The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)(16)

“I’ll make them turn it down,” Staci insists. “My cousin’s in the DJ booth tonight.”

Oh God. Annnnd this is everything I hate about my hometown. Honky-tonk and boots and dancing. I’m not country—like, at all. I’m a city girl, so this is going to suck. I look around, though, and my friends seem delighted that they dragged me here. I find I just can’t say “no way.” I’m fifteen again, and Kat has dragged me to a field party on Baker Road. Lainey’s got a joint she stole from her cousin.

“C’mon,” Kat insists.

Like I always used to, I think what can it hurt?





8





Gabe





The literary world is like a small town. So eventually, they heard. My editor. The pub house veep of marketing. A couple of my author friends. And finally, inevitably, Page Six.

My agent, Roy, had kept it quiet since everything went down, around the end of April. I can’t blame him for this. Word leaked from the other camp, Roy thinks. In any case, they know now. Everybody in my circle.

I got a big basket of soup, crackers, and cookies from the publishing house on Wednesday. Yesterday, a box of cheese and sausage from my editor, Amelia. I couldn’t stomach the cards, so I stuffed them in the drawer of my adopted desk, up in the green room.

Now it’s Saturday night, or more accurately, one o’clock Sunday morning. I’ve been up here for hours now, pounding out a dozen words an hour, jerking off, and pacing the room, which has started feeling like prison. What else do I have to do but slice the cards open and behold all the awkwardness, the pity?

Nothing.

That’s the answer.

I’ve been writing—attempting to write—in the dark, with the blinds to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows open, so I can watch the road. For her—okay? For her. And what would you do? Pay her no attention? Anyone would be…thrown off, if they were living in the same digs as their ex. That’s what I tell myself. And I’m not only living here. As of now, I’m hiding here. Soon, word will get out. Someone from Fate will Google me, and I’ll be forced to face the music.

The requiem.

I take the letter opener I found in the kitchen and stick the tip into one of the envelopes. Then I jerk it rightward, and I love that fucking sound: of paper tearing.

Shrrpppp!

I work the card out gently, finding that it’s got a dog on it. Some kind of watercolor-looking dog. Is that a basset hound? Because that’s random. Cora, curled up on the rug, lifts her head, as if she read my thoughts. I open the card, and sharp light cuts through black outside. My gaze jerks to the window. Headlights. Fuck.

I turn my phone’s light off, then set the card down. I doubt she’d look up here, but if she did, I don’t want my face spotlighted. Christ.

The light flashes a few times: someone getting out and walking through the headlights’ beams. I hear laughter. Squealing.

I walk over to the window, peer down.

My eyes find Marley like they’d behold my own body after a long sleep: I’m both surprised and not. I see her swaying silhouette, and I can tell she’s drunk. I search the silhouette beside her, and I’m pleased to see it’s short and slender: Lainey. Got to be. Marley is taller. Curvier. More. I watch as she shoves her friend, and Lainey falls against the car.

Suddenly, I need to hear their words, like bits of dialogue. My writing is so blocked, I feel like I’m frozen in a glacier. Maybe their words will thaw me.

I open the window gently. Silently.

“So there’s your boyyyyyyy!” Marley’s loud, drunk voice is like an arrow through the night. She doubles over, laughing.

“Shut the fuck up, yellow belly!”

“Yellow belly!” Marley cackles. “What’s…a…bellow—yellow belly?”

Lainey falls against her, draping her arms around Marley. They two of them are howling like a couple coyotes.

“Shut up, loud ass!”

“So’s your mom!” Lainey throws her head back. Marley leans against her.

I can’t hear what Marley says, but Lainey screeches, “Not that, noooo! You know I hate it,” she slurs.

Marley laughs. “You can’t drive home…okay, amigo?”

“That’s what Kat is for!”

Marley shoves off Lainey, totters through the grass. “I got this, hussy. Peace out!”

She flashes what looks to be a peace sign as she falls backward, over the bushes that line the walkway to my door.



*

Marley





I’m pulling my keys from my purse, clomping up the stairs toward my door, when something streaks over the treeline.

“Oh my God!” A shooting star!

I watch it burn out, grinning a big, sloppy grin. My gaze falls down to my purse. What was I doing…? Whoa, I’m kind of dizzy!

The next thing I know, I’m grasping for the hand-rail as I wobble backwards. I yelp as the stairs pummel my head and shoulder, ribs, and cheek, before I slam into the dirt.

GOD!

I’m on my back. When I try to draw a breath, my chest feels frozen. I gasp, and make an awful whooping sound as I drag air into my lungs. My eyes shut. When I pull them open, everything looks wobbly.

I push up on one elbow, noting dim pain in my head, my knee, my ribs.