Elegant Sins (Dark Secret Society 1)

You never let me live my dreams. Sandy says I need to choose me sometimes. So, I’m choosing me. Have a nice life. Bye —Kyle

Sandy. I knew the bitch. She’d been the class whore in high school.

Thank God I always made Kyle use condoms. Something he always bitched about, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I was on the pill and still made us use condoms. Double protection. I refused to reenact my mother’s life.

“Ha,” I whispered, looking at the bottle of vodka in my hand. I was doing a bang up job of not being her, day-drinking like this. I slammed the bottle down on the side table and swiped at my mouth.

Shit, how long had I been here? Bill was going to have my ass if I didn’t get back.

Blearily, I looked back down at my phone and fumbled until I finally clicked on Uber. Being a little drunk at work wasn’t the most professional, but it wasn’t like Delilah didn’t show up half drunk sometimes. And Paula was a barely functioning alcoholic who had a flask tucked underneath the employee bathroom counter at all times.

There were only a few people who drove Uber in town. I tapped my foot impatiently on the ground while I waited for one of them to pick up.

Finally. And then I saw that it was a Nissan Sentra that was heading my direction, fifteen minutes out. Shit. That meant it would be Jeremy Paulson driving. Jeremy was an asshole on the best of days.

God, I hated living in a town where everybody knew everybody else. Jeremy was a decade older than me but whenever I got him as a driver, he’d spend half the time ogling me in the rearview mirror instead of focusing on the road.

I shouldn’t have had the damn vodka.

I grabbed my purse and went to wait outside. Country music blared from the trailer three plots down and Lucia’s husband was out with his buddies from the meatpacking plant, all of them set up in lawn chairs around a makeshift fire pit, drinking beers and shouting to be heard over one another.

All the noise almost drowned out the sound of Barry and Sheila screaming at each other through the open window next door.

I put my earbuds in and cranked up the music on my phone. Only one earbud worked, though, so it didn’t do much to drown out what I’d dubbed Trailer Park Soundtrack.

At least everybody left me alone and finally Jeremy’s car pulled in.

I walked up and grabbed the door to the backseat, but it was locked and it didn’t budge.

Jeremy rolled down his window. “Are you Grace Morgan?”

“Come on, Jeremy.” I rolled my eyes. “I went to school with your younger sister. You drive me around all the time.”

“I represent a global company. It’s policy to double check our passenger’s identity.” He smirked at me and gave me a slow up and down before letting out a low whistle. “Looking fine, Miss… What did you say your name was again?”

Asshole. I was already late and not in the mood to deal with Bill throwing a hissy fit about it once I finally got there.

Apparently, I needed my crap job more than ever now that my credit was shot to shit—because of my own stupid boyfriend. Gah, it was all so fucking infuriating.

Would the police even listen if I presented them with all my evidence that it was Kyle who stole from me? Could we track him all over Georgia, and even if we did find him and that whore he was with, how long would it take to get my credit score back on track?

“If you don’t confirm your identity, I’ll have to cancel this call and move on to the next one.” Jeremy tapped his wrist, not that there was a watch there. “My work is vital to this community, you know.”

I glared at Jeremy and bit out through my teeth, “Grace Morgan.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. He didn’t like my tone. But he unlocked the damn door and I yanked it open before he could change his mind. All these dumb little bastards on their power trips. Bill was the same way. Their lives were so petty, they lorded the stupidest shit they could over others and thought it made them men.

All it really did was expose how weak they were.

Give me a man worth respecting and I’d fall at his knees.

Ha. Too bad they didn’t exist.

“Take me to Bill’s,” I said, not taking my earbuds out. Hopefully Jeremy would take that as a cue not to try small talk.

His unhappy eyes met mine in the rearview. “Don’t you mean please take you to Bill’s?”

Every cuss word was on the tip of my tongue, but I’d had enough practice at work on how to choke them back.