Color Me Pretty: A Father's Best Friend Romance

“We are.”

I shook my head. “No, but it was fun to pretend for a little while. Everything was so much easier back then when school was fun and dance was enjoyable.” It made me think of what Theo told me in the warehouse when we danced. It really was easier when we were younger. Naïve. I understood now more than ever why ignorance was bliss.

“And our families weren’t caught up in corruption,” she added, downing the rest of her drink in one long swallow. “Enough of that. Memory lane is officially closed. We can be whatever the fuck we want now that we’re adults. Screw our families.”

My stomach churned. “I don’t know about—”

Sam and Gina walked over with mischievous looks on their faces. It was Gina who said, “I heard y’all wanted to start having fun. Lucky for you, I can help with that.”

Reaching for a black leather bag with a designer emblem on the front clasp, she dug through a side pocket until she produced something small. The grin she shot us wasn’t what made me dread what was coming next, it the wink as she set the tiny bag of white powder down onto the table.

“What…?” My voice cracked. I knew what it was. I’d never seen any in person before, but I’d heard it’d been circulating again. Dallas was listening to the news one day when we were in the car and I’d heard that laced cocaine was going around, and death tolls were increasing from overdoses.

“Shame, isn’t it?” Dallas asked, shaking his head as the reporter read statistics from the city. I’d told him it was, half out of it and wondering why anybody would risk their lives like that. When I realized I had no right to judge, I’d tuned out the radio.

“Don’t be a buzzkill,” Sam said again.

My eye twitched.

Kat grabbed my hand and squeezed. “It’s not so bad, Del. I’ve done it a couple times and it makes you feel good. Promise.”

She promised? “Are you kidding me, Katrina? That’s cocaine!” I hissed the last word as if there were people around to catch us. I didn’t want to be anywhere near this if something bad happened.

The two other girls laughed like it was the funniest thing they’d heard in a long time, and I wondered how much of the substance was already in their system on top of the alcohol.

Kat squeezed my fingers again. “Come on, Del. Would I ever lead you astray? Remember all the fun times we had? Our parents always said we brought the good out in each other, challenged each other.”

My heart raced in my chest as I looked at the three of them one by one. My eyes finding Kat’s again, I shook my head. “This isn’t good though. I didn’t even know you were into this kind of stuff. You weren’t before you left.”

It was Gina who cackled. “Oh, please. She was the one who got us into it. Kat was always the wild one out of all of us. Why do you think she’s on the same side of town your little warehouse is?”

I stared at my friend who was a ghost of the person I’d spent so much time with. At least I got the answer to my question from earlier. All the times we laughed, cried, gossiped, played, and everything in between seemed like nothing but a distant memory that might not have even been real because I didn’t know this version of Kat at all.

“Kat?” I wanted her to deny it, but she didn’t. Instead, she sat there looking at me for a microsecond before her gaze traveled to the powder now spread in lines on the table. Whispering her name again, I realized it was pointless. How long had she been doing drugs? Something told me the ‘couple times’ she’d mentioned was more than that.

Sam spoke up. “You of all people should really consider this, Adele. I mean, I lost twenty pounds between this and heroin. It’s not all bad, even if you hear the worst of it.”

My stomach bottomed out. The version of me who’d researched ways to lose weight would waken if tempted, and I didn’t want that. “I should go.”

Kat stood when I did, her eyes widening like she was afraid of something. I realized when she spoke that she was scared I’d rat them out. “I want you to stay. I miss my best friend. If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to. But…”

But don’t tell anybody.

Jaw ticking, I reached for my bag and set it on my shoulder. “I missed you when you were away,” I admitted, ignoring the lingering gazes of the other two. “I’d felt bad when I pulled back after things with my father happened. I figured you traveling was better than being around everything that was going on here. Like maybe one of us could get out and have fun. But this? This is dangerous, Kat.”

I heard it before I saw it, but from the corner of my eye I noticed half of the first line gone with Gina hovering over the table. My eyes widened.

“If you really cared you would have reached out and acted like a friend,” Kat snapped, taking me off guard. “But you didn’t. You were stuck in your perfect little world here acting better than everybody else with Theodore West just like always. Stop pretending to be an angel, Adele.”

Eyes stinging with oncoming tears, I brushed them off and realized it was more than likely the drugs talking. It didn’t make it hurt any less. “If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t ask you to stop.”

She rolled her eyes before reaching into Gina’s purse and grabbing another clear bag from it. She held my wrist and pried open my palm to drop the bag into it. “Remember when you told me I looked good back in December? It wasn’t because I was hiking. Sam’s right. You lose weight and have energy. You could start dancing again without being critiqued by Instructor Satan.”

I hated that she called Judith that. Even on the days she made me feel like trash, I respected her. She was good at what she did, even if she was harsh sometimes.

She bent my fingers around the drugs until I cradled it in my palm. “I just think it’s time you took back your life now that you don’t have people around to control it.”

My nostrils flared. How could she talk about my dead parents that way? Hers were still alive and kicking—her father managing to get the best lawyer that obviously proved all the rumors false. Her mother was still part of the same social circles that looked down on everybody else, especially my family. Even with controlling parents, she did whatever she wanted without a second thought. She wasn’t trapped, so I wasn’t sure why she felt like she could tell me to escape my cage as if she had a clue what being in one was like in the first place.