No fucking way. That little bitch, again? That… Sydney, Gigi’s bestie. She can’t keep out of trouble, can she? And she just knows all the places where she can get drugs. Not a good sign, if she’s playing the innocence card with Gigi.
Yeah, these guys scream danger. It’s not the way they’re dressed. The looks on their faces give them away. Blank. Hard. Used to violence.
But I’m not doing this. Hell, I didn’t even strike a deal with Gigi. This is none of my fucking business.
Then one of them snarls something and shoves the girl—Sydney—away so hard she stumbles and falls down on her ass, and I’m moving before I know it, the bottle still clutched in my hand. My only thought is getting between the girl and the assholes.
“Back off,” I snarl, a red tinge falling over my gaze like a bloodied shroud. “Don’t you touch her.”
“Who the hell are you?” one of them asks, his voice echoing strangely in my ears. “This ain’t none of your fucking business.”
He comes for me, and dammit, he’s right, this is none of my business, but my head is fucked, and I think it’s Seb shoving at me, I think it’s the punks at the halfway house manhandling me, and the red thickens, distorting everything.
The guy throws a punch, I turn, catching it on my upraised arm, and swing the bottle at the other guy who’s trying to ambush me from the other side. The bottle connects, and he cries out, stumbling away—just enough for me to focus on the first guy.
He’s pulling something from his pocket—and I think it’s a gun, but it’s probably a switchblade. Yeah, I was right. I snap my hips, putting force into my blow as I chop at his arm, making him groan and drop the knife.
In my mind’s eye, I’m at the halfway house, trying to stop the other boys from taking my stuff, from putting me out of commission and eating my dinner.
But Connor taught me this move, in his backyard. He taught me to shoot, and disarm, what the law says and how fucking dangerous gangs are.
The guy kicks at my leg, and I stagger back, cursing. The shift from memory to the here and now is disconcerting.
“Fuck off,” I grunt. “She’s with me.”
“Then tell her not to poke her nose where it doesn’t belong,” the guy says, and throws a punch that glances off my jaw. “Stay the hell out of it, too. Got it?”
Stumbling back a step, spitting blood, I nod.
Just go away, I think. Go away. I’m not sure I can fight much longer with the way my knee is hurting.
Thankfully, he grabs his friend who’s bleeding from a cut over his eye and is giving me the stink-eye, and they walk away, out onto the street and into the night.
My jaw is throbbing in time to my racing heart, my knee is misery, and as I turn around to check on Sydney, my boots crunch on the pieces of the broken bottle. The fumes of vodka make the usual dizziness I get after a flashback worse, and I weave on my feet.
I reach down for Sydney anyway, offering a hand. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
But she’s staring past me at something—or someone, I realize when I hear footsteps behind me.
Then a familiar female voice says, “What in the world just happened here?”
It hadn’t occurred to me what Sydney’s presence meant until now— that where this Sydney is, Gigi follows.
I turn unsteadily around, and sure enough, there she is, like a vision from a dream—a fucking wet dream, in a short black dress and tall boots, her cleavage dipping to show the swells of her tits, her white-blond hair caught in a tall ponytail that’s still swinging, even if she’s now standing still in front of me.
I blink. Jesus fuck.
She’s always been hot, but seeing her for the first time in the bright light of the lanterns is a revelation. The grungy girl I knew has turned into a woman, all sexy curves and a full mouth made for kissing, and I’m gaping like an idiot, my brain blank and my dick hard.
“Jarett?” she whispers, sounding incredulous. Her brows draw together. “What’s going on, I… Syd?”
Suddenly she’s in motion again, and my addled brain can’t follow quickly enough. Fuck, I need to sit down somewhere, and right now even sitting down on my ass on the wet grass with Gigi’s bestie sounds good.
But Gigi is dragging Sydney back on her feet and back toward the house, hissing questions at her—asking what happened, I guess, and why I’m here.
They get inside, and the door closes behind them.
The fuck?