I’m practically hyperventilating as I run into the bathroom, shutting, and locking the door behind me to give the solace of privacy, even if the lock is flimsy and even a child could pick it. Peyton who has apparently reached the limit in her understanding without questions doesn’t wait for my racing heart to slow before pouncing on me.
“What the hell, girl! You said you weren’t sleeping with anyone?” She turns on me, whispering her outburst so they don’t hear her through the door.
I grit my teeth, wondering how the hell I’m going to get out of this without just telling her something. I don’t want to lie to her. A smile cracks over her mouth and I know that whatever comes out next is fully intended to piss me off and I shouldn’t react.
“He’s pretty cute. If you’re not sleeping with him, may I…”
I react. “No!”
She scoffs like I’m so obvious, waving her hands dismissively at me. “Of course, no. Briar, you know I’d never do that to you.”
I snatch her hands and hold them tightly, ensuring that she’s looking me in the eye before saying. “No, Peyton. I meant it, just no. I’m not fucking him, I never have. But promise me you’ll stay away from him.” I must look panicked because Peyton’s eyes widen at my outburst before she’s nodding her agreement.
“Okay girl. I was only joking anyway. Besides he looks like a heart breaker.” He’s more than that. He’d rip out your heart just to watch how it breaks. I say nothing, and when I’m dressed in jeans and a v cut long sleeve, my hair up in a loose bun, we rejoin the guys.
It takes Jack the walk to my bed to grab my shoes before he starts in on me. “He’s not the same guy you were pawing at the other week. Do you just spread those pretty thighs for anyone with a rap sheet?” Despite his harsh words, he leans back on the dining chair, his head tipped back towards the ceiling and his eye’s closed like the conversation holds no interest to him.
Peyton, the look in my eyes still fresh in her mind, grabs his shoulder and softly whispers, “Jack, shut up.” Whatever he sees when he looks at her gives him pause, but he does, spreading out the containers on the dining table. My mouth waters at the sight but I know Clarke is waiting outside. I get to the door before I take a final glance over my shoulder, watching them all around the table, sitting, laughing, fighting over food like it’s the most nature thing in the world. It’s strikingly similar to my favorite daydream and it sits like lead in my throat as I realise, just like when I try be apart of it in my imagination, I can’t be there now too.
Chapter Thirteen
The restaurant is up-class and ridiculous. I feel like a out of place in my jeans and long sleeve shirt beside the glittering dresses of the other women here. Clarke waltzes in past the maître d without a backwards glance and seats himself at a table in the center of the room.
My feet slow as I see him seat himself, looking undeterred by the location when I know that he prefers a booth. A booth provides a semblance of privacy, this table is exposed and instead of easing my rising tension, it pushes me further on edge. I discreetly look at the neighboring tables, but no one is paying us attention. There is a stiffness in how the couples interact with each other, in the grip on the wine glasses, in their straight postures.
The bulge in the breast pockets of a man gives me pause and looking at the others with a more critical eye. Guns. Every person here is packing. I straighten my spine and seat myself on the opposite side of Clarke, wishing more than ever that we did have that booth, allowing me to keep everyone here in my eyeline. From my location, I know there’s danger coming at me from all sides, and from the sinister smirk on Clarke’s face, he’s enjoying how on edge I am.
A waiter comes around asking about drinks, but I refuse. I’m not touching a single thing while we are here, especially since it is clear that Clarke has set up this entire night. I can’t let down my guard, even if my stomach is playing the role of cantankerous bitch, moaning at the fact I’ve missed out on Chinese food. I can’t take the risk that something could be slipped into my drink, and at this sort of establishment there’s no way I’d be given an unopened bottle.
Clarke nurses the whiskey in his glass as he stares at me in silence. I’ve played this game with him before and know better to keep my mouth shut for now. And that’s the way we stay, in silence as his meal of steak so rare that blood oozes from every saw of his knife, while I carefully monitor my surroundings. I can see the occasion twitch of movement in my periphery and the two men over Clarke’s shoulder keep glancing in our direction.
I think about excusing myself to the restroom, if only to try to pull myself together, but refrain from trapping myself in a deserted hall where I can be ambushed. When I see three men striding out of that direction and glaring this way, a shiver runs down my spine, knowing I’ve made the right call, no matter how much my bladder protests.
“You’ve disappointed me.” His voice is smooth, like honey, but I feel the menace in them. I move my attention back over to him and gulp, nodding once. I know I have. I fold my hands together on the table and wait for him to continue as he leans back in his chair, scrubbing his face in one hand and twirling the steak knife uselessly in the other.
“I hear nothing from you for a week. You’ve ignored me. If that weren’t bad enough, I had to have that little rich fuck escort me to your room.” He leans forward at this, stilling the knife in his hand.
“Seems like you’ve pissed off more than just the Spencer girl, Rosie. He was more than willing to lead me to you. Then I walk in there to see you flaunting yourself in nothing but a towel.” He growls out the last part through clenched teeth.
The sting of the knife slicing against my wrist registers before the thunk of it slamming into the table. I don’t flinch. I don’t blink. And it takes every-fucking-thing in me to not look down at the knife that only an inch further would have pierced through me as much as it did the table. It wasn’t an accident he missed; it was calculated. He’s watching me, gaging my reactions, for what I don’t know, and even though it’s stupid, I can’t seem to hold back my words.
“You got me.”
Clarke snags my wrist from the table squeezing so hard I can feel my bones grinding against each other, I know there will be bruises, and presses his thumb over the cut. He stares at it for a second like seeing the way the blood drips down my arm and on to the ruined white tablecloth is a masterpiece, a work of art, before using his thumb to smear the red around, making the old penny smell permeate the air.
“I intended to.” He shoves me back and brings the thumb that played in the cut to his mouth, while looking over his shoulder. I want to cradle my wrist as if that could ease the throbbing, but instead fold my hands into the napkin on my lap, trying to subtly staunch the bleeding and not get any on my clothes. I can’t imagine trying to explain that if Peyton saw. He gives whoever he’s looking at a subtle nod before those cutting brown eyes narrow on my own.
“Let this be a lesson.” A chair scrapes behind me. I can feel my ears strain to listen for signs of footsteps.
“You’re in the big leagues now.” His voice starts fading into the background as the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention, feeling the closeness of whoever is coming this way.
“Do not fail me again.” A heavy hand lands on my shoulder and I react. I’m so on edge from his mind games that everything that makes me, me is shoved to the back and I am instinct. My hand shoots out to grasp the wrist of the first man I noticed with the gun, while I twirl under his arm and push him hard into the table. He lets out a pitiful scream as the crack in his shoulder echoes in the otherwise silent room.
My mind clears and I flinch away from the scene in front of me, the scene I’ve caused, watching the man holding his arm that is clearly dislocated. Clarke stares at me with a maniacal grin split across his face, strands of his blonde hair hanging down in front of his eyes. He glances at the man still whimpering on the floor before lifting his glass, saluting it in my direction.
“Good girl, Rosie. Exactly as I taught you.”
I can hear the deep pants of the man trying to work through his pain, and it reminds me too much of my own. I rub at my right hand, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Clarke, and I swear his grin somehow gets wider. Thanking him for taking me out, I pivot and head for the door. We are a few miles from campus, but the walk will do good to clear my head. I make it to the door before he calls out.