Bedwrecker(98)
Boy, does she put herself together quickly.
I could take a page or two from her “how to” book.
Hard to believe I just did that—watched a girl give a guy a blow job. Honestly, I didn’t see much, just the back of her head, but still, that has to count as anything but uptight.
Right?
When the coast is clear, I grab my phone, finally press send with the one word, yes, to answer Maggie, and make my way into the lounge. There is no sign of Megan with a B, and although I’m uncertain what Cam looks like, something tells me he’s gone too.
“Happy” is playing and my friends are onstage moving like Pharrell Williams. Practically skipping toward them, I hop up and join in. Moving my hips, snapping my fingers, clapping my hands, I have no trouble belting out this tune all the way through.
“Clap along, if you feel like that’s what . . .” I finish the song on a high note, with my hands together and a sense of being reborn myself.
What I watched in that private room makes me realize everyone has issues, and everyone has a way of dealing with them—beg, cry, get mad, say things that hurt, curl up into a ball, and even have sex. However you deal, at least you deal, and I’ve done my fair share of all of that.
I’m done dealing.
I’m ready for tomorrow.
Ready to start anew.
Be a hot-air balloon, just like the song says.
Within minutes of our grand finale, I’m drunkenly hugging my friends goodbye.
“Don’t forget to call us!” they holler as I get into a cab.
“I won’t,” I answer, closing the window, and then turning around to wave goodbye as the taxi pulls away.
Slumping against the door, reality dawns. In less than twenty-four hours, I’ll be on a plane to Orange County.
I can’t believe it.
I’m really doing it.
New start.
New life.
New me.
California, here I come.
No Pants Required is Available Now
Read on for a Sneak Peek at Crush
Day 8 Continued
Logan McPherson
Say you wanted someone eliminated . . .
Killed.
It doesn’t matter who—your mother, your lover, your enemy.
There are guys out there who will do it for you.
It’s a fact.
Not someone from the Mob.
Not someone connected to the Mob.
Not anyone you know.
A hit man.
I’ve heard of ways to contact one. Someone who knows someone who knows someone.
Someone from the old neighborhood. Someone with prison tats. Someone with long hair. Someone with no hair. Who the fuck cares—he could look like Mötley Crüe. Hell, on the other hand, he could be a businessman wearing a two-thousand-dollar suit.
I really don’t give a shit.
What he looks like is irrelevant. It’s what he does that matters.
Sure, there’s a steep monetary price attached to the deed. That’s not what worries me.
I’d give every cent I had if it meant she’d be safe.
It’s what it would really cost me—how big of a piece of my soul it would take—that keeps me from making that call.
I re-read the note, “That E wasn’t meant for Emily.”
One thing was clear . . .
He knows about Elle and me.
Tommy Flannigan, my enemy, my foe, the Mob boss’s son, the one I have been forbidden to make contact with, knows I have someone in my life that I care about. He might even know I love her. And she’s not his sister. She’s not Emily. Because I defied him, because I dared to move on, I know he’ll taunt me, try to break me, try to drive me out of my mind.
For over a decade he’s loomed over me.
Like a shadow.
A black spot in my life that I always knew was there.
In the past he’d threatened me, mutilated a girl I’d dated, scarred me, but that was a long time ago. I hadn’t heard from in years, until just last week when he harmed someone he thought was Elle.
He was back in my life.
Everyone knew he was into drugs as a user, but not many knew he was a cutthroat player in the drug world; not even his old man knew to what extent he was involved. The thing was he was always crazy, but lately he’d been breaking all the rules. Homes. Women. Mothers. Children. Nothing and no one was safe from him anymore—it was like he had nothing left to lose.
With that, breaking the treaty forged years ago when it came to contacting me wasn’t a surprise.
I think I’d been waiting for him to cross that line for a very long time.
The thing he doesn’t get is I’m no longer fearful. That I’ll do the very same thing. As of right this minute, as far as I’m concerned, the rules of the street no longer apply to me. There is too much at stake for me to care about what could happen if I went up against the Blue Hill Gang. I have to think about what has to happen in order to keep Elle safe. And that’s one thing, and one thing only.