Dec pushes against one before whirling around, shaking his head as if he’s just realized he’s at the wrong door. He turns toward the door directly across the hall, but not before I get a peek at the most elaborate bedroom of all, complete with two topless women lounging in the bed.
I have to work to un-widen my eyes as he steers us into what turns out to be a library.
Maggie walks in first, and Dec leans over near her neck. “You smell good, Mags.”
She preens. “It’s custom. Roja. You know, Roja Dove, the designer who uses odour profiling.”
Dec flashes me a grin, as if he’s both confused and charmed, and Maggie hits him on the arm. “Don’t make fun of me. You said you liked it.”
Declan holds his hands up. “Oh, I do.”
A few minutes later, he’s got a basket of dirt-streaked baseballs on the desk and is scrawling, “To Zelda.” I notice that he signs it, “Homer Carnegie.”
“You like your nickname?”
He winks. “No one asked.”
“You got it from a sports reporter, right?”
He nods. “Good memory. You Southern girls and sports.”
“We like to gamble,” Maggie tells him with a grin.
Dec hands me the ball, then digs into his pocket. He holds out a plastic bag to Maggie. “Swapsies?”
I watch his shoulder muscles ripple through the fabric of his dress shirt as he leans over and blows a line off his desk. He offers some to Maggie, but she shakes her head. “I’m a lightweight.”
He grins. “Wish I was.”
I’m still feeling slightly disappointed—and stupidly na?ve—as we step back into the downstairs hallway. What did I think? That baseball players were all stuck in the 1920s with Babe Ruth?
Declan can probably do whatever he wants. Who would drug test him? He’s too important to the Sox.
Mags and Dec are lost in conversation, pointing at a painting on the wall, when a bleached-blonde girl with pigtails and a super-short red dress walks down the hall toward me.
“Oh my God! Lucy Rhodes!” She throws her skinny arms around me, filling my nose with the sent of Chanel as her ribcage presses into my boobs. When she pulls away, still gazing up into my eyes, I smell vodka. “You are my fucking favorite. The youngest one! The spunky one!”
I nod politely. “That’s me.”
“Oh my God, that time you…” She snaps her fingers, looking drunk. “The thing with the car.”
I nod again, still fake smiling. “I hit my sister Celia’s boyfriend, Chad.”
“Oh yeah.” She snaps again. “He fucked that other girl!”
“He did.” He got another girl pregnant. My hitting him was totally for camera, but this drunk girl didn’t get the message.
“That was fucking awesome,” she slurs. She sticks her hand out. “I’m Jules. From Playboy.”
Right. That’s where I know her from. “Were you Playmate of the Year a little while ago?”
She laughs, a throaty sound. “Yes! Two years ago, in ’14. That reminds me! Can we take a picture? For my Gram?”
It takes a minute for that to compute: she wants to take a picture with me for her Instagram account.
If she’s C-list, I guess I’m B-list, I think cynically.
My mouth is hung in smile purgatory when a waiter comes by, handing both of us flutes of chardonnay.
I take a long sip, then another and another while she gabs about how much she loves the show. My toes are crossed in my Louboutins that she’s forgotten the picture.
No such luck. Her lashes flutter like she might pass out, but then she rouses, bumping into me. “Oh my God, the picture! Righttt.”
She holds her iPhone up, and I pray for some distraction. Anything. I grit my teeth.
And into the hallway steps Bryce Parsons.
I blink at his familiar face as glass shatters, something liquid spilling on my toes.
THREE Lucy
Adrenaline surges through my body, and I do the dumbest thing I can: I open the stairwell door and fly upstairs—where all the bedrooms are. To the one place in the house where there’s no exit.
All the pain and terror from that night—the things I didn’t feel—rush through my body, two years late. I can barely make it up the steep, slick, hardwood stairs, my shoes slipping, my hand clawing the bannister. As I near the second-story doorway, I hear footsteps echo off the stairs behind me, and the rush through my head and chest is so strong I almost freeze, like in a nightmare.
A slap of cool air hits my cheeks as I burst into the upstairs hall. Right, then left. I don’t know where to go! I dart to the right—Dec’s bed had girls in it!—and time stretches into soup while my heart pounds and my hands fumble with the doorknob.
I’m so lost in my horror, I don’t notice someone is behind me until I hear a voice. I whirl.
“Whoa…” It’s the girl from downstairs. The drunken Playmate. Her arms are out, as if she wants to grab my shoulders. She holds her hands up as her eyes stretch wide. “Are you okay?”
I can’t think, just want to get away from her. Get inside the room to safety. I nod automatically, then rush inside Dec’s room. Where I blink at a tangle of bare bodies on the bed.
That guy’s not Dec…
The Playmate touches me, saying something. I back away, my feet moving me toward the wall as I stare at the scene in front of me.
The man-bun guy. That’s him, there in the middle. One blonde girl is licking at his chest. The other has her hand in his unzipped pants. So it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that the guy’s eyes are widened in alarm. His hands are pushing at the girls.
The Playmate touches my arm, then tries to wrap her arm around me. I can’t help it: I start sobbing.
Distantly, I’m aware of people moving. I sense more than see Man Bun moving toward me, and for some reason, that makes me cry harder. I hear his low voice vibrate through the air and hear the Playmate say something. But I’m not processing.
“I’m so tired,” I murmur, tugging on his hand. “Let’s lay down for just a minute.”
“There’s a party going on downstairs.”
“I know…but you’re the host. Surely you can take a minute off. Don’t you want to snuggle with your girlfriend?”
“No. I don’t.” He wraps his arms around me, pulling me against his chest before he throws me on his big bed. “I want to fuck my girlfriend.”
I land on my back and bounce, then pull myself up, hands over my knees. “Bryce, I’m tired. I was up all night talking to Maggie about Benjamin.”
His eyes go weird. At first, I think it’s something to do with Maggie, but as he crawls toward me, taking my arms in big hands, I forget about them. “All the better.” Bryce squeezes my wrists.
“What do you mean, all the better?” I try to tug away from him, but Bryce won’t let me go. He does this sometimes. Like he’s playing around, but it’s just…weird.
I pull a little harder. “Bryce, that hurts! Lay down with me and I’ll jerk you off if you’re so horny.”
“I don’t need that, Lucy. I’ve got my own hands.”
My heart is pounding as I pull against his grip. “I’ve got a mouth.” My voice is shaking. His eyes are still weird. Like…over-focused. “Bryce…this isn’t funny. Let my arms go.”
“I don’t think it is.”
“Let go!”
He laughs as I kick at him. “You never give it to me when I want it. You’re a tease.”
“No I’m not. You’re freaking me out.”