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“Jake!” a girl’s voice called. “Jake Maclean! Come out, come out wherever you are!”
It was slurred but identifiable. Caroline.
“That’s Caroline again?” Bre
“She’s been pretty obnoxious since the whole drowning thing,” I grated out.
Bre
“I’ll take care of it.” I climbed up on the deck. “What do you want?” I asked, not keeping any of the aggravation out of my voice.
“Hey there.” She staggered just a little. Bryce was right there to catch her, but she shook his hand off of her arm. “Come to the beach with us. Now.” She smiled, a clearly drunk smile.
“No thanks.” I worked hard to keep my voice even and controlled.
She laughed. “Oh, you and Bre
I had pla
That Bre
That she could do better.
Not that I thought Saxon was better, but there was better. Than me. And this girl was a drunk bitch, but that didn’t make what she was saying less true.
She laughed, a mean, high sound. “And your ‘relationship’? I mean, if you want to make out and ski
It never failed to amaze me how a moment of complete perfection could get so royally fucked in the matter of a few minutes.
But it wasn’t me who wound up taking care of it at all. It was Bre
“Get out, now.” She stood, all of a sudden, at my side. “I know this is hard for you to hear, Caroline, but no one wants you around. No one. At all.”
Caroline sneered at her and stumbled.
“You know I’m right,” she slurred, but Bre
“You might be right. But I’m also right. About the fact that you’re a nasty, mean, asshole. No one wants you around but Bryce. If I were you, I would take what I could get. Bryce, take her out now.” Bre
He nodded.
“You’re the asshole!” Caroline screeched. “You think you’re so uppity? You and your mother! You’re just little sluts who clawed their way up where you don’t belong.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bre
It was a hell of a slap. Caroline’s head snapped over and there was the red print of Bre
“Say what you want about me,” Bre
I was right behind Bre
We listened to her scream and cry all the way back to the beach.
I looked at Bre
Bre
“I hate it here! I hate them!” she sobbed into my shirt.
“I know.” I ran a hand down her hair. “I hate them, too.”
Hated them.
And was them.
Much as I hated that.
Chapter Seven
Bre
“Evan?” I stalked over to the window of my ridiculous sea-shell-themed guest room and waited, lip bit between my teeth, for the voice that was like sweet syrup to the snow-cone of my loneliness.
“Bre
I twisted the blue and ivory embroidered seashell curtains between my fingers and let them go. “I think your accent got stronger.”
“Well, that makes sense. It’s the height of summer in the south of Georgia. You could cook a pot of gumbo by leaving it on the porch with the lid on, as my gramma would say. But we have central air, sweetheart. The best in the world. Come see me, and I’ll put the temperature all the way down to sixty-six, just for you.” I could hear the fu
“I want to. I will. I promise. Are you going out?” I heard her press and smack her lips, and I tried to imagine what color her lipstick was.
“I am, but don’t rush. I’m really in no mood to drive around with Rabin trying to find parking on River Street and worrying that his precious Vette is going to get scratched. Ugh, I hate that damn car. It’s such a balding-man-midlife-crisis car.” She sighed. “Plus that, I’ve been in withdrawal, and I need you! I love you! I can’t live without you!” I could picture her with the back of her hand on her forehead, and it made me giggle.
“I miss you, too, lovey. So, di
“Don’t judge,” she pleaded. “There’s too much going on right now, and all of it is just the baby snowball that hardly started rolling down the mountain of crazy shit my daddy built. No one outside the family knows, but everything is about to crash down around our ears and Rabin…he’s complicated, but he’s something I know. And I need to just keep things the way they are right now. I can’t deal with another change.”
“Oh, Evan.” We had talked a few times about her family’s money problems, and the verdict seemed to be that they had only just begun. Evan had no idea how far it would spiral and if any piece of her life would still be intact after it was all over. “Is your mom still home?”
“Mama is Cabo bound. She did make up some bullshit excuse about needing a girls’ week with her nonexistent frenemies. Of course, her gigolo was all discreet and took a flight two days before hers.” Her breath shook when she pulled it in. “Look, if I don’t shut up about my sad-sack life, I’ll wind up hurling myself off my balcony. Tell me all about Jake’s family. Are they a nest of vampire vipers from hell, just like I guessed?”
I would have been happy to listen to Evan talk about her problems for hours, but she had already insisted there was way too much to process at the moment and promised she would spill her guts hardcore as soon as she was ready, so I didn’t press her for any more details, even though I wanted her to keep talking about what was wrong. I switched topics, as requested. “They’re awful. I’ve never felt so out of place in my whole life. And I feel like every single one of them looks down their nose at me.”