Dark Wild Night

“It’s a matter of fact,” he says. “Fucking chickens are going to be our ruination.”


Lola finger-shoots herself in the head and pretends to collapse onto me, convulsing in fake death. Her hair sweeps across my arm, my skin bare beyond the short sleeve of my T-shirt, and for the first time I don’t fight the urge to touch it. I cup my hand over her scalp and slide it down, dragging my fingers through her hair.

She tilts her head and looks up at me. “Oliver must be drunk,” she announces in a slur, though it seems I’m the only one who hears her.

“Why’s that?” I ask. My smile down at her is a subconscious thing; instinct in response to her proximity.

“Because you’re touching me,” she says a little more quietly.

I lean back a little to see her face better. “I touch you plenty.”

She shakes her head and it’s slow and lolling against my arm, finally thumping back against the booth. “Like a buddy. That was like a lover.”

My blood turns to mercury. If only she knew. “Was it?”

“Mm-hmm.” She looks tired, eyelids heavily demanding rest.

“Sorry then, Lola Love,” I say, brushing her bangs to the side of her forehead.

She shakes her head dramatically, one side completely to the other. “Don’t be. You’re my hero.”

I laugh, but she sits up in a surprising burst of movement and says, “I’m serious. What would I do without you right now?” She points to Harlow. “She’s married.” She points to Mia. “She’s married, too.”

Apparently having tuned in, London leans forward. “I’m not married.”

“No,” Lola says, giving her an enormous, drunken grin. “But you’re always surfing. Or bartending. Or busy rejecting men.”

Joe nods, and London slaps his chest playfully.

“So, Oliver is my hero,” she says, turning back to me. “My rock. My sounding rod.” Her eyebrows come together. “Lightning rod?”

“Sounding board,” I whisper.

“Right.” She snaps. “That.” Lola lowers her voice and leans in close. So close my heart is a stuttering, wild thing in my throat. “Don’t you ever leave me.”

“I won’t,” I tell her. Fuck. I couldn’t. I want to wrap her up and carry her around, protecting her from all of the insincere, greedy people she’s destined to meet.

“Don’t,” she says, holding a weaving, threatening, drunken finger in my face.

I lean in, biting the tip, and her eyes go wide. “I won’t,” I say around it, and fuck if I don’t want to lean in farther and nip her lips, too.





Chapter THREE


Lola

I’M A ZOMBIE before coffee, especially after a night of shots and celebration and who knows what else. I don’t even remember walking home from the bar, so I don’t fully believe my eyes when I find Oliver asleep on my couch at 7 a.m.

He’s sprawled awkwardly, so long and angled. One of his feet is flat on the floor; the other hangs over the end of the couch. His shirt rides up to his ribs, exposing a flat stomach cut down the middle with a dark line of hair. Limp-legged, arms askew, and with his neck at an angle that will be sore when he wakes . . .

He’s really here, and he looks amazing.