Chasing Spring(22)

“How much did you drink tonight, Kimberly?” I asked.

“Actual shots or just the little ones?” She giggled before starting to tick off drinks on her fingers. When she passed one hand, I shook my head.

“Brian, do you think you could take her home?” I asked.

His eyes lit up and he shot off the bathtub. “Yeah, definitely.”

She pushed her bottom lip out. “No. No. I want you to take me!”

Brian stepped back toward the bathtub, wounded by her rejection. I’d known from the beginning it was a mistake to date Kimberly. Each time something started between us, I’d try to tell myself I had feelings for her. I was dumb enough to use her as a distraction, hoping my feelings would eventually catch up to hers, but they never did. She was smart, and gorgeous, and kind, but she wasn’t Lilah.

It was time to end it for good.

“I'm not leaving yet. I need to find Lilah.”

Kimberly wasn't a fool; even in her drunken state she caught what I meant.

She let her bottom lip slide past her teeth and glanced back toward Brian. “Okay, Brian would you mind taking me home?” She smiled. “Pretty please?”

Brian, unscathed from the earlier snubbing, looked like he'd just won the lottery ten times over. “Sure! Yeah, let me go get my car. I'll meet you guys out front.”

He shot out of the bathroom, leaving me alone with Kimberly. I stepped forward to help her stand up and she threw her weight against me. I pulled her arm around my shoulder and wrapped my hand around her waist so I could carry some of her weight. The second we walked out of the bathroom, she started giggling again.

“I should have known nothing had changed. You love Lilah soooo much. It's so cute. You know she's really nice and she tries to hide with all the black hair, but she's still so pretty. I wonder if she'd want to be my friend again.” She kept rambling and I couldn't help but smile down at her. At least she was a bubbly drunk.

We’d made it midway through the living room when I looked up and spotted Lilah standing with Trent against the wall. His arm was caging her in on one side as he leaned down to talk to her, but she wasn't watching him. Her eyes were locked on me and Kimberly. She watched Kimberly smile up at me and then her gaze fell to my hands wrapped around Kimberly's waist.

She pinched her eyes closed as she processed what she thought she was seeing. When she opened them again, they were a shade darker and narrowed in anger. I watched her lift up onto her toes, wrap her hand around Trent's neck, pull his face toward her, and kiss him. He’d been in the middle of a sentence, but she kissed him hard and stole the rest of his words.





Chapter Twenty-Five


Lilah





I don’t know why I kissed Trent. In the past, seeing Chase with Kimberly had lit a dull flame in the pit of my stomach, but now it was a wildfire, burning me from the inside out. Seeing his arm around her, seeing her smile up at him, seeing their features perfectly complement one another was enough to send me over the edge. I pulled Trent's face down to mine and tried to channel every ounce of rage into a kiss, but it didn't work. His breath tasted like stale tobacco and when I closed my eyes, I still saw Chase’s hazel gaze staring back at me.

I pulled back and took a deep breath.

When I glanced over to where Chase had just been standing, he was gone. He'd left with Kimberly.

Good.

They could go f*ck each other somewhere else.

“I like when you take charge,” Trent said, dipping his head lower and kissing the side of my neck.

His lips swept across my skin, dipping toward the neckline of my t-shirt. My hands wrapped around his biceps as I tried to force my attention onto the guy in front of me instead of the one who’d just left.

“Guys, guys, guys.” Duncan stumbled toward us, his eyes dilated wide. “Ashley is freaking out.”

“Whatever, tell her to chill,” Trent groaned.

“No man, it’s serious. She’s really bugging.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Duncan led us to the restroom Kimberly and Chase had left a few minutes prior. Ashley was sitting on the ground with sweat covering her forehead. Her dilated eyes matched Duncan's, and when I felt her forehead, she was burning up.

“Trent, go get some water from the kitchen.”

Ashley was clutching her knees and grinding her teeth. I tried to get her attention, to get her to focus on me, but her eyes were darting in every direction but mine.

“Ashley, are you okay?” I snapped my fingers. “Ashley, focus.”

“I don't feel good,” she murmured so softly I could hardly hear her.

“Do you think you can throw up?” I asked, trying to think of the fastest method to get all the crap out of her system.

“No. No,” she cried. “I don't want to throw up. Don't make me throw up.”

She didn't sound like herself and the way her eyes were darting around the room was starting to scare me.

Trent rushed back into the bathroom with a glass of water. I gripped the back of Ashley's head and forced most of the liquid down her throat. She didn't want to drink it, but her body was dehydrated and even if she wasn't my best friend, I wasn't going to let her die from being a complete idiot.

The water settled in her stomach for a moment, and then she twisted toward the toilet and threw it all up.