I sigh and ask Heath for another bottle of the expensive stuff. Gray owes me. I get up and stroll over to the corner where the blonde is fighting with her biker boyfriend, and the boyfriend is fighting with Gray. How does he always get himself in these situations? The man pulls his fist back before I can get there in time and slams it right into Gray’s jaw.
And Gray still stands.
Huh, maybe he’s a little more used to this than I thought.
“Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa,” I slur. “No need for this.”
“And who are you?” The man’s voice promises death with how dark and deep it rings.
“Just a friend. I promise he didn’t know the girl had a boyfriend, did you?”
Gray holds his hand to his cheek and shakes his head. A pool of blood drips down his lip.
“Look, I’m really sorry, my friend here is sorry, and I think this is all just a misud—musid—misunderstanding. How about I pay your tab and we just go separate ways? And here, it’s top-shelf whiskey. Drink your worry away.” I slam the bottle into his oversized body, waiting for him to grab onto it. When he does, I turn around and grab Gray by the arm. I nod to Heath, and we push our way through the crowd.
We get outside, and the fresh, winter air sobers me up a bit. “What the hell was that?”
“She said she was single,” he argues, bringing his hand back to see blood. “That asshole.”
“He has a right to be mad, but not at you. I get it though.”
“How do I get myself into these situations? It happens every time.”
At least he is aware. “I have no idea. Maybe don’t make out with badass biker chicks that probably don’t care if they have a boyfriend?”
“But they are so hot in their leathers,” he whines, stumbling into a tree. “Ow.”
I slap my forehead with my hand as he falls over into a holly bush, screaming when the sharp thorns stab him. Damn, how the hell can we run a multi-million-dollar company? We are a wreck.
Chapter 10 Everly
“And they’re married?” Blaire asks as she pours some tequila in a coffee mug because we are too broke for real shot glasses.
I rub my temples from the headache I have from the previous night of getting hammered after telling her Rowan is now my stepbrother. “Yes, Blaire. Nothing has changed since yesterday.” The smell of alcohol makes my stomach roll, so I push the mug away, turning my nose up. “I can’t do it. It smells like bad decisions and nightmares.”
Blaire pushes it forward insisting, “Hair of the dog. It works.”
“I can’t,” I gag when I see the light reflecting off the alcohol when I peek inside the mug.
“Here.” She grabs my hand, licks it—
“Hey!”
Throws salt on the wet spot and gives me a bottle of lime juice because who needs real limes?
“There. Lick, drink, suck.” She makes a noise in the back of her throat. “Well, drink again, there’s no sucking this lime juice since it is in a bottle.”
My crazy best friend drinks from the tequila bottle and squirts the lime juice in her mouth after. “Woo!” she shakes her head, causing her cheeks to jiggle. “Now that is a good morning pick-me-up.”
“You are insane. I don’t know why I’m friends with you.” Since the fourth grade. How I have survived this long without getting tattooed and pink hair, I’ll never know.
“I’m the wild side of you. Now drink up, and I’ll put the bottle away and make some coffee.”
“Ugh, fine.” I wrap my fingers around the mug with trepidation and lick the salt off my hand, the same one she licked, but I didn’t want to think about that. I grimace and chug the tequila from the mug, and then squirt the lime juice in my mouth until it is overflowing.
“Better, right?” she chirps, with a big, bright smile.
I grunt, leaning my head on the countertop. “If you call death alright, then yeah, I’m great.”
“You’re so dramatic.”
No need for me to lift my head up and see her eye roll, I can hear it. The smell of coffee brewing makes me open one eye. I’m slowly coming to life as the rich brew drips into the pot. The smell of heaven and freedom. I don’t know who created this wonderful invention, but I’m eternally grateful.
“You have a coffee problem.”
No, I have a Rowan problem, hence the tequila.
“You don’t know me,” I protest, which is a weak argument considering she is the only person in this world that truly knows me.
Not true, Rowan does too.
I hate my inside voice.
“How are you doing, Eve?” Blaire asks with a softer tone. “I’m worried about you.”
I lift my head up and hold my hand to my head. “Oh, too fast.” I wait a minute before answering her and shut my eyes, taking a few deep breaths to steady myself. “I’m fine, Blaire. Really.”
“You don’t look like it.”
“Well, yeah. I’m trashed. Thanks to somebody.” I shoot an accusatory glance her way.
“We both know it isn’t me to blame.”
I let out a heavy, annoyed sigh. “I don’t want to talk about this again, Blaire. Let it go.”
“I can’t let it go. I love you, and things have been hard enough the last two years, now you find out you’re sorta related now, and you see him for the first time since…you know. And we didn’t really talk. We drank.”
I hum a sound of agreement. “I’m starting to notice that.” Because my head won’t stop throbbing.
“Talk to me, Everly.”
I get up when the coffee beeps to let me know it’s ready. I grab another mug, one that isn’t laced with poison and regretful choices, and pour myself a cup of coffee. “I don’t want to talk. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t fix anything. Rowan hates me. I have to live with that. There’s nothing else to it.”
“There’s so much more to it.”
I whip my
