Pretend You're Mine (Inked Hearts 3)
Page 273
It might as well scream the manliest fucking drink around.
That was why I got into it. Seemed like a man’s drink. Like most seventeen-year-old boys, I was desperate to prove I was a man.
Penny sits on the couch and crosses her legs.
She smooths her ivory dress.
She looks every bit the bride to be. Glowing, nervous, happy.
But she’s in my hotel room.
That’s not a good fucking sign
Her honey eyes fix on mine. They fill with nostalgia. “You remember the first time we snuck some of Daddy’s bourbon?”
“I said I loved it, chugged a glass, spent the night throwing up.” Fuck, that was miserable.
She laughs. “You made it half an hour.”
“You still went out with me.”
“I liked you.”
“Was it the dry heaving that did it?”
“No. It was you. All those things that are stil
l you. The intensity in your eyes. The way I can always tell you’re thinking something deep and meaningful. The way you never give up on what you want. You’re principled and uncompromising to a fault. And you’re… You were everything I wanted then.”
What the hell is she getting it?
“Sorry. I’m getting nervous.” She takes a long sip. “Only twenty hours to go now.”
“It must be scary.”
She nods.
“Frank is good for you.”
Her expression gets contemplative. She stares into her glass like it contains all the secrets to the universe.
I take a seat next to her.
She turns toward me. Finishes her bourbon and drinks me in instead. “Where’s Leighton?”
I try to find a lie and come up blank.
Penny’s gaze darts around the room. The clean dresser. The sparse floor. The utter lack of Leighton’s bright pink suitcase. She studies my expression, looking for cracks. “She left.”
“She’s just—”
“Is it over?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because of me?”
“Is that what you want?”