“This is such bullshit,” she mumbled and shook her head. “I can’t wait to get the hell out of San Bernardino. One day,” she sighed angrily.
I nodded and wrapped an arm around her. “I can’t wait until we both get out of here.” My biggest fear was being left behind by my sister. She was four years older than me, and I knew as soon as she got the chance, she would bolt, and I’d be stuck here. With Mom. And her creepy boyfriend of the week.
Molly flashed that smile, the one that made guys, old and young, do a double-take, and wrapped both arms around me. “Just you and me, sis. We’ll put this place behind us soon enough.”
“You think so?” I didn’t want to grow up to be like the people around here, miserable and angry all the time. I wanted to do something big, something important with my life. I didn’t know what, yet. But I would.
“Yeah, I do. And thanks for fixing the cake, Madds. It was nice not to see that bitch Sally’s name staring back at me.”
She laughed, and I laughed too, not because I understood the joke, but because Molly was smiling and that meant everything would be all right.
At least for a little while.
At least until the party was over.
At least until Ken woke up and the grownup party started.
Thoughts of Ken startled me awake. I hadn’t thought about that creep in years, not since Molly’s birthday when he cornered her in our bedroom with a perverted smile and hands that never stopped moving. He smelled like sweat and alcohol, and I’d never seen my sister look so afraid in my whole life. I didn’t even think. I ran to the front door and grabbed the bat we kept for protection and hit him. Two times. Three times. Six times until he fell to his knees and passed out on the floor.
It was the first night of many Molly and I learned to sleep with one eye open, our rickety dresser pushed hard against the door.
“What the fuck?” I sat up on an unfamiliar bed and groaned at the weight of the bridesmaid dress. Even more disappointing, I was in a hotel room with an impossibly hard, hot as fuck male body lying beside me, and I was fully dressed. So was he. “Bummer.”
Slowly, the details of Maisie and Virgil’s wedding came back, reminding me why I was dressed up like an Easter egg and drunker than a sailor on leave. Not even my dehydration or still dry panties could distract me from that dream about Molly, or was it a memory?
Either way, I looked at the sleeping man on the bed and thought of my still-missing sister. Molly had finally gotten the hell out of San Bernardino and right into the clutches of monsters far worse than Ken and his gross hands. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Molly was lying dead somewhere in the desert, but I also couldn’t shake the feeling that the Ashby’s were hiding something from me. I couldn’t say what exactly. They were far more experienced than me, but they were definitely hiding something.
Fuck my life.
Jameson turned over, still asleep and looking so damn sexy that I really wanted to just climb on top of him and beg him to fuck me. Anything to stop thinking about Molly’s angry, honey-brown eyes, dead and lifeless. But I knew what he’d say, the same damn thing he’d said earlier when we fell onto the plush hotel bed.
“We’re too drunk, Maddie. You’ll regret it in the morning, and I’d hate that.”
I would NOT have regretted it, not the way Jameson thought anyway. He was big and built, and sexy as fuck. There was a good chance I’d want another night. And then another. And another. And that, I would definitely regret.
He woke up, revealing smiling gray eyes and lush crooked lips pulled into a matching grin. “Morning. You all right?”
“Yeah, I’m good. I need something to drink though,” I replied not wanting him to know my thoughts about him.
“We could go down to the casino and drink some more and gamble away some of our hard-earned money. You hungry?”
I looked at Jameson, still in his tux minus the bowtie and then down at my dress, the prettiest and most expensive thing I’ve ever worn. I let out a loud laugh. “Hell yeah, I am. All dressed up, and with sex off the table, might as well take advantage of hotel amenities. Right?”
“That’s my girl,” he said with a smile that made me kind of wish I was his girl.
“Let me at least brush my teeth. They have that free stuff here, don’t they?” I got up off the bed and traipsed to the bathroom. I shut the door firmly. I wanted to fuck him, not let him watch me pee, fart and brush my teeth.