Eluding Nirvana (The Dark Evoke Series Book 2) (5 page)

“Yes, Liam,” I nodded.

“Do not let anyone in, do you understand me?”

“Yes, Liam,” I nodded again.

“Good girl.” The quick, uncaring kiss cast a shadow on his words, and then he was gone.

Entering the kitchen doorway,
I was bombarded by a fraught voice asking, “Where’s the fucking wine glasses, chick? They’re not in the usual cupboard,” and the sight of Liv frantically pulling every cupboard door open in a desperate search. She could continue rummaging until her face turned blue, she’d never find them. Liam hated me drinking without him. He worried too much about the way alcohol lowered inhibitions, and he didn’t want people to take advantage. So, I slowly found myself only drinking if he was at my side.

“Wouldn’t you prefer a coffee instead?” I
posed, rounding her curvy body and heading straight for the coffee pot.

She glared at me
with her dark eyebrows meeting her hairline. “Coffee?” she sighed like it was some ghastly word. The bottle of red was lifted clear off the unit by its neck and pressed against her chest like a child clutching their favorite teddy bear. “But I have wine.” Watching the twenty-seven year old woman whine like a sullen child chipped away at my resistance, making me giggle.

Lips rolled free from over my teeth
with a pop. I shook my head faintly and wrinkled my nose. “No thanks, Liv. I–I think I’ll stick to coffee. Would you like to join me,”––I retrieved two red mugs from their hooks and held them by the handles, swinging them enticingly––“or poison your liver?”

After a beat, t
he bottle gently met the surface of the counter. She folded her arms across her chest and huffed, “Damn you, Kady Jenson.”

With a muttering of
, “Very well,” I placed the mugs on the surface, and poured the coffee from the pot while my best friend made her way to sit her ass on a dining chair. “Okay, he’s gone. Give it up, Jenson. What’s going on?” her words were spoken in the most serious tone I had ever heard come from her.

“Excuse me?”

“You quit Red Velvet months ago without warning, you haven’t come back. You hardly ever answer your phone and when you do you’re terse and guarded. I’ve barely seen or spoken to you in almost five months. You’re not even interested in coming dancing anymore, let alone having one measly glass of wine. For us, this is alien, Kady. Now what the fuck is going on?”

I
spooned two sugars into her mug and stirred before taking our nonalcoholic drinks to the dining table. “Liv…” placing a coaster in front of her, I set her mug onto the table and took a seat.

“Don’t
, ‘Liv’, me, Jenson!” she chided. “You’re not ‘allowed’ out, but he can go gallivanting? I don’t like this, Kady. A–and what’s all of this,” she stumbled over her words with a derisive upturn of her lip, while reaching across the space between us and fumbled with the high neck, filigree blouse tie, flicking it in my face in an attempt to prove her point. I battered her away. “You look like you’re going to the funeral of, Queen fucking Victoria.”

Her words hurt, I
wouldn’t deny it, but I was learning fast not to bite back to such derision, so I simply pursed my lips into a surly pout and frowned. “Liam likes me wearing this.”

Hands which were both g
entle and supportive reached out and swathed my own as I wrapped them around my mug. Eyes swarming with profound concern, were staring back at me. “Too much is changing, chick,” her opinion was expressed in a pacifying timbre. “You’re not the Kady I was in the company of a few months ago.”

No,
I wasn’t. That would be because I was putting the one important person in my life, first, something I should’ve done a long time beforehand. I sighed. “Liv, I was a menace––”

“WHAT?!”
Freed by her hands as they fell away from my own, she pushing herself back into the leather-backed seat in a fit of pique. If she wasn’t sitting already, I swore she would have collapsed on the spot. “Where the fuck did you get that assumption?” she grumbled.

“I didn’t pay any consideration to how Liam felt about my action
s, the way I dressed… Liv,”––I peached myself on the edge of the seat, my shoulders gathered at my ears as I leaned into my forearms, eager to demonstrate my point––“To see the look in his eyes and how happy he is when I fulfill his wishes, is the best feeling. Knowing that I am making him happy…” Even her hard, disbelieving eyes couldn’t wash the lunatic grin I had plastered over my face.

As I trailed off rummaging through my brain to find a word
expressive enough to describe how deliriously happy making Liam happy, was making me, Liv delved into her bag. A moment later she sighed, “Here.” I seized the tube she handed me with caution. Removing the lid, I twisted the bottom to raise the cherry red lip stick.

“Liv, I don’t think red is my color.”

“No, neither do I, but if you’re altering yourself to become a Stepford Wife, which gesturing by your attitude and poor, poor taste in clothing, it’s blatantly obvious that you are, you might as well go the whole nine yards.”

Stunned by her rebuke, my eyes flared.
There were no words in the entire human language which I could’ve used to describe how utterly insulted I was. How dare she think she could talk to me, not only in that tone, but with those harsh speculative words aimed at
my
relationship? I had to give it to her, Liv had a tongue like a razor, and I had just come to realize that I never wanted to be on the receiving end of it again. I hung my head as the ungainly silence sifted around the area, only to be ruptured by affronted gasps.

“I’m sorry, chick, that was––”

“You know what, Liv?” I lifted my head to stare into contrite, gold dusted eyes, her lips rolled over her teeth, and it would benefit her if she kept them there. “Until you enter a long-term relationship and learn the value of compromise and empathy, and to know that you are making your partner happy by doing those things,”––head shaking faintly, my eyes tightened while my upper lip curled in distaste––“then don’t think you can give
me
relationship advice.”

“You know what, chick,” she said pointedly. Even
over the distance across the table, I could feel her pointing finger jabbing at me, albeit not physically. “You should never change for a man. No offence, but if doing all of that means you’ll end up like this,”––her point became a wave of her hand as she motioned down my body––“then I will quite happily remain single for the rest of my Goddam life.”

Taking a sip of coffee, I muttered
my final words on the topic over the brim of my mug, “And that’s your choice.”

The best thing about mine and Liv’s friendshi
p was, we could have our moment of expressing differing opinions, and yes, we would get into a debate about it, and something’s may be said which could easily be taken out of context. But, we were educated enough to understand that not everyone shares the same values and the same views of life, so we never let our words dictate the fundamentals of our relationship. It was a verbalized expression of our differing opinion. And it wouldn’t be taken any further.

She crossed her legs and raised her mug
to her lips. “And swiftly moving off that topic, have you had any thoughts about his birthday?”

“Nope. I am completely stumped. He has everything, and I wanted to do something amazing for him, he deserves it, especially for the big three, zero. Still unemployed and I’m feeling like shit because I’m living off my boyfriend. I can’t use his money to buy him a gift, what sort of idiot would do that?”

“Bet you wished you saved up some of those tips now don’t ya,” she grinned like a cat that got the cream, and I couldn’t help but mirror at her attitude with an agreeing nod of my head and rolling of my eyes. Yes, she was damn right. I did wish that, it could have come in handy right about now.

“Thirty…what would a man love for his thirtieth birthday?” I mused, mostly to myself
while gazing into thin air.

A gasp from across the table
had drawn my attention back to the brunette. Her mouth agape, while mischief twinkled in her hazel eyes.

That expression was a traditional
‘Brainwave Liv’ expression.

Damn, we were in trouble.

October
31
st
2011.

Twenty months
before the accident…

“I cannot believe you actually invited someone without passing it by me firs
t. Liam’s going to have kittens.” The feisty brunette may have been donning a kinky Devil costume, damn; she could have been The Devil herself for all I cared. Either way, nothing was going to halt my scolding. Things had been going smoothly between Liam and me since his birthday several weeks ago, and if Liv’s infamous running off at the mouth was going to rock that boat, the large bowl that I was pouring potato chips into, would be flying across the room to meet the coffee and cream painted wall.

“Oh, come on. She’s been living above you for a few months now and”––she jumped down from the chair
, taking a step back to admire her draping web in the living room doorway––“you still haven’t spoken a word to each other. It’ll be fun.”

I was just about to
begin my sardonic probing into who it would be fun for exactly, when a shriek followed by a clattering of bags resonated from the hall. “Sis!”

I turned to
face the direction of the squealer, and was suddenly attacked by a broomstick and a mass of green hair. “Brittany,” I opened my arms to give my little sister a not so little hug. “I love the wig.”

“Wig?”
By the quizzical sound of her voice, something was about to tell me that this was yet another mishap for, Brittany Jenson. Both the world and the people in it were lucky that she strayed from beauty school. She pulled me away and held me at arm’s length, shaking her head. “This”––scornfully pointing to the masses, she continued–– “is supposed to be cosmic blue. That’s what the box said, I double checked. Does it look like cosmic-fucking-blue to you?”

Liv propped her hand on my sister’s shoulder and offered a sympa
thetic caress through her tears as we fell into loud fits of guffawing. I was sure that if her hand wasn’t braced on my sister’s shoulder, The Devil would have been rolling on the floor like a turtle trapped on its back. “It’ll fade soon enough, but at least it goes with the costume.” Liv always knew how to make someone see the upside to their downside, and by the grin on my baby sister’s face, she found comfort in the words of my best friend––the best friend who also suffered many a mishap in the hair and beauty department over the years.

“Speaking of costumes,” Brittany
turned her attention back to me. Blue irises, which were a darker hue than my own, combed over the length of my ivory satin and lace high neck blouse with filigree shoulders, and a pair of simple black pants. She eyed me warily. “What are you supposed to be, sis?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard,” The Devil interjected, sweeping her hand in a downward motion
over my body. “This is the new wardrobe––”

“And I think she looks just as beautiful
as the first day I met her,” Liam countered, brushing the doorway web out of his face and strolled toward me. His hands were being loosely stuffed into his pants pockets.

“Hey, big man,” my s
ister raised her arms in defeat and in the process, nearly whacked Liv on the head with her broomstick. “I’m not one to judge. You hear all the time about past fashions making a comeback. Who’s to say we won’t all be wearing the Victorian ensemble within the next year, eh?”

His eyes were ablaze as he snared my chin between his thumb and crooked index finger, tipping my head back to gain eye contact.
“The Victorian’s, if I remember correctly, had a lot of class,” he muttered, just before sealing his soft, warm lips over mine. As I was drowned in Liam’s arms, a sweet smile tiptoed across my face.

He loves me.
And he thinks I have class.

By 9:15
p.m., the apartment was heaving. I didn’t realize we invited so many people. Well, when I say we, I meant Liam and Liv, considering the only unrelated person I knew
and
invited amongst the throng, was the only friend I hadn’t cut from my life…Liv.

Liam/
Dracula, was mingling with a group of rowdy lads near the couch with a beer in hand, Liv was somewhere or other, and don’t get me started on Brittany and her man-obsessed brain. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I found her in the bathroom with her ass in the sink and Casper between her legs. Her public demeanor would have Daddy far from impressed. But the only time she got to let her hair down, be it cosmic-blue, green or purple, was outside of D.C. and with me. I found pleasure in knowing that she was able to have fun with her big sister. And especially in knowing that she knew she was safe enough with me to let her hair down.

I made my way to the kitchen for another drink.
Regardless of him being at my side, I didn’t want to embarrass myself or embarrass him, if something should’ve happened in an alcohol induced state. So, under Liam’s orders, I was limited to water or punch…punch was more favorable.

Lifting the silver ladle
from the glass punch bowl, I poured a generous volume into the red plastic cup, when I overheard my name being called. Attention drawn away from the center of the dining table, I lowered the scoop and was met by The Devil with her red glittery lips turning up into a tempting smirk.