“Ladies,” I say, causing them to giggle at each other the way girls half their age would. Fuck me. “What’s going on that you had to scare the shit out of my waitress?”
“We weren’t trying to frighten her. We’ll make sure she knows that the next time she comes back,” the one lady says. Once again, I check on the girls. They seem fine.
“Please make sure you do. She’s new here and I’d like her to hang around.” I smile. Something makes me look over at Kacie again. All I can see from this angle is her back and Jade flipping out. Jake is now standing next to the table.
“Hey, handsome. Are you listening to me?”
I ignore the voice and walk over to the edge of the dance floor, still keeping my distance. I know she likes to handle shit herself and is perfectly capable of it, but this feels different. Kacie starts to walk away when a hand grabs her arm. She turns around and, with her other hand, smacks someone across the face. Fuck this! I take off for her and make it there just a few steps ahead of Jake and Kyle. When I see who the hand belongs to, my anger multiplies exponentially.
“Get the fuck off of her,” I demand, taking Kacie by the hand, tucking her safely behind me. “Who the fuck do you think you are coming in here and pulling this shit? What if Meg was here?”
“Ah, the big, bad cousin. You’re always looking out for her, but Meg knows what’s up,” the prick slurs. “She gets to have me when I say.”
Jake must know what’s about to happen because he comes to stand next to me, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t do this here. Let security take care of him. You don’t want unnecessary trouble for yourself or the club.”
“You and Meg are done,” I inform him. “Do you understand me, Connor? Done. Don’t even let me find out you tried to call her, or the next time we meet won’t end well for you.”
“Whatever. I’ve had her plenty of times anyway,” he mumbles, then holds out his hand. “Now give me back the girl and I’ll get the hell out of this deadbeat club.”
“No. Get lost,” I tell him. Kacie slides her hand into mine.
Connor doesn’t miss the gesture. He starts laughing. “My bad, man. Go ahead. Take her back to the office and do your thing. I’ll wait the ten minutes for my turn.”
Suddenly, Kacie is gone from my grasp and I only see red. Bright fucking red. The only time I was ever this pissed off was when that two-timing bitch had the balls to show up at my brother’s funeral. I feel myself jump for him, then hands are all over me. As I try to break free, Joe and someone else are there hauling him away.
“Evan!” Jake screams. “Calm the fuck down! Joe’s got this!”
“Joe won’t do nearly as much damage as I will.” I continue to struggle against my friend.
“Not here,” another voice says to me. “You’re freaking all of these people out.” On the other side of me is Kyle, who’s barely able to keep his grip on me. After a few deep breaths, the adrenaline starts to slow, as does my heart rate.
“He’s gone,” Jake confirms, letting me go and motioning for Kyle to do the same. “Any other time, I would have helped you beat the motherfucker to within inches of his life. But not here. Not in your club. Your uncle doesn’t need to come home to a lawsuit.”
“Thanks, man,” I say because he’s right. It would have ended badly. I need to know how Kacie is. When I turn around, neither she nor Jade is anywhere in sight. “Kacie!” I call out. “Where is she?”
“Jade took her to the restroom,” Kyle says. “She’s okay.”
I need to see for myself before I’ll believe it. What if she’s angry with me for interfering? Without waiting for anyone, I push my way through the crowd. It feels like hours that I stand leaning against the wall across from the ladies room. Ten to fifteen girls come out of there before she finally does. Her eyes immediately lock on mine. She’s obviously still very upset.
“Kacie.” I can’t close the distance separating us fast enough. “I’m so sorry. I should have gotten to you sooner. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine.” She can barely get out. Her eyes are filling with tears, fast.
“Why don’t you look fine?”
“I’m going to take her home,” Jade declares.
“Not yet. Kacie, please tell me what’s wrong,” I beg. Someone yells my name from down the hall. “What now?!” I yell.
“I have your uncle on line three!” Kylie says.
“Fuck! I’ll be right there!” I say, running my hand through my hair. “I have to take this call. Please give me a few minutes.” Neither of them respond. “Please. I’ll be right back.” I can’t make my uncle wait, so I kiss Kacie on her head and whisper, “I’m so sorry I have to walk away from you right now.” She only nods before I take off down the hall. By the time I make it to the office, my breathing is short and uneven. My uncle notices when I pick up the phone.
“You better not have some girl bent over my desk,” he bitches in my ear.
“I wish,” I respond. “I did, however, almost just beat the shit out of Connor on the dance floor.”
“What the fuck did he do now?” Uncle Tim wants to know.
“Language!” my aunt yells in the background.
“He was touching some girl who didn’t want to be touched. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he bashed Meg. I told him he’s to stay away from her or he won’t survive our next meeting.”
“You should have punched the sorry son of a bitch.”
I knew he’d understand. “My friends were afraid it would have caused too much trouble for you.”
“I would have dealt with it. Anyway, how’s it going?”
“Other than that, everything is perfect, as usual. The new waitress is awesome and fits right in with everyone. They love her,” I say, hoping Kacie is still in the building.
“Stay the hell out of this one’s pants so you don’t have to deal with that problem again,” he laughs. Damn, Meg needs to keep her big mouth shut. “I heard Keith is covering tomorrow. I’m glad you’re taking a break. You deserve it. Meg is looking forward to the party.”
“I’ll still come in sometime Monday to do the money and shit, so don’t worry about it.”
“No, you won’t. Skyline is closed Monday. Take care of it on Tuesday.”
“It won’t take me long.”
“Evan, don’t make me end this trip early because your aunt wouldn’t be happy. I’m serious. Tuesday is fine.”
“But…”
“End of story. You have no idea how grateful we are that you’re doing this. Aunt Grace is worried about you working too hard. That’s why I’m calling. She wanted me to check on you.” My aunt is my mom’s younger sister. They were close as kids, but grew apart when my aunt married my uncle and moved down here to Florida.
“Tell her I’m good, really. Listen, I’m going to run to make sure Joe was able to get Connor out of here and see how the girl is. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Sounds like you are handling this just fine. Thanks, Evan. Enjoy the party tomorrow. We’ll be home in a week or so.”
“Take your time. See ya.” I hang up and set out to find Kacie.
She’s no longer in the hallway by the restrooms. I figure they must have gone back to their table, but when I get there, a new group of people is sitting in their place. Panic sets in as I rush for the front door. Joe is back at his normal station.
“Joe!” I raise my voice to get his attention over the crowd of people. “Did the Quinn’s leave?”
“About ten minutes ago, with their friends.”
“Thanks,” I say, pulling out my phone to text Kacie. Her reply to me wondering why she left scares me.
I’m sorry. I can’t do this.
Can’t do what?
I’m sorry.
What the fuck just happened?
The rest of the night leaves me with a bunch of unanswered texts. She didn’t pick up any of the three times I tried to call her, either. What happened? Everything was fine. I flirted with her, b
ut nothing more than she did in return. She didn’t object when I kissed her. No, I’m pretty sure she was fine with it given that her tongue was halfway down my throat and her hands were quite comfortable touching me. There’s no fucking way she could seriously be that angry over me getting involved with Connor. She would have flipped out at me right there, not bottled it up. “Fuck!” I yell to my empty bedroom. I stare at the ceiling until sunrise, when exhaustion finally consumes me.
Sometime later in the morning, the sound of a phone ringing pulls me from a sound sleep. It rings a few more times while I decide whether or not to open my eyes and answer it. Don’t people understand it’s rude to make phone calls so early? Eventually, it stops. I tug the pillow laying on the bed next to me over my head. Before I can doze back off, the damn thing starts again. Without moving the pillow, my hand blindly searches for the source of the offensive sound.
“What?” I answer.
“You better not still be in bed!” my cousin’s voice shrieks.
“I fucking worked last night. I’m tired.”
“It’s almost two o’clock in the afternoon. People are going to be showing up to hang out by the pool within the hour. You promised you’d pick up the beer and help me set all of this shit up!”
“Why the fuck would I promise something like that?” I sigh.
“Evan!”
“Alright. Alright. Chill the hell out. I’m getting up now.” My eyes are still closed as I force myself to sit up. Then all of the memories from the previous night come flooding back. The ones about Kacie will need to wait until I’m conscious. “Meg, I need to talk to you about something.”
“What?” she snaps, very annoyed.
“Connor was at Skyline last night.” There’s nothing but silence from the other end. May as well get this over with now. “I had to kick his ass out. He won’t be allowed back in. I also told him to stay away from you.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know how it all started, but he was giving Kacie and Jade a bunch of shit while they were dancing. He kept at it, despite them telling him to fuck off. When Kacie tried to walk away from him, he grabbed her. I may or may not have gone a tad ape shit.” I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees and my head on my hand. “Jake had to hold me back. Connor wouldn’t stop talking shit about you, Meg. I couldn’t take it. No one who is that disrespectful deserves you.”
“Is Kacie okay?” she asks quietly. I really hope I didn’t ruin my cousin’s day.
“I don’t know. She took off shortly afterwards and hasn’t returned my phone calls or any of the texts I sent. My guess is that she probably won’t be at the party.”
“Are you supposed to pick her up?”
“No. She had plans to come with Jade.”
“She’ll be here,” Meg tries to reassure me. “Just out of curiosity, what did she do when Connor grabbed her?”
“She slapped him across the face.”
My cousin lets out a small laugh. “I like her.”
“Me, too,” I say quietly. “I’ll be there soon. Sorry I’m late.”
“Sorry you had to deal with Connor. Thanks for sticking up for me.”
“You’re lucky I love you,” I tease.
“I know. See you in a little bit.” She hangs up.
Before I stand up, the phone rings again. Chris’ name flashes on my phone. “Didn’t think I’d be hearing from you until September,” I say.
“I was asked if you’d be interested in a rematch.”
“Rematch? Who wants that?”
“Two of the new guys. They want you and Jake.”
“When?”
“Wednesday.”
“I’m in if Jake is.” Why not? I’ve been itching to bring out the Scirocco again anyway.
“I’ll set it up,” he says, then the line goes dead.
After a quick shower, I throw on some clothes that were laying over the chair in my room. Hopefully they’re clean. Doing laundry really needs to be added to my shit-that-needed-to-be-done-yesterday list. It takes me no time at all to swing by the club and grab the cases of beer I had stashed in the refrigerator. By the time I make it to Meg’s, there are already enough cars to fill one side of the long U-shaped driveway. There’s just enough room for my truck to squeeze past them so I can park right outside of the garage. The whole ride over here, I was thinking about how if I would have gotten up earlier, there would have been time to drive by Kacie’s. Her neighborhood is so far from here that Meg would seriously be pissed. I’ll just have to wait and see if she shows up.
By the time it takes me to get the bar area set up outside on the deck and help the DJ carry his shit to his designated area, the outside of my aunt and uncle’s huge ass house has filled up. Meg hasn’t really come to torture me because she’s busy bossing the caterers around, so I take the free time to look for Kacie. Since it’s so damn hot today, most people are lounging by the pool. If she’s here, I’m sure that’s where she’ll be. I stroll over to the railing of the deck and scan the people below. It stings when I can’t find her. My forearms rest on the railing while I try to figure out what went wrong.
“You shouldn’t pout. It messes up your handsome face,” Jade says as she leans her back against the railing.
“Is she with you?” I ask.
She sighs. “No.”
“Then what are you doing here? Thought you two were a package deal?” I knew the second I heard Jade’s voice that Kacie wasn’t here.
“She threatened Kyle to get me out of her house. She can be awfully scary when she wants to be.”
“She’s all of, what? Four feet? How fucking scary can she be?” I take a large gulp of the beer I am holding.
“She’s five four, just like me. Watch it!”
“Whatever,” I say. I should have never gotten the fuck out of bed.
“I swear, you two are so ridiculous! You’re being a dick, and she made me promise not to say her name or talk about last night. I hate both of you right now!”
She pushes off of the railing and starts to walk away, but I grab her arm. “Why aren’t you allowed to talk about last night?”
Jade sighs again. “Look, whatever you’re thinking happened last night, you’re wrong. Kac…I mean, my friend,” she corrects herself, “is being stupid and letting her parents run her damn life.”
“What does that even mean? She keeps using them as an excuse for everything.”
“Kacie is afraid her parents are going to take her grandmother’s house away from her,” Jake says.
“Jake!” Jade snaps.
“You promised to keep your mouth shut. I didn’t,” Jake justifies.
Jade smiles at her brother. “You’re right, but you realize that she’ll still be mad at you, right?”
“She’ll get glad again. She always does. At least she does with me anyway,” he smirks.
“What’s the deal with the house?” I interrupt them.
“Her grandmother left it to her. Her parents are threatening to take it away if she doesn’t live up to their expectations. Their latest thing is that they want her to date this doctor her dad knows. Jade said he’s a real douche bag. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him. Kacie’s afraid that if she’s seen with you, someone will report back to them.”
“The guy who was at Skyline the night I met her?” I ask Jade. She looks to Jake for help. Man, she takes this promise thing pretty seriously.
“Yes,” Jake answers. Jade smiles again, happy she hasn’t betrayed her friend.
“That night after Kacie left, he was talking about how he thought he’d get some promotion if he was with her,” I remember.
“Kacie assumed it was something like that. She’s not an idiot.”
“Back to the house. If it was left to Kacie, why the hell do her parents think they can get their hands on it?”
“We don’t know. The lawyer in charge is Jade’s boss, but she’s been tight-lipped about the whole thing. She just keeps saying not to worry
and that she’ll take care of it if they try anything. That’s not enough to relax Kacie, though. If she loses the house, Kacie loses the only thing connecting her to her grandmother. She’ll be crushed,” Jake pauses, looking out over the yard. “I don’t think she’ll ever recover from it.”
“Never,” Jade agrees.
“So, what about last night. Why did she leave the club?”
“I don’t know that part of the gossip.” Jake looks to Jade.
“I promised,” she reminds him.
“She didn’t say you couldn’t tell me.” I’m not sure why Jake is doing this, but I owe him.
“I’m sure telling you right in front of Evan falls under the ‘telling him directly’ category.”
“Details,” Jake jokes. Jade crosses her arms. She’s not going to budge on this. “Fine. You’re such a wuss. All I know is she likes you and whatever happened last night freaked her out. I don’t know if it was Connor or what. She asked me to take her home, so I did. That’s my job.”
“You’re going to be on her shit list forever.” Jade shakes her head.
“Where is she now?”
“She was home when we left,” she tells me. “I don’t think she was going anywhere.” Do I go? Do I give her space? Man, I fucking suck at this shit! Jade must be able to read the conflict on my face. “You know you want to,” she smiles. “Good luck, Evan.” Looking at her brother, she laughs. “I’d wish you luck, too, but you deserve the ass whooping she’ll give you.” I watch Jade cross the deck and slide into the chair next to Kyle over by the bar.
“Here.” Jake is holding out a set of keys.
“What?”
“If Kacie doesn’t answer the door, cut through my house. She’ll be in the swing in her garden.” I take them from him.
“What if she’s not?” I ask doubtfully.
“She will be. That’s where she goes when she feels lost.” There’s no denying the anguish in his tone.
Left Behind: Left Behind Series #1 Page 17
