But then again, maybe a distraction—something to take my mind off Winter and what happened last night in the shower—was exactly what I’d needed.
Perspective.
And closing my eyes, shutting off my head, and just charging on into whatever shit behavior I could, would tear my gut to shreds, so I couldn’t feel her anymore.
So I could let her go before she found out.
Maybe years down the road, when I was out of college, and she was older and away from her parents…
No.
No, that wouldn’t happen, either.
She’d still need to know the truth. About who I was and what I did to her these past few years. I didn’t want her to ever know.
I was fucked. It had to end.
I just had to find a diversion. A nice, healthy, blonde diversion who looked a little like Winter Ashby and smelled just as good.
Rika sensed me staring and turned her eyes over her shoulder, meeting mine.
I stared back at her.
She had blue eyes. Just like Winter.
But unlike Winter, I could hate Rika and remind myself what women were for.
They were the same age, too. I wasn’t sure if they hung out anymore, but maybe I could pretend the little Winter-lookalike was actually Winter to drown out the real one in my head.
Rika tipped her chin up and turned back around, and I laughed under my breath, taking another drag of my cigarette.
I always made her nervous, and I kind of liked it. As if there were a bigger game at play that we’d eventually get to someday, but neither of us knew what it was.
I saw Michael watching me in the rearview mirror, and I did a shitty job of hiding my grin.
Hey, if he didn’t want anyone else noticing his little piece of ass, he shouldn’t have brought her along in the first place. It was one thing to have your fun. It was another to do it in front of us.
Tonight was ours. She wasn’t important enough to be here.
He pulled up in front of the Ashby house, outside the walls with two tall columns with lanterns on top and the gate closed. Hopefully that meant the parents were out, and she was alone.
Or, at least her father was out. The mother said something during the fight last night about having to catch a plane today.
And Arion was away from her college for a semester abroad, so Winter was the only other person in the house.
I climbed up from my seat, heading for Will’s door to hop out. “I won’t take long.”
“Sooooo confident,” Will teased. “Get a great angle for us, okay?”
He held up the group cell phone we used to record all our pranks, and I took it, remembering I had that shot of Winter on it from last night. If it recorded at all. I’d dropped the phone, but thankfully it hadn’t broken.
Stuffing it in my back pocket, I flung open the door and hopped out, pulling up my hood.
“Got protection?” Will asked.
“Shut the fuck up.”
I slammed the door shut, hearing his chuckle from inside, and scaled the tree outside the wall, making my way over it in seconds, because this was not the first time I’d done this.