All or Nothing(29)

For the first time in my life, I didn’t care what my dad thought. Maybe it was the booze talking, but I wanted to disappoint him. I wanted him to be angry with me. Maybe then he wouldn’t want me around. Maybe I wouldn’t have to do everything his way.

If it was after six, that meant the party at the old barn would be starting soon. Bree would be there. She wouldn’t miss a performance by her precious Everly.

Hell, maybe I should have Everly ask her to stay. She had no problem leaving me behind, but she’d do anything for Ev. I neared the barn and spotted Everly and Justin Cohen.

“Speak of the Devil,” I muttered.

Everly. Now there was a prime example of how much everything got screwed up when I broke the rules. Bree wanted me to take a chance, but I’d taken a chance on Everly, hadn’t I? I’d liked her, and last year we’d slept together, but then Craig had made crude comments at the bonfire and she’d assumed I’d told the asshole. I hadn’t had a chance to explain before she’d turned cold on me. Hated my guts for something I’d thought she’d wanted as much as I had. I never would have touched her if I’d have known. It hadn’t been worth it.

Then I’d made the same fucking mistake with Bree. Only…Bree was Bree, and the memory of kissing her, touching her, sliding into her? I couldn’t even make myself regret it.

“Seriously—I’m a big girl,” Everly was saying to Cohen. “I can handle myself.”

“You can say that again,” I called. She could teach Bree a thing or two about handling herself. Everly might have hated me after we’d had sex, but she hadn’t run away to goddamn Paris.

“Okay, I will,” Everly was saying, but my mind was stuck on Bree, and I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. “I’m a big girl,” she repeated. “I can handle myself.”

Cohen glared at me and clenched his fists. What was that about?

“Long time no see, Pinky.” I touched the pink strand of her hair. She used to have a whole head of that pink hair, but now she just had the few streaks in the front. It reminded me of Bree’s ever-present red streak, but it didn’t do the things to my gut touching Bree’s hair did. Why was that? Why couldn’t we choose who we loved?

“Shame. I’ve missed you terribly,” Everly said. Bitterness dripped off her words.

I never meant for things to get like this between us. I had to make this right. “Meet me at the lake later?”

“Pass,” she hissed, and I winced as I realized what she must have thought I’d meant.

Cohen stepped in front of her before I could reply, totally cutting me off. “We gotta get going if we’re going to run by your house.”

“You’re right,” Everly said. “We should go. Great seeing you, Ken.”

They started walking away, and it clicked. Cohen and Everly were together. Any other night, I wouldn’t have cared. Fuck, I would have been happy for them even, but tonight it just pissed me off. Because I didn’t want to be the only miserable SOB in this town. “Oh, it’s like that with you two now?”

Cohen froze. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” He spun on me. Eyes blazing.

I held up my hands. “Hey, man. It’s cool. Just be warned, she’s a screamer.”

The moment the words left my mouth, I saw Bree out of the corner of my eye, her mouth agape at my crudeness, hurt carved into her features.

And because I was so busy looking at Bree, by the time I saw Cohen’s fist coming at me, I was already on the ground.





Everly looked gorgeous tonight in her black cocktail dress and heels, and for the first time in my life, I resented her for being more beautiful than me. Even though I was the one who’d talked her into performing here tonight, I resented that she was brave enough to actually do it. To face her fear of performing at home and prove to everyone how good she was.

My chest ached. Kennedy had gotten in a fight tonight. Over Everly. Okay, I wasn’t sure it was fair to call his face meeting Jubby’s single right hook a “fight,” but it definitely wasn’t in character for Golden Boy Extraordinaire.

“Kennedy,” Mrs. Hale said. “Why don’t you dance? Bree, you’d dance with him, wouldn’t you?”

“Come on, Picasso. We need to dance. It’s tradition.” He took me to the dance floor and draped my arms behind his neck. “Would you quit looking at me like you want to cut off my balls?”

There wasn’t enough room in my chest for air when he was this close. He didn’t even understand that he’d hurt me earlier. That had hurt even worse than his unwillingness to take a chance on me, so I made this about Everly when it should have been about me. “She’s a screamer? Seriously, Kennedy? Who says that?”