“Ha, found it.” I filled up a glass with some tap water and turned around to hand it to her, but in the seconds between her last words, she’d rested her head on the counter and was now snoring up a storm.
I stood and stared at her for several seconds, wondering what had changed about her since I’d left for college seven years ago. She’d been ten at the time, and although I was there for her, I was also too busy hanging with my friends and visiting with my baby sister. I’d forgotten about her somewhere along the way, and I wasn’t sure anyone else hadn’t either.
She was the quiet girl in the corner. The one you could trust to sit and wait for you for several hours. The one you trusted not to get into trouble. But was that really who she was? It was a Friday night, and I’d found her drunk at the bar.
I wasn’t sure I knew the Aria in front of me anymore, but that made me all the more determined to get to know who she was now.
* * *
ARIA
My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth, thanks to the dryness of my throat. That, coupled with the banging inside my brain, told me I was hungover. My stomach rolled at the memory of the shots I’d downed, and I groaned and rolled over. My eyelids cracked open a little and closed back up, and it took me a couple of seconds for them to fling open at what I’d seen.
This wasn’t my room.
My room wasn’t gray with an open blind. And I certainly didn’t have a huge comfortable bed at my disposal. Where in the ever-loving hell was I?
I stayed still, so very still I resembled a statue. My ears perked up, and I heard voices. Several voices I didn’t know—voices that made me hyperventilate. I tried to take stock of where I was because I needed an escape plan, one where I could get out of this house without anyone noticing.
Tentatively, I pulled the covers back, thankful all my clothes were still attached to my body. That was a good sign, right?
My cell sat on the nightstand, and I grabbed for it, opening up my messages, about to ask Hope what the hell happened last night. But what I saw had my eyes widening and my brain even more puzzled than it was before.
Hope: Where are you? I’ve searched the bar, but I can’t see you.
Hope: Holy shit. Some teachers are here!
Hope: If you don’t answer me, I’m going to call your mom.
Aria: I’m fine. I got a ride home from Sal. Call you tomorrow.
The grammar and punctuation on my text meant it wasn’t me. Who the hell had sent this, and—
“Aria?” My eyes widened at the rough voice, and I nearly squealed when a knock rang on the bedroom door. “You awake?”
Cade? How the hell had I ended up…
Oh, shit.
The memories from the night before were resurfacing and slapping me right in the face. What had I gotten myself into?
“I…I’m awake,” I croaked out, my voice sounding nothing like my own. I wasn’t sure whether it was because I’d just woken up, or because I’d drunk my weight in alcohol last night.
The door creaked open slowly, and then Cade’s face was in view, along with the shorts and tight T-shirt he’d decided to torture me with today. Could a girl not catch a break? I was over here hungover with breath that could rival a skunk, and he was…well, he was Cade.
“How you feeling?”
I gripped my head and flopped back on the bed. Now that I knew whose house I was in, I was no longer in immediate danger. “Like I got run over by a truck.” His laugh echoed around us, and I hated him even more for the way my ears loved the sound.
“I’m gonna head out and get some breakfast now that my furniture has been delivered. You can take a shower while I’m gone.”
I rolled over and stared at him. Really stared at him. He was taller than he had been the last time I’d seen him nearly five years ago, but the Cade I knew was still in there. This was just a more grown-up, muscular version of him.
“I’d like that,” I murmured.
He took a step forward, but his gaze didn’t move off mine. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I couldn’t have been the only one to feel the tension in the air. Goose bumps sprang over my skin the closer he got, and when he handed me one of his T-shirts and some shorts, my breath stalled in my throat.
I reached forward to take them from him, and my fingertips grazed against his. There wasn’t an electric shock that happened, not like they talked about in the books. It was more of a fizzle that slowly boiled over, something just starting out but refusing to be ignored.