Marlow steps forward, her brass balls hanging out and proud. “You can’t stop her—that’s not your job. It’s like when the Bush twins got busted in that bar with fake IDs or Malia was snapped smoking pot at Coachella. Secret Service couldn’t stop them; they just had to make sure they didn’t get killed.”
Tommy slips his hands in his pockets, laid back even when he’s being a hardass. “We could call her sister. Even from an ocean away, I’d bet she’d stop her.”
“No!” I jump a little. “No, don’t bother Liv. I don’t want her worrying.”
“We could board up the fucking doors and windows,” Logan suggests.
’Cause that’s not overkill or anything.
I move in front of the two security guards and plead my case. “I get why you’re concerned, okay? But I have this thing—it’s like my motto. I want to suck the lemon.”
Tommy’s eyes bulge. “Suck what?”
I laugh, shaking my head. Boys are stupid.
“You know that saying, ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’?—well, I want to suck the lemon dry.”
Neither of them seems particularly impressed.
“I want to live every bit of life, experience everything it has to offer, good and bad.” I lift my jeans to show my ankle—and the little lemon I’ve drawn there. “See? When I’m eighteen, I’m going to get this tattooed on for real. As a reminder to live as much and as hard and as awesome as I can—to not take anything for granted. And having my friends over tonight is part of that.”
I look back and forth between them. Tommy’s weakening—I can feel it. Logan’s still a brick wall.
“It’ll be small. And quiet—I swear. Totally controlled. And besides, you guys will be here with me. What could go wrong?”
Everything.
Everything goes fucking wrong.
By ten thirty the dining room of the coffee shop is wall-to-wall people standing shoulder-to-shoulder. And I don’t know any of them. There are empty beer bottles and liquor bottles all over the tables and the kitchen smells like a weed dispensary.
How do I get myself into these situations? Why does this happen to me? And where the hell is Marlow?
A sailor pushes past me.
Yes, an actual fucking sailor—like Popeye—in full dress whites. And it’s not even Fleet Week!
“Do you see him too?” I stutter to Logan, who’s glowering so hard beside me, his face may actually freeze in place. And he’d still be sexy as hell.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Logan growls.
I stomp my foot.
Because I am a grown-up. Almost.
“You’re not supposed to say that! You’re not supposed to say, ‘I told you so’—it’s rude!”
“I don’t give a fuck what’s rude; you need to listen to me. Do what I say from this point on, understand?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask what he’ll do if I don’t. Spank me? Tie me up? Handcuff me to his side? If those are the consequences for disobeying Special Agent Sexy-Face, I’m about to become a very naughty girl.
Before I can pose the question, a crash from the kitchen pulls me out of my sultry kink-laced fantasy and back to my sucky reality.
The music is so loud, the wooden chairs are vibrating and it’s only a matter of time before a neighbor calls the cops. I’m tired and—son of a bitch—they’re eating the pies! I spot three—no, four—people standing, talking and shoveling tomorrow’s pies into their mouths with their hands. Dickheads!
“You’re right. I’m calling it. Let’s pull the plug.”
Logan’s dark brown eyes roll to the ceiling. “Finally.”
I twist my hands together, working it all out in my head. “So, maybe you could do that whistling thing with your fingers to get everyone’s attention? And I’ll stand on a chair and say, ‘Thank you all for coming. This has been great. I hope you—’”
That’s when I realize Logan’s not listening. Because he’s not standing next to me anymore. He’s over by the sound system—cutting off the music, then cupping his hands around his mouth. “Get the fuck out!”
Subtlety, thy name is not Logan St. James.
“You could help, you know.”
After the party cleared out, Logan had sent Tommy home—said he would take the night shift and one of the other guys would relieve him in the morning. That he wanted to make sure everything was “set to rights.”
I get the feeling Logan isn’t too good with delegating.
“Why would I do that?” he asks, leaning against the wall, sliding his thumb across his phone screen. “I told you not to have a bloody party.”
Thank Zeus I did my homework right after school, in between filling orders in the kitchen. I have an exam fourth period tomorrow, but I can study at lunch. At the moment, I’m on my hands and knees, scraping and sweeping up the sticky, squashed pie pieces that are stuck to the floor. The recycling bins are filled to the brim with empties, the kitchen is clean and the tables are wiped down. The floor’s the last thing left.
“It would be the gentlemanly thing to do.”
“I’m not a gentleman and I don’t sweep fucking floors.”
“Nice.”
He quirks his head to the side like he’s going to say something else, but before he can, my dad walks through the door.
After two full days.
He lumbers in, not quite staggering, but unsteady on his feet, looking straight ahead.
Like Logan, my dad’s tall—broad—and he’s handsome in a rough, working-man kind of way. The type of guy who showers after work, not before. Or, at least, he used to be.
Now, especially when he’s coming off a bender, he tends to hunch, making him look bent and older than he is. His flannel shirt is wrinkled and dirty and his black-gray hair hangs in his eyes.
“What’s this, Ellie?” he slurs.
And the weird thing is—I hope he yells at me. Grounds me. Takes away my phone. Like a normal parent would, a regular father . . . who actually cared.
“I, uh, had some people over. It got a little crazy. I’ll clean everything up before we open tomorrow.”
He doesn’t even glance my way. Just gives a small, short nod that I notice only because I’m watching so closely.
“I’m goin’ to bed. I’ll be up to help Marty when you leave for school.”
Then he clomps between the tables and through the swinging kitchen door, to the back steps that lead to our apartment upstairs.
I bow my head and go back to cleaning the floor.
A few minutes later without looking up, I tell Logan, “You don’t have to do that, you know.”
“Don’t have to do what?”
“Worry. You’re all tense, like you think he’s going to hurt me or something. He can barely exert the energy to speak to me—he’d never hit me.”
Logan looks down at me with those deep, dark eyes, like he can see straight through me, read my mind.
“It doesn’t have to be his fists. There’s all kinds of ways to hurt people. Isn’t there?”
Usually, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t let it. But the last few days haven’t been usual. And big, giant aching tears well in my eyes.
“He hates me,” I say simply. But then a sob rattles in my chest, shaking my shoulders. “My dad hates me.”
Logan’s brows draw close together, and after a moment, he takes a deep breath. Then, with a grace that’s surprising for a guy his size, he walks over and sinks down onto the floor next to me, legs bent, forearms resting on his knees, back against the wall.