Never (16 page)

Kim gasped behind me. I guess I was doing it right.

The stoic man cracked the slightest of grins. "You trying to get me in trouble?"

I moved closer, the smell of his musky cologne storming my nostrils. "Maybe." I brought the ID down, close to my chest, wondering if he was game. When the smile spread, I knew he was taking the bait.

His fingers brushed the fleshy skin above my breasts, lingering as his eyes heated with desire. Kim rushed forward, squeezing between us.

"Here's mine,” she said quickly.

The bouncer's whole face was lit up like Christmas. He probably thought he'd hit the lottery and the three of us were going to celebrate.

"You two are together?" He didn't even look at our ids before handing them back to us. "I'm off in an hour."

"We’re not—"

"Speak for yourself," I interrupted. I held his gaze, feeling the power. Finally feeling in control of my sexuality.

"We're not interested," Kim finished, yanking me away from him. I made eyes at him over my shoulder until he was out of sight. When we stepped inside, Kim put both hands on my shoulder, peering at me like I was a stranger.

"What the hell was that?"

"Distraction," I said smoothly, tucking my ID back in my purse. "What am I missing?"

"Judging by the way you almost humped that guy's leg, I'd say standards."

"Joke all you want," I said with an eyeroll, searching for my endgame. "But our hands weren't stamped."

She looked down at her own hand, like she couldn't believe it. We were missing the under 21 stamp that the bartender used to regulate drinking. A slow smile crept across her face. "So that's what that was about back there." She let out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank god. I was getting worried. Especially with Lucas—"

A flash of something I refused to name cut through me but I stomped it out. "Lucas who?"

I got lost in the music, the frenetic pulse of it screeching in my ears. I didn't want to give a voice to the sick feeling that was eating away at my stomach, telling me that I was making a terrible mistake. If I thought about how wrong it really felt being that close to someone that wasn't Lucas, I'd bail like the room was on fire.

I needed this. After everything around me was falling apart, I deserved a night of reckless abandon.

The bar was to the right of the dance floor, teeming with people lined up for their liquid piece of heaven—and I was next. Out of the all the people, eyes searching out the bartender, there was one guy who caught my attention. He looked like he could be in one of those alcohol commercials, with his toned body wrapped in a plain white t-shirt and vest, dark wash jeans hanging casually enough that he made something fashionable look effortless. But it wasn't his style that caught my attention. It was the way he looked like he was on the outskirts of the group, even though he was in the center. He was surrounded by sickeningly gorgeous girls but not really paying attention to any of them. When he turned slightly, I got a look at his handsome face, lips turned up in a placating smile, eyes a million miles away. I inched closer, something familiar about him, something pulling me to him. Maybe it was the silent cry for help in his eyes. Ten feet from him it hit me like a smack across the face...and I wished I'd listened to Kim and not come out at all.

It was Lance.

The long shaggy blond locks were gone, his hair tapered and highlighting his cheek bones. His green eyes. Eyes that met mine and brightened.

I turned on my heels, nearly colliding with Kim. Somehow she'd weaved in the crowd like a ninja and retrieved two drinks. She held out one to me.

"I remember you going—" She stopped as I flung the straw away and chugged it.  "Ape shit over sex on the beach. Is everything—"

"Everything's great!" I lied, warmth spreading over me as I nodded in the direction of the dance floor. "Wanna dance?"

Her face glowed as she grinned from ear to ear. "Thought you'd never ask!"

I said a silent prayer, hoping Lance was too busy with his group of admirers to follow. Just to make sure, I pulled Kim in the middle of the throng of people gyrating, losing themselves in the music. I wanted to catch that feverish thing behind their closed eyes, possessing their limbs. But I could only sway, my arms and legs filled with lead, my heart even heavier.

Kim shook it like no one was looking, eyes squeezed shut so tightly that it was almost like she was praying. I'd been so wrapped up in myself that I didn't even think that there must have been some other reason why she didn't want to come out, other than concern for me.

Tears rushed to my eyes. She was my only friend in the world. All week she'd walked around campus with me like she was my private security. If anyone looked at me sideways she glared them down and in some cases, asked them straight out if they had a problem. There was this one guy in a polo and jeans who jokingly asked for my autograph and when he looked over at her, dropped his smile instantly. Never mind the fact that she was half his size and barely a hundred pounds wet. He shuffled away before she could even get a threat out.

A tear spilled down my cheek as she shook, like she was expelling some personal demon. Long gone was the lithe dancer from all our other nights out. This was purely therapy.

And I was a crappy friend.

She opened her eyes, an uneasy smile on her face as she looked at me quizzically, confused as to why I was barely swaying side to side.

She came closer and her mouth fell open. She touched my cheek like she couldn't believe it.

The music was too loud for me to make out her words, but it looked an awful lot like, 'Are you ok?'

Tears rushed the dam and there was no point in pretending that I was alright. I stepped forward to tell her I was sorry and find out what was wrong—and another reason we shouldn't have come out revealed herself.

"Not Candi," I groaned, pointing in her direction with my eyes when Kim frowned in confusion. When she saw Candi all but twerking on some guy, she looped her arm in mine. Her words came through loud and clear:

"Time to go."

We breezed through the crowd and I couldn't help but sigh with relief as we made it to the door without incident. I'd expected Candi to turn her head around Exorcist style or a tornado to rip through the building and take me out. It was that kind of night.

"Out of all the clubs around here she shows up at Visions?" Kim shook her head. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that's not a coincidence."

I agreed, and since Candi all of a sudden started coming to my favorite coffee shop and showing up around campus with a satisfied little grin on her face, I didn't put it past her. It wasn't enough that she was probably the one that 'anonymously' post the link to the video, but she had to rub my nose in it. Over and over again.

But I didn't say a word. I wouldn't even breathe until we were in the car, putting distance between us and them. Every twig that snapped, every snort of laughter made my stomach lurch.

"Almost there," Kim said, giving my arm a supportive squeeze.

"Leaving so soon?" The familiar voice had the same familiar venom, even though I knew she was smiling. Why wouldn't she be? She told me she'd ruin me, and that's exactly what she did. The hurt I'd been keeping inside scratched its way toward the surface, each lash a searing, white hot thing that made me tremble with anger.

What had I ever done to her? I didn't make Lucas end things with her, not that it mattered. She declared war on me the moment she saw my face. She was a bully, plain and simple. She didn't care that my ex recorded us having sex without my permission. I could picture her shrugging when I told her how I couldn't even leave my dorm room for weeks, hoping the gossip mill would churn something out besides its resident viral video star—and finding out that I couldn't even walk through the building without hearing the whispers and feeling the stolen looks in my direction. She'd just give me that enraging little smile when I told her at my darkest moments I thought about just ending it all. Getting out of bed was a heart wrenching challenge. Facing the day was unbearable.

Kim had slowed, walking behind me and providing a barrier. 

Things were different this time. I had a friend, and a guy that loved me even when I pushed him away. So just keep walking.
Just ignore her
.

"Out doing a casting call for your next blockbuster?"

I stopped hard.

Kim gripped me, trying to urge me to keep moving. "We're almost to the car," she told me softly. "Just walk away, Juliet.

Just walk away. I was pretty good at it. I walked away when I confronted my ex about the video. I'd even moved across the country to get away from the skeletons in my closet. When something good happened and I found Lucas, I walked away, just to avoid the possibility of drama. Of scandal. When in his own, misguided way, he was just making it known that we were together.

"My friends and I have been throwing around titles for your next release," Candi continued, baiting me. "What do you think about 'The Campus Slut'?"

The anger was something else now, something that made walking away impossible.

I was furious.

I whirled around, pushing Kim out of the way. I caught her by surprise and she yelped, crumbling to the ground. I stepped over her, burning holes into Candi's skull. She took a step back and a dark part of me smiled as hers dropped from her face, eyes bulging with fear.

"What's wrong?" I seethed, walking toward her as she nervously took two steps back. "I thought you had something to say."

Her blond ponytail whipped to the front as she looked for her friends. The hyenas she brought around to kiss her ass and laugh at everything she said were several feet away, watching from a safe distance.

Her jaw tightened and she stopped retreating. "What, am I supposed to be afraid of you?" The smirk returned to her lips. "The only scary thing about you are the sounds you made while your ex screwed you." She closed her eyes, mimicking the moans heard around two campuses now. The moans I made in the video when I climaxed.

Everything in my view darkened as I came forward, my hand slicing through the air and colliding with the side of her face. The clap ricocheted and everything else was silenced.

Kim's single word came too late.

Don't!

Candi brought a shaking hand to her reddening jaw. She pulled it away and looked at it, like she expected her palm to be coated in blood.

She dropped her hand, eyes burning with hatred. "You
bitch
!"

I'd been called worse but something in me that had been teetering close to the edge plummeted.

I snapped.

I flew forward, knocking her to the ground. My fists balled and when I punched her in the nose, the sickening crunch pierced me right to the soul.

Hands were on me, pulling me away from her. It was pandemonium as Candi’s friends flew to their fallen queen.

Kim was holding my right arm, her voice hoarse and filled with fear. "What did you do, Juliet? What did you
do
?!"

Chapter Nineteen: Lucas

I popped the tab, ignoring the fact that it had taken me five minutes to figure out how to do something that usually took  five seconds. I walked through the slog of empty bottles, knowing that if I was trying to prove that I was different from her ex, that I deserved her, the last thing I needed to be doing was getting totally shitfaced. But one bottle to take the edge off became three, and now I was throwing back the fifth. Damn the fact that I had a paper due this afternoon and my Microsoft word document was a blank page. Damn the lab work I haven't even read. And damn my stupid heart. It refused to give me a break or listen to me when I said that it was time to let Juliet go. It was filled with lollipops and gumdrops and an infuriating optimism that each new day was a chance to convince her that we belonged together. And the almost kiss two nights ago just fueled the fever dreams.

I kicked back on the sofa, finishing the beer. I tried to put the empty bottle on the coffee table, but I could barely get it on the edge. Once I balanced it, it toppled to the floor.

Her nose crinkled. "You've been drinking."

I shook my head effusively. "No, that's Bl-"

"You have a problem with alcohol, Lucas." She shook her head slowly. "Even if I wanted to, I don't have the energy to do this. Not again. I can't save you. I can barely save myself."

"I don't have a problem with alcohol," I said, cutting through the memory. I didn't even believe me. I was surrounded by evidence to the contrary. My garbage can was filled with beer cans and liquor bottles. What was my excuse? It wasn't a party, I wasn't drinking to have fun. I was drinking to get wasted. To numb myself. And one never did it. I had to have three or four. Six.

Liar.

Twelve. Sometimes more. If I was getting blackout drunk multiple times a week, all by myself, I had a little more than a problem.

I was an alcoholic.

The word brought back a memory. I remember playing in the sun room, and mom and one of her friends were drinking orange juice in champagne flutes. I knew it was mimosas now, but back then I didn't understand why she wouldn't let me have some of her orange juice.

They'd been laughing about something. They'd been laughing all morning, ever since they started drinking.

"Well I can say this about my husband," Mom had said, refilling her glass. "He's practically married to McNamara Acquisitions and Holding, but at least he's not an alcoholic. If I had to deal with his absence and then when he was around he was always clutching a Scotch, I'd pack up Lucas and Ken and he'd never see us again."

It struck a deep, terrifying fear in me. Back then, my dad was Superman. Sure, he was hardly around but when he was, he tucked me in and looked under my bed for monsters and read me stories. Somewhere along the way something changed. I was too old to be tucked in. I didn't believe in monsters anymore. And his parenting became little more than waving his wealth around.

My vision blurred as I looked down at the wreckage, bottles and cans spread throughout the room.