“Men suck.”
Torie announced this to the world while standing on a table in a seriously scary biker bar, holding a shot in the air. I knew this already, because she had burped that confession to me in the bathroom, jerked her clothes in place, fluffed her hair, touched up her makeup, and strode out of there like she was on a mission to save the universe from an impending alien attack. Also at the table was Tamara, or Tam as she was sometimes called, and she was three sheets to the wind.
We had started at Torie and Tamara’s apartment, where they finished dressing, saw that I hadn’t changed, and proceeded to “make me up” (their words) for a night of drinking and dancing. I was wearing skintight jeans—my compromise because a miniskirt was not my thing—and a halter collar tank top that fitted me almost like a glove. My hair was in a braid. I had makeup on, makeup that shined and glistened and made me look like I almost belonged on a magazine cover.
When they started reaching for the jewelry, I stood my ground. I’ve never been a big jewelry person. It was my nonwoman card. Chrissy always gave me the same look they were giving me now, whenever she tried to gift me a bracelet. She knew necklaces were always out, but sometimes I broke down and took on a bracelet, until those started feeling too constricting. So bracelets were out, too.
But the pumps. I had the best pumps on. I hadn’t had much practice, but I was enjoying the whole wavering effect. Made me feel like I didn’t need to drink. I was already on a roller coaster.
So I looked like I was three sheets to the wind but was not, while Tamara actually was and didn’t look it, not one bit.
I was thinking the heels were the main reason I wasn’t drinking as heavily as the rest of them, but they weren’t noticing. When we showed up, Torie’s eyes got big, taking in Connor, who said he’d stay for another shift. So it was Scott, Connor, Grand, and Row. I just met Grand and Row that night. I met Connor previously. He was the guard Kash pulled from Calhoun so in my mind, Connor was epic.
Tamara saw the guys and said, “Cool! We got four sober cabs standing right here. Babes, we can drink!”
We started with wine at the apartment. Coupled this already with dancing.
Went to a pub, had beer. Coupled that with dancing, too.
We were now in the biker bar, and you guessed it—we drank and danced.
It was around midnight when Tamara had an idea. “Hey! We should check out that new place. Octavo.”
Torie loved that idea. So did Melissa.
Connor and Scott, not so much.
I knew Scott better, so he shot me a look and I remembered Kash’s warning.
“Uh. What about Naveah? We can end the night there.”
“Girl! No way.” Tamara was shaking her head, and she pointed at Torie—or where she thought Torie was. Torie was on the south side of the table. Tamara pointed to the north side of the table, where Melissa was bouncing and beaming. Tamara thought Melissa was Torie. Neither Melissa nor Torie realized this. And Tamara kept on, “She works there already so much. We go there and she’ll be roped into working. I know it.”
Melissa was nodding. “Let’s go.”
“We know you.”
That came from someone not in our group.
The guys both stiffened.
That was my first clue.
Then a louder, “Talking to you.”
I turned around.
A couple girls were there. Biker girls, or what I assumed were biker girls, since they were in leather corsets and skintight jeans like mine. Their hair was done up and they had a solid layer of makeup on, too, heavier than Torie and Tamara. They weren’t too far from me, but the second time they spoke, Connor was there, an arm out so they couldn’t come closer.
They turned hostile eyes on him. “We just want to talk.”
“We want to know why a stuck-up bitch like her is here.” Both she and the other one turned on me at once, as if it was rehearsed. “Why you here? This is our place. These are our guys.”
Torie heard that. So did Tamara. And both were pushing their way around the table to me.
“You back off, honey.” That was from Torie. She liked using endearments when she drank, or so I’d learned that night. “We come here too, and she ain’t like that. She’s not after your men.”
“She has two guards here.”
Tamara snorted. “You’re dumb, too. She has four! Just the other two are by the door.”
Oh. That did not go over well.
The first one got red in the face.
The second just launched. Claws out, a howl, and she was over Connor’s arms, almost reaching me. Her hand grabbed my hair before Connor had her up in his arms. He turned, saw her hold, and had her hand out of my hair in the next blink of an eye. As he moved her away, Scott waded in and Grand and Row were there.
Scott moved the other “friend” along with the one Connor was carrying.
Row and Grand were ushering us out of the biker bar.
As we went, I caught sight of the other customers. Most were grinning, enjoying the show. Others didn’t give two hoots. A few guys were watching us leave, eyes locked on me as if they knew I had no business being there.
A weird sensation started in my belly. It was growing as we moved outside.
In another world, one where I never knew Peter Francis was my father, I would’ve enjoyed going to that bar. I would’ve enjoyed cutting loose as I saw a few other Hawking students doing.
Maybe in another life I could’ve been one of those students, there to have fun without four guards and without two locals recognizing me and starting a scene so I’d have to leave. Not that person.
But I am Peter Francis’s daughter, and now we were outside and being hustled to the SUV and my chest was burning because I knew I’d never be that girl again.
That was done.
I could never not be Peter’s daughter. I could never not be Kash’s girlfriend.
Life being anonymous, pushing to fight my way up, claw my way up, was done.
Connor and Scott came out, unmarred and unscarred, and climbed in.
Scott turned around, took in everyone, and paused on me. He decided for us.
“Take her to Naveah.”
Tamara didn’t need to worry about Torie wanting to work.
As soon as we got to Naveah, Torie let out a loud whoop, grabbed whoever’s hand was closest, and surged past the lines. She wasn’t done when we got inside. She kept going, all the way straight to the VIP booth. Following behind Tamara, because Torie had grabbed Melissa’s hand, I slowed, seeing who was already there.
Tony. Chester. Guy. And Fleur and Cedar.
Guy saw Torie and lit up. Chester saw Melissa and turned carnal.
Tony saw Tamara and dark interest sparked.
The girls saw me, and both of their lips curled up in disdain. Well. Too fucking bad.
Guy was already out of the booth, with his arm around Torie’s shoulders, by the time I got there. She was doing the introductions. When she got to Fleur and Cedar, both looked Melissa up and down, picked up their purses, and slid out of the booth.
Fleur was the spokesperson. “We can see where we’re not welcome.”
“No! Stay!” Melissa tried, a friendly smile there, because bless her, she wasn’t jaded like the rest of us. That made my heart ache.
Melissa shouldn’t be here. Not in this club. Not at this booth. Not with these people.
Torie and Tamara knew the score. They could handle themselves. But Melissa was bright and light and innocent. Fleur turned to her, her gaze locking on, giving Melissa another once-over. “I don’t think so. They just let anyone in here now, don’t they.”
Enough!
A switch was flipped in me, and I’d had it.
“Why do you still come around? If you’re here, you look miserable. Every time. I’ve never seen you smile.”
She flinched as if I’d slapped her.
Cedar waded in. “Maybe it’s because you joined the group.” She sent a scathing look at the guys. “And trust me, we smile plenty when you’re not around.”
I shifted, leaning closer. “Really? Because I could get the security vid. I could look for the past hour or however long you’ve been here, and I’m pretty sure you had the same piss-ass look on your face the whole time. Do you even like these guys? Why are you really here?” I skimmed the guys with a look. “Is it because of their connections?”
Melissa’s eyes were huge this whole time, and at the mention of “connections,” she visibly swallowed. I watched in real time as she realized she was no longer in a safe crowd. I hated seeing it. We weren’t surrounded by our classmates, guys who adored her and secretly would jump at the chance to date her. It wasn’t even how it’d been at the biker bar or the pub before that. Torie and Tamara were good people, but they got where they were by crawling and climbing up by their own nails.
Melissa was a puppy that had somehow found herself in the middle of a pack of rottweilers. Three of them were foaming at their mouths.
I was one of them.
I felt it in my bones then. I smelled it in the air. I could see myself from an outside perspective on our group. I hadn’t been one of them this summer, but now I was.
I’d lost that puppy innocence. Then again, maybe I never actually had it?
“Are you seriously giving us shit because we don’t smile enough?” Fleur snapped at me.
“It’s not the smile. It’s the fact you sit here with the guys and you act like you hate every second of it. You’re leaving with a snide comment that’s a dig at my friend, but mostly me, and I just can’t help wonder why you even care?”
I felt a presence behind me. He was coming in, and fast, and a second later, a body was pressed against my side. An arm was draped over my shoulder, and I heard Melissa suck in her breath on the other side of me.
Matt drawled, his head leaning down to grin at Fleur and Cedar, “Ladies. My sis has a good point. You used to put out, at least. Now you know not one of us is going to marry you, you both act like you got permanent sticks wedged up your asses.”
Cedar hissed, “Matt!”
He looked at her. “We’ve had years of friendship, so I get why you’re sticking around. It’s what you do. What you’ve always done, but winds changed this summer when I learned I have a sister. You still want to remain in the group, get with the program and stop being such a bitch.”
Fleur’s eyes narrowed to slits. Her smile turned acid and she stepped in close to us, her voice lowering, but we were able to still hear. “That’s funny. Kashton asked Victoria for lunch tomorrow.” She focused on me.
Kash and Victoria. Lunch.
Bile rose up in my throat.
It was a slightly intimate setting. Lunch could stand for so many other things. Lunch with a friend. Lunch with an enemy. A business lunch. But those words coming out of Fleur’s mouth, with the malice in her gaze … I knew this lunch wasn’t just nothing.
It meant something.
A wave of sickness washed over me.
“Kashton loved Victoria.” She cocked her head to the side, her smile almost turning pitying.
That was the worst part. Her sympathy.
“Kash used to be almost obsessed with her. They dated, you know. They had a good thing going between the two of them. Vic thought for a while he was going to propose. They were like that. No matter who’s come after her, it’s always been her. Kash knows it. Vic knows it. Everyone in our group knows it. You think we hang around the guys for nothing? No, Bailey. We hang around because no matter how many Discard Girls there are, there’s only us and the guys. That’s how it is with our families. This society. It’s pretty small up here. Sometime down the line, each of us will marry one of them, and if not them, then another like them. Some things don’t change after all.”
She was lying.
Had to be.
I was thinking. I was remembering. Those girls weren’t the same as the others.
But no. Not Kash. Not Victoria.
I wanted to vomit, and my chest felt like it was being ripped open by two bare hands, and every breath I took in was laced with arsenic.
I wasn’t just feeling sick. I was really going to be sick.
She and Cedar strolled down the walkway and I tried to hold it in. I did.
It was going to spew out of me, so clamping a hand over my mouth, I started to take off.
A hand clasped my arm. “This way.” Torie was pulling me from Matt. She saw what was happening, and she was dragging me behind the VIP booth, to a door I never knew was there. She knocked on it, looked up at a corner, and the door opened a second later. We were through into a dark hallway, but there was a restroom right there. A bright red neon sign hanging over it.
She pushed me inside, and then it was coming out of me.
I was on my knees and vomiting, wondering how the hell all of this had happened.
My hair was being pulled back, a clip put in it.
Torie went to the sink.
The water was running.
The whole time, I kept emptying.
Then she slid down the wall next to me, a towel in her hand. “What a night, huh?”
She gave me a pitying smile when I was done and lifted my head, and handed over the towel.
I took it, pressed it to my face, and settled back against the wall on the other side of the toilet. “Men really suck.”