PROLOGUE
EMERY
Isawhertoday. She looked at me from across the street, and my stomach churned like I’d been pitched straight into the ocean. I’d pressed a hand to my mouth and gagged, bile rising in my throat.
“Emery,” she’d called out. “Bae, wait up!”
Oh, fuck that. She doesn’t get to call me that. I’d flipped my mother off with a shaky hand and turned around, jogging the other way. In my haste to get away, I’d stumbled slightly on an uneven part of the pavement and fumbled with my phone, trying to pull up the Uber app to order a ride. It hit the sidewalk with a sickeningcrackand god-fucking-damnit, I knew I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed today.
Seeing her always fucks with my head and conjures way too many memories. So, after running from her like my ass was on fire, the only logical next step was to drink myself into oblivion; to drink all those memories away.
I sit on the curb staring down at my cracked phone until the car pulls up and I tell the driver to drop me off at the closest bar that serves alcohol early. There is absolutely nothing wrong with drinking at noon on a Tuesday, right? It’s a certain type of therapy. Carpe diem, and all that.
Technically, I’m not supposed to be mixing alcohol with the behavioral meds I’m on, but I really don’t give a fuck right now. Dr. K can suck a big dick. The images assaulting my mind are too overwhelming.
PTSD, he’d told me at our last appointment.
Fuck, you think?
I have more mental health issues than a combat veteran coming home from war.
Random things can set me off––certain smells, how something feels against my skin, something someone says. The dark.
And, of course, my mom. Just seeing her makes my entire body lock down. Add all that trauma to my raging ADHD and you’ve got the hot mess you see before you.
The car pulls up to a shady, hole-in-wall establishment with a chalkboard sign advertising five-dollar well drinks. Fantastic, at leastsomethingis going right today.
A few hours later finds me slumped over a sticky bar with an angry bullish woman scowling down at me. She looks like she has three heads. They’re big fucking heads too.
Spooky.
“You’re an asshole,” one of her heads says gruffly. “Call someone to come get you. You can’t stay here.”
“Bitch, pease,” I slur. “You think I have someone who’ll drive their asssss all the way out here, at night, for me? Do I look like I have a lot of friends?”
She leans down a little closer and grabs onto my phone, holding it hostage in her meaty hand. Then she grabs onto my fruity cocktail and hides it behind the counter.
“Hey, I wasn’t fished…with that.”
“Don’t care. Call someone before I murder you.”
“Prolly could murder me,” I mutter. “You’re an ox. Do you plow fields in your free time? Pull down trees?”
She narrows her eyes, and I wave my hand around. “Fine. Give it to me.Give me. I will call someone.”
I squint with one eye at the blurry screen, holding it an inch from my face, as I scroll through the short list of names. Lex is working; I can’t call him. Then I see August’s name.
I probably shouldn’t call my soon-to-be stepbrother. No, I definitely shouldn’t. But then again, I can’t exactly remember why I shouldn’t.
The one thing I do know for sure is that I like pushing his buttons, seeing that pretty face of his redden as he tries to hold back his irritation with me. God, I live for that. I love any reaction he gives me. When it comes to him, I’m like a kid seeking negative attention.
I’d say I don’t know why I do it, but that would be a lie. I do it because I want to see that perfect façade crack. I want to peek inside and see what really goes on in that seemingly flawless head of his. He seems like he’s got his whole life figured out, which basically makes him my complete opposite.
Plus, he’s just so damn nice all the time. There’s no way he’ll ever say no to me. He can’t help himself. Even if he hates me and thinks I’m an epic screw-up, he’ll still come for me. Saint August, always does the right thing.
I stab at the call button, hold the phone up to my ear, and then lay my face down onto the counter as it rings. The bar top smells like actual garbage. If I don’t already have alcohol poisoning, I’m most definitely getting food poisoning from this place.
“Emery?” August’s deep, rich voice reaches me from the other end of the line, and my heart rate immediately ramps up. Emergency, 911. I am going to fucking pass out, and then ox lady will throw me in the dumpster out back. Three days later, they’ll find my body decaying in the landfill, picked clean by vultures.