PROLOGUE
Sometimes it’s just sex. A time and place. A need. I don’t usually let my guard down, but it’s my birthday, and there’s an edge in the air. A tightening of my chest. A feeling of sorrow clawing at my throat. Another year older, another year still alone.
Well, fuck it. I’m done with being good. Tomorrow, I can be good. Tomorrow, I can be who the world wants me to be. Tonight, I’m going to be the easy girl my mother always warned me about.
Put down my hair. Leave it in waves, floating around my shoulders. Dark eyes, smokey. Slash a line of red across my lips. A dress that glimmers in the light whichever way you look at it. Thank goodness for Blake’s wardrobe. She steals the clothes she has in it, but for once, I don’t care. I never wear nice things. Tonight is the exception. The dress and purse to match it screams money. Although, knowing my best friend, the purse is probably fake. Bare legs because I can’t afford tights. Shoes that are too high but make me seem more elegant somehow. I don’t look my age either. I’ve always looked a lot younger. The dark makeup around my eyes should fix that.
It’ll do.
I look good enough…
For an online hookup.
The Little Bird bar is quirky and hip inside as it is out. Bold green foliage (fake) secludes a marble bar, brown leather seating hovers over glossy tiled flooring, and brass detailing accents the walls in vertical lines.
It’s like walking into a birdcage.
Trapped.
Like the last twenty-five years of my life.
I hesitate at the door. The young crowd of Rubensfield is dressed to the nines like this is London city. Girls in cocktail dresses with real diamonds glance over at me as I stand at the entrance. Guys in dress shirts, flashing timepieces that cost more than I’ll ever earn in a lifetime, shoot me appraising looks.
I don’t know the area well, but my online date said this was the only bar worth going to. He must have assumed this is what I meant when I asked for a place to have a drink. Although there’s nothing else but Range Rovers, cow farms, and vegan cafes for miles around, a cozy pub would have been better than this.
After a pause, I step inside. I see myself in a mirror on the wall as I enter, seeing what they see. A fresh debutant with money to spend and people to air-kiss.
What a crock of shit. I’m not the same as them, and I never will be.
But they don’t know that.
I scan the room looking for my date, not knowing what to expect, but one moment I don’t see him, and then I do. He’s older-looking, slightly overweight, and balding—not like his picture at all. He’s in the bar waiting like he said he would be, fixing his cuffs, drinking a bottle of wine, trying to appear distinguished. A lawyer or something equally imposing from his profile.
He looks my way and waves.
And then everyone looks at me. Or at least, that’s what it feels like.
Fuck, this. I can’t. Nausea eats away at my insides. I’m going to hurl.
I walk out of there as fast as I can in heels, holding back the gag.
Outside the bar, there’s a little seating area with a swing set in the middle and a trellis of climbing plants all over it, meant to look like a birdcage. After retching, though nothing came out, I sit on the oversized wooden swing as the world seems to spin.
When it stops, and I’m no longer going to be sick, I look up.
I’m not alone.
A tall guy with dark hair and cornflower blue eyes watches me as he leans on the outside wall. He keeps me in his sights as he takes a swig of the large wine bottle he’s drinking from. He appears to be a little younger than me, making him look almost angelic in the low light until a loose smile graces his lips. Shivers race down my spine as our eyes clash and my insides twist into knots. The return look he gives me is playful and teasing, devious even—an angel with a sinister side.
I blink, unable to turn away.
The three (or four) vodkas I had before I left the house gives me the courage to take him in as he does me, guiding my line of sight past his sparkling blue eyes, to the angle of his jaw, and onto his very kissable lips. His hair, razored extra short on the sides, compliments the black plugs in his ears and the ripped, black jeans he’s wearing. Even the tattoos on his neck, peeking out from under the collar of his dark shirt, set him apart from the preppy clientele inside the bar.
No, he’s definitely not my date. This guy is younger, sexier, and way out of my league compared to that fool sitting inside the bar. I’d say he’s more Blake’s type—dark, arrogant, and dangerous. A mistake just waiting to happen.
I happen to be looking for one of those.
He smirks at me staring at him, obviously loving the attention. The challenge in his eyes demands I engage.