by Tracey Ward
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LILLY
Palmetto Warehouse
Los Angeles, CA
“This is what I love about L.A.,” Rona tells me thoughtfully. “Looking at it from here, this is either a very swanky apartment building or it’s a murder haven, and you won’t know which until you get inside.”
“It’s like a box of chocolates.”
“It is not like a box of chocolates and I’ll thank you to never affect a Forest Gump accent again.”
“Sorry.”
“Thank you.”
I cock my head at the three story industrial monster staring darkly back from across the street. “Do we take a chance and go in or do we say, ‘not tonight, axe murderers’, and hit up El Pollo?”
“You’re high if you think I’m not going inside that party.”
“I’m not high, but are you holding? It might take the edge off.”
“When am I ever holding?” she asks in amazement.
I shrug. “It never hurts to ask.”
“Come on,” she laces her arm through mine to pull me across the street. “Maybe some nice man inside will have illicit drugs he’ll be happy to share with you. The odds are in your favor.”
“I wasn’t serious.”
“Well, I was about going inside so quit dragging your feet.”
I’m not dragging my feet. I’m not reluctant to go inside either. I’m excited to see Colt. And nervous. Really nervous, because even though I grew up in L.A. and I’ve been to a handful of parties sporting the occasional famous face, it’s different this time. It’s a guy I really like and he is the famous face. A thousand scenarios have been going through my mind all day. The most popular reel I’m running is Scenario #1, or what I like to call the Bitch Beauties. It’s an image born of countless Mean Girl movies I watched all through high school and it plays out like this; there’s a gaggle of gorgeous women at this party, all dressed perfectly in cute little dresses and matching purses while I stand off to the side looking frumpy in my jeans, sequined tank, and slouchy cardigan. I’m comfortable, cute even, but somehow that makes it worse than looking like shit. Reaching and falling short of the mark is more humiliating than never trying, and these girls know it. They get wind that Colt invited me and I’m immediately ripped to shreds for not being pretty enough for him.
Scenario #2 is that he ignores me the entire time, I feel weird being there, and I go home to drink vodka from the bottle until infomercials come on. Then I promptly pass out.
Scenario #3 is where—
Colt smiles from ear to ear when he opens the door and finds us there. Loud music and laughter pours from the massive apartment behind him. The place is bigger than I expected but there are fewer people. Only twenty bodies or so milling around. For a notorious party boy like Colt, it looks pretty tame.
He immediately puts his arms around me to pull me into a gentle hug that takes my breath away.
“You’re here,” he says quietly into my hair, his chin on the top of my head in an all-encompassing, affectionate way that makes my heart stutter in my chest.
I can only laugh in reply, wrapping my arms around his waist to return the hug.
He releases me slowly, reluctantly, before spotting Rona. He laughs out loud happily when he sees her. “Rona, what’s up girl? Get in here. Give me love.”
Rona doesn’t hesitate to step into his embrace. She hugs him back tightly as he whispers something in her ear. Whatever he says makes her throw her head back with laughter.
“I mean it,” he promises her when he lets her go. “Dude is into it. You’ll love it.”
“You’re insane.”
“You’ll thank you me later.”
“I hope so.”
Colt turns to the room, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Yo! Hibbert! Cut that shit!”
The music comes to an abrupt halt. All eyes turn attentively to Colt.
He comes to stand behind Rona and I. His hands land on my shoulders, squeezing lightly. “Everybody, this is Lilly. Say ‘Hi, Lilly’.”
“Hi, Lilly!” the room shouts as a whole. Glasses are raised in my direction.
I blush furiously. “Hey.”
“Lilly is off limits!”
“Boo!” a guy shouts in the back.
Colt points at him menacingly. “I’ll break your face, Lowry! I fuckin’ mean it!”
The guy laughs, his barrel chest shaking happily. He’s probably the same age as Colt but a little bigger. A little more intimidating, though Colt doesn’t seem to see it.
He steps behind Rona, gripping her shoulders the same way he did mine. “This is Rona.”
“Hi, Rona!” the room cheers obediently.
Rona does not blush. She drinks in the attention, throwing her arm proudly in the air. “What’s up, everybody?!”
“Rona is not off limits,” Colt tells them. “In fact, the first guy who gets off his ass and gets Rona a drink gets the first dance with her, and boys, she likes to dance dirty. Swayze dirty.”
Four men make a run for the kitchen. I’m guessing that’s where the booze is. There’s shouting, banging, and a very troubling crash before two of them come racing back out with beers in their hands. Rona laughs when they come to a screeching halt in front of her. It’s a clear tie.
She looks at the bottles they’ve brought, checking the labels. Rolling Rock and an IPA from a brewery I don’t recognize. Rona hates IPAs, but she loves brown eyes and the guy who brought her the mystery beer is sporting a big ole pair of ‘em. I’m not surprised when she theatrically plucks the bottle from his hands.
A round of applause goes up through the room.
And just like that, I’ve lost my wingman.
She follows the guy to the other side of the room, smiling and listening intently as he shows her a battle scar on his arm from his race to win her attention. She fits right in immediately, seamlessly, the way she always does in every situation. She’s a lot like Colt in that way. People love her instinctively. There’s something uninhibited and exciting about them both that draws people in and makes them want to be part of the party.
I’m too mellow for that. I’m the person you come to when you want peace and quiet and a gentle hand. The one who’s there for you when you’re nursing a hangover, compliments of the party.
“I might have sold your friend for a beer,” Colt apologizes from behind me. “Sorry about that.”
“She’s gotten herself out of worse. She’s very resourceful.”
“Can she actually dance? I was talking out my ass there.”
“She can. Really well. Your Swayze reference wasn’t a lie.”
“What about you?”
“I carried a watermelon.”
He frowns. “What?”
“It’s a line from the movie. Baby, she carries a… you know what, never mind. No. I can’t dance. Or I can, but I don’t. For the good of the nation.”
Colt chuckles, raising his hand to someone across the room. He spins it in the air and the music kicks back on, the bass rumbling in my chest. “That’s very patriotic of you. Do you drink for your country?”
“I’d drink for the enemy if they had the right brew.”
“Let’s see if we’ve got what you need, traitor.”
He takes my hand to pull me behind him through the crowd. It parts for him. Hand to God. The sea breaks for the man as we cross the huge open loft to the kitchen area tucked in the far left corner. All of the appliances are stainless. All of the cupboards a beautiful honey colored wood. There’s a massive island in the middle with a range and a second sink. A big guy with a bushy beard and a shaved head is hunched in the corner with a broom in one hand and a pan in the other. He’s sweeping broken bottle shards up off the polished cement floor.
“Did we suffer a casualty, Shane?” Colt asks him.
Shane scowls at him. “You sent those dumb fucks racing in here and banging around. Kyle knocked my beer out of my hand.”
“If it makes you feel a
ny better, he won.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Sorry, man.”
Shane shakes his head over the mess, grumbling, “My one night away from my wife and kids and I’m still cleaning up after toddlers.”
“Lefao,” Colt tells me covertly. “He’s the center. Married. Three kids. We’re his only excitement. He sounds mad but he loves it. Beats changing diapers.”
“Not by much!” Shane shouts.
Colt smiles as he grabs me a beer out of a bucket on the island. It’s another IPA, this one from a different brewery I’ve never heard of.
I take it, reading the label. The place is in Oregon. “Are you a big beer fan?”
He twists the top off for me with a shrug. “I don’t know. It all tastes pretty much the same to me. Why?”
“You have a lot of different kinds here.”
“I get ‘em for free.” He launches the cap toward the far sink. It drops in dead center. “People send me cases. They want me to try them and think about advertising for them.”
“Wow. Have you chosen one?”
“I won’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to advertise alcohol.”
His tone is gentle but final. I don’t ask any more questions about it.
“The paparazzi are outside,” a woman laments behind us. “Please tell me you didn’t call them, Colt.”
Colt and I turn to find a couple standing behind us. They’re that ethereal brand of people that’s only manufactured in L.A. Even if they weren’t born here, pretty people find their way to the city and it assimilates them, making them one of its own, proudly slapping its brand on them. L.A. pulls in pretties like the eye of a tornado gathers double wides.
The guy is slightly taller than Colt. He has glossy black hair and gorgeous brown skin. Definitely from the islands. I recognize his face from earlier this year when I watched the Draft with my dad. Trey something. A quarterback. His draft position was an upset. It’s the only reason I remember him. Well, that and his eyes. They’re so dark they almost look black and I think Rona would shit herself sideways if she looked into them.
At his side is a blond. She’s everything I imagined in Scenario #1 – Bitch Beauties. Perfect hair, perfect makeup, perfect skin, perfect dress, perfect purse. Heels you could win a knife fight with.
A smile you could be best friends with.
“You guys finally made it,” Colt greets them.
He and Trey do that bro thing where they clasp hands and hug briefly, pounding each other on the back. When Colt turns to the women to kiss her on both cheeks I feel a small, sick sense of jealousy.
“Kurtis let us in,” she tells him.
Colt’s eyes go big in amazement. “Matthews is here?”
“The anti-social guy from the parking lot?” I ask.
“What parking lot?” the girl asks.
“We saw him late the other night at the stadium.”
She casts Colt an impatient look. “Jesus, man, I thought you liked her. Take her somewhere nice. Not the fucking stadium. It smells like beer, brats, and sweaty man ass.”
“It was fun,” I tell her, stepping up to Colt’s defense. “It was really great, actually.”
I’m surprised when she grins instead of arguing with me. “He can make just about anything fun. It’s one of his many disturbing talents.” She offers me her hand. “I’m Sloane, by the way.”
Her handshake is hard. Assertive, without being aggressive.
“Right, sorry,” Colt apologizes. He points to each of us in turn. “The Hotness, the agent. Trey, the quarterback. Lilly, the beautiful baker.”
Trey smiles at me politely before asking Colt, “Did you not know Kurtis was here?”
“No fucking clue! I’ve been at the door almost all night and I never saw him come in. Where is he?”
“He went over by the windows to chat up a brunette.”
“Raven,” Sloane corrects.
“What’s Raven?”
“And is it so Raven or just kind of Raven?” Colt adds.
“Her hair,” Sloane answers, ignoring Colt. “It’s not brunette. It’s raven. It’s black.”
“Why does that matter?” Trey asks.
She shrugs. “I guess it doesn’t.”
“Then why bring it up?”
“Because I love to drive you crazy.”
He grins affectionately. “You’re a very talented woman.”
“I gotta see this,” Colt mutters as he pushes past Trey.
Trey follows quickly on his heels.
Sloane reaches around me to blindly grab a bottle from the bucket. She pops the top and tosses it into the sink the way Colt did. Nothing but net.
“Come on,” she tells me with a nod toward the living area. “Let’s grab a seat on the couch. The later the night gets the more the kitchen becomes a hazard zone and if one of these guys spills beer on my shoes, he’s getting blood on his shirt.”
I follow her willingly, happy to have an ally again after losing mine at the door. “Are there really paparazzi outside?”
“Oh, only a few. They probably followed one of the boys here from a club looking for a story. They’ll leave soon. This is a small party and I don’t think Colt’s invited any big names that aren’t on the team.”
“Does he normally invite celebrities to stuff like this?”
“Every time.” She drifts down effortlessly into a corner of a long leather couch, leaving room for me to sit next to her. “But he held back tonight. Kept it small.”
“Why?”
She eyes me steadily. “Because of you.”
“Me?”
“He told me you’re not a fan of fame, so he kept it low key. To be honest, I don’t blame you. It’s some real bullshit. I see tabloids all the time telling me that Trey is out banging eight other women a week and that I’m home alone crying my eyes out. First of all, my man is faithful as the sun. Second, I don’t cry. It’s all lies and exaggerations.”
“Do they exaggerate Colt?”
She hesitates, her face blank, and I think that non-answer is a pretty big answer. “Yes and no,” she replies vaguely. “He’s out there, he’s a partier, women love him. None of that’s a lie. But it’s not the whole story, and right now it’s not the right narrative at all.”
“What’s his story now?”
Sloane smiles. “Right now his story is about you.”
I feel myself start to blush again. I wish I could make it stop. I wish I could be stronger than this, more controlled, but when it comes to Colt I can’t. The butterflies go into full swing where he’s concerned and I turn into a malleable mass of emotions and expressions. I’m reforming, reshaping, becoming something old and familiar on the inside. Something happy. Something sweet. I’m becoming me again. Me before the bakery hijacked my life. Before Cassie crushed us all under the weight of her shadow. Before my dad and I started to fall apart.
Me, a girl who could definitely see herself falling for a guy like Colt.
CHAPTER TWENTY
COLT
Kurtis is gone. He was here for all of twenty minutes, then he disappeared as mysteriously as he appeared, taking the raven haired girl with him.
Taking Rona.
“She left with him?” Lilly asks, shocked. She pulls out her phone to check it.
“That’s my guess. They vanished at the same time.”
“Wait, Kurtis was actually talking to someone?” Sloane asks in disbelief.
I turn my phone toward her. “I took pictures. I wanted to be able to prove it. Like when you see aliens or sasquatch.”
“Wait, when you see them?” Trey clarifies. “Not if?”
“Yeah.”
“Avery, do you think sasquatch is real?”
“Son of a bitch,” Lilly mutters. She’s reading a message. “She did. She left with him. She ditched me.”
“No fucking way,” Sloane breathes.
I shake my head. “This is blowing my mind.”
>
“What are you talking about?” Trey asks. “I’m happy for him. He should get some. It’s about time.” He cringes in Lilly’s direction. “Sorry, that’s your friend. I should have phrased that differently, but you know what I mean.”
She shrugs, stowing her phone. “If she wants to get some strange, she should get some strange. I’m not gonna hate.”
“Did you drive here?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “No. We took a cab together.”
“You live together?”
“Since we moved out after high school.”
“Can I drive you home?”
“I’ll take a cab back. We’ve all been drinking.”
“I haven’t.”
She looks to my hands, somehow surprised to find them empty. They’ve been empty all night. “You haven’t, have you?”
“Not a drop.”
“But it’s your party.”
“I wanted to stay sober.”
“Why?”
“So I could drive you home,” I answer honestly.
She hesitates before smiling at me. It’s different than her bittersweet smile. It’s smoldering in a way that makes me anxious and agitated.
“Who says I’m going home?” she asks slyly.
That question fucks me up. It takes me by surprise and sends me into high gear where I want to pounce on her. Kiss her. Sex her. Marry her.
I settle for taking her hand, pulling her off her seat on the couch and onto my lap. She drapes her arm around my neck, smiling down at me as my arms go around her waist, and I can’t imagine a better feeling than this. Than being with her and that look in her eyes that’s unguarded in a way I unlocked the night I kissed her. The warmth on the other side of her frost that’s hotter than the sun in July.
“I thought we were going slow,” I remind her quietly, privately.
“We are. I was planning on stealing your bed. You can have your couch.”
“This isn’t my couch, and that’s not my bed.”
She blinks, confused. “What?”
“This isn’t my apartment.”
“Whose is it?”
“My mom’s. She rents it out to execs in town on business and families on vacation. I don’t live here.”
