My jaw fucking dropped. Quinn had no idea how dangerous this was, and yet the room lit up around him.
“And here I thought you were a brainless twat.” The Lawson grinned and motioned for Quinn to scoot closer to Brit. The small man did, and the Lawson made himself a spot at his side.
My magic fumed.
Music I didn’t remember playing burst to life. The staff poured out of the bar with jugs for refills. People resumed their conversations with enthusiasm. The room buzzed with energy I’d not felt in a long while.
I peeked back at Quinn, finding the Lawson with a petite wine glass in his hands, sitting with a rival family, his shoulder pressed to Quinn’s. Something hot and unfriendly took root in my chest.
“Rowan, what crawled up your butt and died?” Joe punched my shoulder. “It’s looking like a party. Stop moping. Brit might dance with you too… or maybe someone else you have your eye on, eh?”
The music rose in volume.
I glared at my friend. Angela left the castle this morning to join one of her other suitors, and Joe knew it. I was loyal. Joe wanted to get a rise out of me.
My gaze landed on Quinn again. The man laughed, taking both Everly and the Lawson’s hands. The two didn’t look happy, but they shook. Quinn accepted a plate of food from each. Looking rather smug and dug in.
I focused on my beer, all too aware of my exclusion from Angela’s social plans. Angela had her games, and I hated most of them, but at least I was on the field instead of sitting on the sidelines, watching.
Chapter 11
Quinn
Isatatmyfirst bar. The swanky little place, with a few spotlights in corners and stiff leather booths around the outside, was way out of my comfort zone. But I’d made it to twenty-one, and it was a rite of passage to get a drink.
A Lemon Drop, complete with a sugared rim, now sat in front of me.
“Don’t drink that,” my dad said.
I took a deep breath. “Then why did you buy it for me, Dad?”
My dad frowned, looked at the drink, and then back at me. “Sorry, drink it.”
I understood why he told me not to drink it. I hadn’t had a blackout in six months. It was a record, given that one of the major side effects of my medication was sleeping. And you can’t really be crazy when you are asleep.
I stared at my drink, my rite of passage drink. I never got a fake ID. I never went to parties. This would be my first sip of liquor ever. It wouldbe my first attempt at ingesting something, which encouraged me to lose control instead of fighting to keep it.
My excitement banked. “I don’t know if I should.”
My dad and I looked at each other. We were a pair at this point. My dad had lived with my crazy for twenty-one years. We stopped blaming each other and volleyed our individual neuroses back and forth like a tennis ball until I inevitably lost the point. And it was me every time.
Yellow tennis ball, yellow drink. Was it a coincidence, or did Miss Q know something I didn’t?
It took me ten more minutes, but I picked up the drink and celebrated twenty-one.
Pounding on my door woke me the following morning. My head throbbed. The taste of stale cider coated my dry throat. The stuffy air in my room, made worse by the fact I couldn’t figure out how to open the windows, didn’t help. I moaned, reaching for my TB next to my pillow, only to paw at my sheets with no TB on them.
The knocking on my door started again, faster, and I sat bolt upright. “Shit!” My TB was behind the counter of the Happy Rooster, holding a tab open.
I adjusted my layers of sweaters and stumbled toward the knocking. The last stair tripped me, and I slammed into the door with a thud.
“Quinn!” Brody’s worried voice came through the wall.
I moaned and considered going back to bed.
Brody pounded on the door again. “Quinn, I can hear you. Are you alright? Open this now, or I’m going to find a way in.”
I gritted my teeth and pulled the handle. Brody’s tense body quivered, crowding the doorframe.
