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Our group claimed a corner in the back of the club a few hours ago. It’s teen night and the place is crawling with people our age—seventeen, eighteen, a few sixteen-year-olds who should be put in protective custody due to their lack of common sense. Most haven’t been outside their safe bubble and this is their first taste of protected freedom.
Table was easy to claim as three of us in our group are over six foot and scares the hell out of everyone. Isaiah has enough tattoos that most people assume he’s been in prison even though he’s only eighteen. Then there’s West. He’s the golden-haired rich boy who sports a nice shiner from an amateur MMA fight last weekend. It’s the type of bruise that makes you wonder how bad off the other guy is. And me? Doesn’t take long for people to figure out I’m bat shit crazy.
I rest my elbows on the high table and ease into Abby’s space. “I remember. You couldn’t just chill with the clay and decided to go Picasso with the paint and redecorate the walls. Principal was pissed.”
The floor beneath us vibrates from the drums and the bass guitar and the place has a sweet smell. Like too much cleaner combined with spilled soft drinks. But the scent that absorbs me is an aroma that’s distinctly Abby—wild honey.
Her forehead crinkles and a bead of sweat drops from her hairline. Before she bounded over with her dare for me to climb, Abby had been dancing with Rachel and I enjoyed watching.
Abby’s like a mythical creature—rare, unique. One of those people you think only exists in your dreams, and she draws the attention of everyone. Long dark brown hair, hazel eyes and she’s blessed in all the right places.
What she wears is simple. Always simple. Tonight, it’s jeans, a pair of black knockoff Chuck high-tops, and a dark blue lace tank that sparkles. There’s something mysterious in how she chooses simple yet soft. Abby’s possibly the strongest, most hard-core girl I know, yet she’s exotic and feminine. She’s definitely one of a kind.
“Yeah, the principal was mad,” Abby says. “But we didn’t get caught because, if you recall, I had the brilliant plan of climbing out the windows and then sneaking back into our class before our teacher missed us.”
“It was my strength that pushed you through the window back into our classroom.”
“My knight in shining armor.” She flutters her eyelashes at me before finishing the water.
None of this happened as we haven’t even known each other a year yet, but Abby spins stories of a past we never shared and I go with it. Sometimes, she’s so convincing I begin to question my own memories. Maybe she’s not so convincing and it’s more that I would prefer her version of our make-believe past over my real life.
My cell buzzes and it’s Ryan, my best friend from Bullitt County. Abby bumps my hip so that I’m out of her way and she confiscates my cell. I grin because the girl is incorrigible and I love it.
“Let’s see.” Abby angles the phone so I can’t read Ryan’s text. “Ryan says he’s been eaten by alligators and that he’s left you a million dollars.”
“That so?”
“That’s so.” She taps buttons on my cell and she glances up from dark eyelashes to see if she’s found a way to push my buttons. She can keep trying. It’s tough to find buttons I care enough about to be pissed they were pushed. “I just told Ryan we eloped.”
My cell buzzes again, and I’m immersed in her sexy grin. “He’s pissed you skipped the bachelor party. He said you promised him naked chicks before you got married. Wow—I didn’t know guys actually had those conversations.”
She scans my face and when nothing she said fazes me, she slides my cell back in my direction. “Can I go?”
I study the convo between Abby and Ryan. He’s confirming that I’m going to Chris’s grandfather’s farm in southern Kentucky again and baling hay for the week. We’ve been doing it for the past few years. It’s backbreaking work, but we make nice money. Abby demanded we take her along, signing her text as Abby, Queen of Logan’s World. Ryan told her she had to talk to me.
“It’s boys only,” I say.
“Rules don’t apply to me. You should know that by now. Anyhow, you guys let me hang when you baled hay at Chris’s farm.”
“That was one day and this will be for a week. Camping and dirt your thing, Abby?”
“I can make anything my thing.”
I believe that.
“I heard that Noah and Isaiah are going. Noah’s going to use that money to buy Echo an engagement ring.”
I heard the same thing from Noah, Isaiah’s best friend, but it’s not my business. “Point?”
“If Noah gets to go, I want to go. Maybe I want to buy myself a diamond ring.”
“You’re going to help bale hay?”
Abby scowls. “Hell, no. I just want to go and get paid.”
I laugh, she smiles and the drummer of the band onstage begins the count. For the third time this evening, the electric guitarist comes in late and starts off beat. I came here tonight because I heard this band was on the verge of kicking him out. I’ve been searching for a new high, at least for the summer, and this just might be it.
“Dance with me, Logan.”
That rips my attention away from the guy making a fool of himself onstage. I examine Abby and wonder what piece she just moved on the chessboard. Wouldn’t put it past Abby to sacrifice a pawn in order to kill a queen. Abby is nothing if not strategic.
“I don’t dance.” I don’t.
She slowly raises her eyebrows, and I fight the tilt of my lips. Abby doesn’t like being told no. “You’ll dart into traffic to run after a stranger’s balloon, but you won’t dance with me?”
I ran into traffic because I was curious if I could make it to the other side. The balloon made it interesting. “I don’t dance with anyone.”
“You were the one that suggested we come here.”
I shrug. I’m here because an opportunity presented itself and I’m fascinated by the new and shiny.
“Dance with me, Logan,” she says again, and I have to admit I like how her hips sway to the music. “Why else would you come here if it wasn’t to touch me on the dance floor?”
I chuckle because that caught me off guard and Abby laughs, her real laugh. It doesn’t happen often and I like when it does.
“Rachel said she wanted to dance,” I say.
And she is, with Isaiah. While everyone else is grinding it out to the hard beat, Isaiah is slow dancing with his girl. Her head’s on his shoulder, his arms are wound tight around her waist. They look like they could die now and wouldn’t notice they had landed in heaven since they’re already there. That right there is love and it’s one in a million.
I’m not foolish enough to believe I’ll find something like Isaiah and Rachel share, but I’m fine with that. Emotions are overrated.
My cell buzzes on the table and I swipe it before Abby can read this one. Dad: Stay out of trouble. I texted your mom to see if she knew you needed to be up in the morning for the meeting and she said you never told her. Don’t do this, Logan. Not again.
My jaw twitches with annoyance. I shove my phone into my pocket. Abby’s watching me with a baffled expression, which means she must have read over my shoulder. “That was sweet of him. What type of trouble is he referring to? The type where you drag race with Isaiah or where you jump out of towering trees or play in traffic?”
All things I’ve done and those weren’t even the top three dangerous feats I’ve taken on recently. “Remember when I told you to mind your own business?”
“That never happened. Get your memories straight. And what’s this meeting in the morning?”
Nothing I’m interested in attending. “Let it go.”
This time, Abby is the one who leans forward on the table and she knows what she’s doing as she hugs her waist so that her cleavage peeks out. She’s the tiger after her prey. “Now that I think about it, you never talk about your parents. In fact, you really don’t talk at all.”
“We talk.”
“We play,” she says, and my gaze meets hers with the raw honesty. “What was that text about?”
“Not your business.”
“Make it my business.”
“I’m telling you to back off.”
“Not sure if you noticed, but I’m not the back-off type.” Abby scans the room like she’s searching for someone, and it’s not the first time she’s done that tonight.
“Who are you searching for?” I ask.
She sneers, so I know I called that right. “I’m not looking for anyone.”
“You are.”
“Topic of conversation was you and your dad and that text. Stick with the subject.”
Anger begins to bubble up in my bloodstream. “I told you, let it go.”
As if she’s a toddler, Abby stomps her foot. “Well, I’m not. I want to know.”
Abby and I usually don’t play this way, but if she wants to go there, then I’m throwing both of us over the edge. “You’ve been off all night. Acting like the boogeyman is out to get you. What’s your deal?”
Her expression blackens. “There’s no deal.”
Bull. “You think you’re unreadable, but I got your number.”
“Back the fuck off, Logan.”
Like she backed off of me? “Is it the drugs? Are you bringing trouble to Rachel’s doorstep? This is the first time she’s been out like this since the accident. She doesn’t need any more problems than she’s got.”
She blinks like I backhanded her and I hate the heaviness in my stomach. Yeah, tonight was about me checking out the band, but tonight was also a scheme created by Rachel. She’s bent on saving Abby. All of us are. It’s a feeble plan. Hang together, have a great time, ask her to leave with us and hope she ignores her chosen path for at least one night. It wouldn’t win the war, but we’ll celebrate any small victory.
Abby’s head jerks in an angry way. “I would never put Rachel in the line of fire.”
“I may not understand what you do, but I’m not seeing how you can minimize those risks. You’re not God.”
“What? You judging me now? Do you think I’m a threat? Do you think I’m unworthy of her friendship? Of yours?”
“No. Just trying to understand you.”
“We play, remember?” And the ache in her eyes cuts me deep. “We aren’t real friends so stop acting like you care.”
Damn me for hurting her. “Abby—”
It’s as if a mask covers Abby’s face, and where there was pain, there’s now a smirk. A fake smirk. A mere shadow of the girl who was playing make-believe a few minutes ago. “You’re too serious, Logan. We get along because neither of us does emotion. Let me know if you change your mind on the dance.”
I’d almost consider the dance if it would erase the past few seconds, but even I know there’s no changing the past.
“You’re wrong,” I call out as Abby has turned her back on me to slip into the crowd.
She pivots to face me again, but still walks backwards. “That never happens, but to placate you, how was I wrong?”
“It was my brilliant plan to sneak out the windows in kindergarten and then sneak back in. I’m the one with the massive IQ, remember?”
That devilish glint reappears in her eyes along with her heart-stopping smile. “I only let you think it was your plan, but it was really mine. And on the IQ? I’ll put my test scores up to yours any day and I’ll win.”
A smile stretches across my face and Abby winks before disappearing. And the game continues. We both moved pieces and neither of us is any closer to winning, but I’m not sure what’s at stake to be won.
Abby’s a drug dealer.
I’m a ticking time bomb.
Neither Abby nor I are reliable or stable. We’re like a tidal wave of gasoline approaching a nuclear power plant, but we still like to play with matches.
Doesn’t make sense. I guess it doesn’t need to. I work well in the undefined.
I pull out my cell, ignore the text from Dad and scroll through the trail of messages between me and Sly. He’s an ex-boyfriend of Mom’s. He was around before either of us learned not to get attached. Sly was a hard lesson for me and I was an even harder lesson for him.
Me: I’ve heard the band. I want in.
Sly: I’ll get you ten minutes with them this week. Don’t fuck it up.
Me: Won’t.
Sly: You’re good with the traveling?
I scan the bar. Isaiah and West are playing pool on the other side of the room. When Isaiah catches my eye he jerks his chin for me to join them. I tip my head to let him know I’ll be there soon. Another sweep of the room and I spot Abby dancing with Rachel again. They’re holding hands, twirling together, and laughing.
Like Ryan and Chris, Isaiah and West also graduated this spring. Moving forward. Moving on. Rachel’s still in school, transferring this year to my new school in fact. We’re friends, but not close friends.
All I’ve got left in this life is Abby and nobody knows Abby. She doesn’t belong enough to anyone for her to have friends. Just the way all mythical creatures should live.
Me: Yeah, I’m good on the traveling. I’m good with starting a new life.
Abby (#ulink_fa4a837b-5c5b-5ce5-9533-a5d6e0467e2e)
“I’m going to kiss him tonight.” From the back of the club, I point at the hot guy playing electric guitar onstage. He has gorgeous red hair that’s a little longer than most guys wear it and a body made for sin.
Sitting beside me, my best friend, Rachel, squints through the haze of dry ice and dancing beams of light, and when she spots my prey, her mouth pops open. Rachel’s the anti-me with her blond hair and blue eyes and this is her first time at a club. I’m dark hair and hazel eyes and continuously walk the line of selling my soul.
It’s Sunday and we’re at one of those teen nights for the local bar. This for her is wild. This for me is tame. But kissing the guy who obviously can play a guitar in a way that causes me to blush can make this evening worthwhile.
“It’s either that or kissing Logan,” I say over the pounding beat of the drums and she laughs. She thinks I’m kidding, but I’m not. Talk about another guy built for sin, but I’ve been warned off of him by several friends of ours that I respect. Logan’s my type of crazy, but he’s also the type I can easily mess up in the wrong ways.
I’m not interested in jacking up anyone’s life other than my own. At least not the lives of the people I care about. Anyone else is fair game.
Rachel brushes away the strands of hair sticking to her face. We’ve danced tonight, her and I. Not much, but enough that it’s worn Rachel out. An accident a few months back killed her stamina, and for a time her ability to walk, but she’s on her feet again and loved the idea of dancing and I love her enough to make her happy.
Rachel, Logan and I will start our senior year of high school this fall and thanks to Logan’s IQ and having divorced parents, he’s now attending school with Rachel and me. We only have a few weeks left until life becomes completely complicated and chaotic.
Isaiah, Logan, and Rachel’s older brother, West, left a few minutes ago to bring Isaiah’s car around and they’re taking too long. I was banking on them leaving by eleven-thirty, but West tagging along with us bought Rachel another half hour of time. Her damn older brother doing some damn interfering. She needs to leave because I have an appointment, and I don’t like mixing my friends with clients.
