I went to the table with a card with my name on it. Noah was supposed to sit on one side of me and Anna on the other. Across from me would be my father and his wife. There were two other couples whose names I couldn’t remember, but Dad had said I needed to show them the most charming and perfect version possible of William Leister’s offspring.
Not two seconds after I sat down, Anna appeared next to me. I could smell her perfume as soon as she did, and I leaned over to take a sip of the bloodred wine that had been poured into all the glasses.
“Where’s your sister?” she asked insolently.
“She’s upset because some guy cheated on her.”
Anna laughed. It pissed me off, honestly.
“It’s to be expected. She’s a little girl,” Anna said, and I could sense the contempt in her voice.
I observed her for a moment as I analyzed her response. She sure seemed to dislike Noah even though she barely knew her. It was true she must not have appreciated Noah punching me in the face the night before.
“Talk to me about something else. It’s enough having her in my house,” I said, setting my glass back on the table.
Without realizing it, though, my eyes were already scanning the room for Noah. Most of the guests had already sat down, but she was at the bar on the other side of the room waiting for the bartender to come over.
I stood up when I saw who it was and walked over firmly. I was absolutely not going to let Mario get to know my new stepsister. But I got there too late, hearing the words “See you at the door in five minutes.”
“In five minutes, you’ll be sitting in a limousine waiting to go back home,” I interrupted them.
“Hello to you, too, Nick,” she said.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Mario was part of my past, and he absolutely couldn’t get acquainted with Noah. It was too risky. He clearly knew what I was thinking, and that was why he hadn’t hesitated one second to suck up to her.
“Not everything concerns you, Nicholas,” Noah said, and I had the urge to shut her up. “Can I have my phone back?” she asked, stretching out the palm of her hand. There wasn’t a trace of the tears I’d seen in her eyes before. Nothing. She was cold as ice. “Today, not next year please.”
She was pushing it that night. Mario laughed and raised his hands as if to say he was giving up.
“I wouldn’t mess with her,” he said, as though he’d known her his whole life.
“Noah, stop playing. You don’t even know him,” I told her, trying to reason with her, while I took the phone out of my pocket and slapped it down on her hand.
“I guess you do? Anyway, for your information, I’m going to those races you’re trying so hard to keep secret.”
I stepped in close.
“What have you been smoking, little girl? You better stay as far as you can from where I’m going, hear me?”
But Noah wasn’t daunted.
“I can go and not say a word about where we’re going tonight, or I can stay here and tell your father everything. Your call.”
Goddammit!
I didn’t get the attitude. Most girls, if their boyfriend cheated on them, would break down and run off to cry in a corner for days, and her reaction was to try to get under my skin?
I was tired of all this. I couldn’t waste my life dealing with her. I turned around and went back to my table. My biggest worry was that my father would find out what I was up to when I was out of the house. I’d always tried to keep my private and family lives apart, and now I had this miserable little snotnose here who not only didn’t care what I said, she had even decided to get mixed up in my business.
After about twenty minutes, I stood up and went to the bar, where my father and his new wife were drinking and chatting with a couple of friends. When he saw me coming over, he smiled, and when I got there, he clapped me on the back. I hated that. I needed my space, and the fact that he was the one invading it only made matters worse.
“Are you headed out already?” he asked. There was no reproach in his tone. Good. That meant I could leave without any problems.
“Yeah,” I said, leaving my drink on a bar table. “I’ve got to get up early tomorrow to keep working on the case.”
My father nodded.
“Noah already went home, so don’t worry about it. You look tired. Go on home.”
I nodded, satisfied, and walked out with Anna at my side.
11
Noah
My mind was cloudy. The only thing that mattered to me was payback. Major payback. I kept thinking over and over about Dan’s and Beth’s lips touching. It was disgusting. Just imagining it made me want to throw up. I saw everything in red. I was blinded by hatred, pain, and a profound need for revenge.
I was in my closet taking off my clothes, and on the other side of the wall was a boy I’d just met two hours ago who was patiently waiting on my bed for me to finish. I couldn’t show up at the races in a ball gown, let alone in stiletto heels. I put on a pair of jean shorts, a blue tank top, and some ordinary sandals. You couldn’t look like a Goody Two-shoes in a place like that, so I was happy to have on all that makeup, even if it wasn’t my usual thing. I pulled the goddamn bobby pins out of my hair—I must have had a hundred in—let my long hair down, and then pulled it back in a ponytail.
I had exactly one thought in my head: hooking up with the hottest and baddest guy there. That would make me feel satisfied, less used, less deceived, and like less of an idiot, even if deep down I knew none of that could erase reality: I was destroyed and struggling to hold my heart together.
Had Beth told Dan everything I’d confessed to her? Had they laughed at me while I was still trying to give it my all in my first and only relationship? Had they planned this?
I took a deep breath and tried to swallow the pain.
When I stepped out, Mario, the bartender I’d just met, stared at me admiringly, and I knew I’d achieved the effect I was going for.
“You look good,” he said. He smiled, and I responded in kind but unenthusiastically. I wasn’t in the mood for stupid compliments.
“Thanks,” I said, grabbing my bag off the bed and heading for the door. “Shall we?”
Mario stood up and followed me, and soon, we were climbing into his car.
* * *
Half an hour later, Mario turned off onto a secondary road surrounded by dry fields and red-and-orange dust. As we drove on, I could no longer hear the cars on the freeway. Instead it was just repetitive music getting louder and louder.
“You ever done something like this before?” Mario asked, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the back of my seat.
“I’ve been in quite a few races, yeah,” I said in a surly tone.
He looked over and then back at the road. Then I saw tons of people in the distance and neon lights around a deserted area full of badly parked cars.
The music was deafening. The people there were between twenty and thirty. Everyone was drinking, dancing, and partying like this was the last day of their lives. Mario stopped close to where most of them were and got out, waiting for me to do the same.
“What is this place?” I asked him, and he chuckled.
“Don’t worry, these are the spectators. The important people are the ones over there,” he said, pointing to the left, where a big group of guys and girls were lying on the hoods of fancy souped-up cars with god-awful music blasting from their trunks.
I saw fluorescent fabrics all around, and beneath the headlights—which were the main source of light out there—they glowed brightly. Many of the girls had painted their bodies and even their faces in fluorescent paint.
“I see you pay attention to the details,” Mario said. I had no idea what he was talking about. But then he pointed at my chest, and I saw that whatever my mother had sprayed all over me was now shining on my pale skin like a thousand little fluorescent dots. Ridiculous.
“Honestly, I had no idea,” I said.
“Still and all, it’s for the best,” he said, looking at my shorts and my shirt. “Not just anyone can come here, and no offense, but you’re dressed a little more modestly than most people here.”