tried to yank my hand back, for continued survival more than anything else. And because there was only so long I could hold it together with Lucy looking on.
But his grip tightened.
Almost to the point of pain.
He frowned at me.
No, he glared.
He hadn’t spoken yet.
I prayed that he played along with my farce. The lie that felt uncomfortable and itchy the second I decided to roll with it. I didn’t lie. Didn’t act. But here I was, doing both. Because I had no other choice.
“Polly,” he drawled, the word tearing at all those wounds that I’d thought were healed. My inner thighs clenched with the memory of him saying my name.
When he’d taken my virginity.
“Nice to meet you,” he murmured, letting go of my hand, but not of my soul.
I exhaled roughly. But the expelling of breath didn’t give me relief. My lungs were still starved and flooded with oxygen at the same time.