by Lola Glass
“If I drink, I’ll puke. If I puke, he’s going to come in.” I flicked my hand toward the door and then deemed the plate clean, moving on to the next one in the stack beside the sink.
That was a lie.
I wasn’t drinking because Roman hated alcohol; that had been clear when he was in the nightclub. And I was a sucker who already cared more about him than I should have.
“Why are you so against him coming in?”
“Why are you asking so many questions?” I shot back. She laughed.
“Because you’re my friend.” She said it like it was simple. My heart warmed a bit until she tagged on, “Roman is too, and he asked me to check on you.”
I pointed to the door and flashed her a heated glare.
“Get out.”
She scoffed.
“He’s not the devil, Hennie. If you talk to him, he’ll leave.”
I was so tired of everything.
Dropping the plate and sponge in the sink, I left them with the water still running and stormed to the door. When I threw it open, Roman looked up from the laptop balanced on his lap as he was sitting in a camping chair.
“What do you want?” I growled.
She was right, the makeshift office was impressive. Camping chair, cooler, tent, and all.
Did Roman like camping?
I pushed my thoughts away and focused on what I’d gone out there to do.
He put the laptop down and stood, moving closer.
“I thought I made that clear.”
“I’m not interested in playing games. What do you want, Roman?”
“You.”
The word sent a tingle up my spine.
I turned around to stomp back into my room, but he slipped between me and the door before I could escape.
“I don’t like games any more than you do, Hen. You know what I want, so what about you? What do you want?”
“To be left alone.” My anger vanished, replaced by an overwhelming sadness. This was my life, but it had never been mine. Other people always sat in the driver’s seat. “I just want to be left alone.”
The air seemed to leave Roman’s body.
A long pause made the distance between us feel much bigger.
“Alright.” His voice was quiet.
“Alright?” my eyebrows wrinkled together.
“If that’s really what you want, I’ll respect it.”
He grabbed a backpack and then gathered his papers, sliding them in. I didn’t move; I was too shocked.
Roman packed up his cooler and camping chair, along with his laptop and an open bag of pretzels. Without another word, he walked away.
I went back inside.
“Do you want me to go?” Jamie slid off the stool.
“No.” I admitted. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just…” I shoved my hands through the top of my hair before realizing it was up in a ponytail. It was probably sticking up everywhere then, but I didn’t care. “My whole life, people have been chasing me and fighting over me and killing each other because of me. I just want that to end. I want them to leave me alone so I can live a normal life and be what I want and love who I want.”
Understanding dawned in Jamie’s eyes.
“You don’t want Roman to leave you alone either.”
“No. I just don’t want—“
My phone dinged and I pulled it out of the pocket on my leggings. Whoever invented leggings with pockets deserved every cent of the money they made. I scanned the text quickly.
“Kyler needs us to work. No one else showed because of what happened a few days ago.” I headed into my bedroom. Jamie got the message that the conversation about Roman was over.
“He doesn’t want me there.” She grimaced
“Sure he does. You might not be the most skilled at making drinks but you’re good with people. When they ask about the killing, you’ll know what to tell them.”
Jamie looked a bit surprised at my answer.
I glanced over at her and the light blue shirt she had on.
“Do you want to go home and change or borrow something?”
“Oliver’s home.”
With a grin, I tossed her one of my black tops—okay, pretty much every top I owned was black. She called Kyler to tell him to grab another male or two for backup protection if she wanted me to leave the ‘scraper, and fifteen minutes later we were off.
I’d temporarily forgotten how tired I was, but that didn’t last long.
Since I didn’t feel like peopling while I was tired, Jamie talked to the customers while I prepped drinks. She served and I mixed for our two-thirds of the bar. Kyler took the other third, and we worked like a well-oiled machine. The crowd wasn’t any smaller than a typical weekend night. I guess just as many people were excited about the drama that had gone down here as were afraid of it.
We were creeping up on last call when Lilac sauntered through the doors. I glanced over when I caught her scent and groaned inwardly when I caught the sour look aimed at me.
I didn’t have the energy for another fight over Roman, particularly after I’d turned him down to avoid heartache.
“Hey, Jamie.” Lilac greeted our friend in a sugary voice.
“Hi.” Jamie gave her a quick, fake smile. “What can we get you?”
“Oh, I’m not staying.”
Jamie looked a bit confused.
“I just have a little unfinished business with Henley here.” She strolled down the bar, stopping across from me. “Got a few minutes?”
“Not really.” I lied. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know how to talk while I made drinks. I was mixing the base of an old-fashioned into a glass when she started.
“Well, you can just listen.” She leaned forward on the bartop. “I welcomed you into my pack. I tried to help you feel at home and tried to be your friend. You repaid me by betraying me in the worst way.”
I stilled, drink half-made and hands on the glass.
“I’ve been in love with Roman for years and you knew that, but it didn’t stop you from rubbing your body all over what you knew was meant to be mine and then attacking me for trying to remind you who he belonged to. You may quite possibly be the worst friend on the planet, and I regret my part in making your stay with our pack any more comfortable. Go to hell.”
With that, she walked out of the nightclub.
To hell with this.
To hell with everything.
The moment she was gone I set the glass down. Jamie strode over to me as I calmly picked up the bottle of bourbon and poured the typical two ounces into the glass.
“Are you okay?” her eyes flashed with worry.
“Peachy.” I rolled the glass a couple times to stir the base into the whiskey.
And then I tipped the drink back and swallowed it all. Any bourbon lover would’ve been ashamed at how quickly I drank it, but I wasn’t a bourbon lover.
I was a vodka girl.
Jamie’s eyes widened.
“You don’t drink in public.”
I grabbed a full bottle of the cheap vodka no one ever asked for off the shelf along with a couple shot glasses, filling all three of them with the speed of a girl who’d never worked outside a bar.
“Today I do.”
Picking up two of the shot glasses, I clinked them together before throwing them down the hatchet. The third followed shortly.
“Should I call Roman?”
“Only if Lilac comes back. You’ll want to stay away from me until the alcohol is out of my system.”
I shut my mouth and remade the old-fashioned while Jamie rushed back to the customers. She listed off a few more drinks and I made them as the alcohol warmed me from within, dulling some of the emotional pain that had been seeping inside me for days.
Arla came in shortly after I began drinking. I was six shots deep by the time she showed her face. Like Lilac, she came barreling straight toward me. Jamie gave me a worried glance when I swallowed a seventh shot in preparation for the conver
sation that was to come.
“What did you say to my brother?” she demanded, vaulting over the bar so we stood nose-to-nose.
“Told him to leave me alone.” I glanced over at Jamie’s customer in time to hear the drink he ordered and began throwing it together. Truthfully, my drinks became less precise the more alcohol I put into my system.
“He’s been chasing you for months, and you decide now that you’re done with him?” Arla shoved me backward and the glasses shook as I stumbled into the counter. “And now you’re drunk?”
“Yup.” I filled another shot glass and lifted it to my mouth.
She snatched it away and downed it herself, gagging at the taste.
“What was that?”
“Cheap vodka. Not something a rich girl like you would ever have a reason to drink.” I drawled. “Aren’t you worried about getting addicted, like your famous daddy and grand-pops?”
Arla slammed the shot glass on the counter and glowered at me. We were about the same height, but she’d had loads of fight training so it wouldn’t be an even fight. If I hadn’t been drunk, I’d have been on my knees at the pressure of the crazy amount of Alpha juice she was throwing my way.
“Shut the hell up.” She snarled. “Roman is a good guy, Henley. You don’t deserve him and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why you would push him away.” Her hands flung through the air as she spoke.
She couldn’t figure out why I would push him away?
I could help her with that.
“When you were eight years old and you put your tooth under your pillow, did the tooth fairy come for it?”
She didn’t respond, confused.
“Answer the question.” I snapped.
“Of course.” She looked at me like I was an idiot.
“I lost a tooth two weeks after the South Carolina pack massacred my family and kidnapped me. The tooth was still there when I woke up the next morning, so I put it back that night. Two weeks later, I realized that my tooth fairy wasn’t behind schedule. She was dead.”
I poured another shot right into the glass Arla had drunk from without looking away from her and drank it in one swallow.
“As soon as you know what it’s like to be an eight-year-old who knows there isn’t a soul alive who loves you, you can call me whatever you want. Until then, get out of my bar and leave me the hell alone.”
I went to pour another shot but paused with my bottle in the air.
Why was I still here?
With that thought, I tucked the bottle of vodka under my arm.
This wouldn’t last long, even paired with my emergency bottle hidden in the pantry.
So I grabbed the cheap bottles of rum, gin, whiskey, and tequila too. I had to use my shirt to carry them the way little kids carry rocks and junk, but I was too deep in the glasses too care.
I decided I could fit another bottle and grabbed the bottle of cheap bourbon too.
It wasn’t like our customers were drinking them.
Then I strolled right out of the nightclub, alcohol dulling my emotions and taking away my memories.
Jamie ordered the guys who made up my entourage (minus Kyler) to go after me. I ignored their loud footsteps, swaying as I carried my haul back to the ‘scraper. Only because we were in Manhattan did I get a few odd glances, but no one looked at me long.
I poked the button in the elevator with the cap of my bourbon bottle and cackled. When I slammed my apartment door in the enforcer dudes’ faces, I cackled again.
After hiding some of my alcohol stash in case anyone came in to steal my stuff, I set my vodka and whiskey on the counter and grabbed one of my dark blue glasses from the cupboard. I filled it halfway and swallowed a crap ton of vodka, then did it again.
All liquored-up, I plopped down on the couch with three bags of microwave popcorn and turned on a movie. I was so far gone I don’t even remember what movie it was.
Not much later, Jamie came waltzing in. I opened my popcorn-filled mouth to send her packing when I noticed the bottles of cognac and orange liqueur cradled in one arm and the thing of lemon juice in the other.
A grin tore my cheeks apart as I lifted my popcorn bowl in the air and cheered,
“I’ve broken you too!”
She laughed and dropped her things on the counter, grabbing her own glass from the cupboard.
“I’ve got plenty of reasons to drink, Hennie. Might as well try to drown them in alcohol if you’re so sure it works.”
I snorted at her reasoning.
“You’re a lightweight. You won’t survive drinking with me.”
“We’ll see about that.” She smiled wickedly and mixed a sidecar at least four times as big as the ones we made at the nightclub. “What are we watching?” She asked, sipping at the drink.
“Don’t know.”
She grabbed the romance movie off the counter and brought it to the TV, sticking the DVD in the device connected to the TV.
“Didn’t know rich people still used DVDs.” I said.
“We’re phasing them out.”
When I snorted again, she laughed again.
The movie began and I took a long look around the living room. It looked wrong.
“We need a Netflix nest.” I whispered. Jamie shot me a confused look. “We need a nest!” I paused the movie and stumbled as I hurried off the couch.
“We’re not watching Neflix.” Jamie said.
“Shut your trap and come help.” I snarled.
She followed me into my bedroom.
“Perfect.” I declared, grabbing one end of the mattress and giving it a good shove. Jamie caught on to what I was doing and grabbed the other side. It took a good two minutes for us to get the massive thing off the bedframe, but we did it.
“Pull!” Jamie screeched, as she struggled with her shoulder pressed into the mattress.
“Push harder, bitch!” I snapped back.
We were both sweaty when we finally got the mattress wedged crookedly in-between the couch and TV. One of the corners was actually resting on part of the couch because we couldn’t get it to fit even after jumping on the thing, but we decided it made the nest that much better.
After gathering every pillow, blanket, and towel in the apartment, we piled them on the mattress. Then we grabbed our drinks and nested.
“No Alphas or douchebag mates allowed.” I glared at the door.
Jamie laughed hysterically.
We were completely opposite drunks, but you know, I think it made it more fun for both of us.
TWENTY
Four days later, I was puking into a toilet in the guest bathroom while Jamie showered her own vomit out of her hair in mine. We’d had no outside contact other than Arla showing up and declaring us unfit to leave the apartment. Jamie had laughed and I’d cussed her away, and no one had bothered us since.
When Jamie ran out of alcohol, she hid mine and decided that our binge was over. I tried to fight her, but she knew how to fight and I didn’t, so all that had done was earn me a big bruise on my stomach.
I didn’t hear my front door opening, but Arla came into the bathroom mid-barf. She stood against the door, arms folded over her chest. Ignoring her, I rinsed my mouth with water and then mouthwash even though I knew that wouldn’t be the last of my puking.
“You here to lecture me about how much I suck?” I muttered, thumbs massaging my temples to help with the awful headache.
“No.” She studied me but didn’t say anything else
I walked back to the kitchen to find some water and she followed me.
Jamie came out of my bedroom wrapped in a towel, wet hair in one big tangle at the back of her neck
“I need my own shampoo and clothes.” She mumbled, holding her head with the hand that wasn’t holding her towel up.
“Lightweight.” I yelled after her. She flipped me off over her shoulder.
Immediately, I regretted the yell.
Damn hangover.
The door closed behind her.<
br />
I forced a third glass of water down and then pulled a coke out of the fridge.
“Want one?” I asked Arla. She nodded, and I slid her a soda across my kitchen’s island. She grabbed it and sat down on a stool.
Bartender skills for the win.
“Why are you here?” I asked, popping the tab and taking a swig of coke. Some people claimed soda made hangovers worse, but I swore by chugging both it and water to drown out the alcohol.
Which, ironically, I’d been drowning my feelings with first.
I know, not a healthy coping mechanism.
“You’re afraid you’ll lose him.” She said.
“We’re not talking about this.”
“I’m afraid of losing him too. It’s the reason I don’t date and won’t take a mate until Roman does so she can take my position. He’s protected me our whole lives, and that’s the way I protect him.” She sipped her drink. I glowered at her.
“I’m not going to be an Alpha Female. Ever.”
She dropped her can back on the countertop.
“Would you just look at yourself for a second? You don’t take no for an answer. You make up your mind and it’s nearly impossible to change it. No one bosses you around, and if they do, you just ignore them. You’re one step away from being an Alpha Female already; why the hell are you against it?”
“It’s the principle of the thing, Arla. I’ve been mistreated by Alphas my whole life. Putting myself in the position to be like those people is like saying none of that shit mattered at all.”
“Or it’s like saying you’re going to do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
I tossed my now-empty soda bottle in the trash bin and shoved my greasy hair away from my face.
“We’re not good enough friends to be having this conversation.”
Arla groaned loudly.
“Just think about it. And don’t be a bitch when he shows up to make sure you haven’t turned into an abusive asshat like my father.”
She left right as my stomach churned and I covered my mouth with my hand, sprinting back to the bathroom as every bit of liquid I’d gotten down came right back up. I was rinsing my mouth again when someone knocked on the door.
The sound of my front door opening had me swearing under my breath about this annoying pack.
