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“Yeah, sure,” I said with a tight smile, already dreading the drive. In the dark. During Friday night traffic. Fuck.
I stuck with just Diet Coke for the night, but Shaw hit the rum hard. It was her usual choice of hard liquor, and it always brought out the wild side of my bestie. I stayed close to her, making sure she didn’t do anything she would regret when she was sober, and tried to talk her into going home every twenty minutes in the hope she was ready to go. Her curfew had been extended this year, but her parents were out of town for the weekend, so it wasn’t like they would know if she got home on time or not.
“Stevenson!” I turned from watching Shaw dancing on the living room coffee table with some other girl to find Remington walking into the room. I smiled at the senior as he came over to stand beside me.
Remington had moved to Santa Monica over the summer, and he’d spent the first week of school flirting with me. But when he’d asked me out, I’d told him about Luca. He was a nice guy, though, definitely good company—especially when I was in a house full of people I mostly didn’t like to begin with.
I lifted a brow at him as I glanced around. “I didn’t think this was your scene.”
He shrugged his leanly muscled shoulders. He was on the swim team, and I’d seen him running on the track several times in the past few weeks. Remington was a little over six feet tall, with dirty-blond hair and the clearest blue eyes I’d ever seen. They looked almost like crystals at times, and the way they were surrounded by thick, light-brown lashes made them appear mystical. A girl would have to be blind not to see how good-looking Remington was, but even though I thought he was hot, I was too caught up in Luca to pay much attention.
“Yeah, well, I could say the same about you.” His eyes flitted to Shaw. “Cage is drunk, huh?”
“For a while now,” I agreed grimly. “You missed the blowup between her and Cannon earlier. She laid his ass on the floor. But she’s so drunk, she can’t even feel her swollen knuckles right now.”
He grinned, showing his movie-star quality, even white teeth. “I knew she was a badass.”
I laughed. “You don’t even know just how badass she can be.” I glanced back at Shaw then sighed. “Can you watch her for me for a second? I need to pee, and I don’t trust anyone else in this room to keep her from making bad life choices.”
“Go. I got this.”
I gave him a quick hug in thanks then headed for the downstairs bathroom. The first-floor guest bathroom was occupied. I had to go pretty badly and I didn’t want to leave Shaw for long, even with Remington watching out for her, so I went upstairs where I found two other guest baths.
The first one I came to was full of other girls doing their makeup. They offered to let me come in and do my business, but I couldn’t pee in front of people I didn’t know. Luckily, the second bathroom was empty, and I quickly locked the door behind me.
When I came out a few minutes later, I was determined to get Shaw to go home. I was tired, and I wanted to text Luca. Even if he was asleep in his hotel room, I could still tell him goodnight and ask him to call me in the morning since his game wasn’t until six Central time.
As I walked out of the bathroom, my mind on how I could convince Shaw to leave, a hand caught me around the waist.
Startled, I yelped just as I was pushed up against the wall outside the bathroom. Lifting my head, I met Cannon’s aggressive eyes. They were bloodshot, and I could smell the booze on his breath even as he lowered his head.
I was so surprised, I didn’t react until his mouth landed on mine. When he kissed me, I started to fight against him. “Stop,” I cried, but his lips crushed mine even harder.
It was an angry kiss, as if he were punishing me for something, and I fought against him, trying in vain to push him off me. I couldn’t believe what he was doing. This was Cannon, the boy I’d grown up thinking of as my older brother. The guy who’d always had my back just as much as Shaw did. Our moms were so close they were practically sisters; they were the godmothers of each other’s kids.
I trusted Cannon to never hurt me, yet there he was, kissing me by force. My lips felt bruised and raw, and with how much power he was using to keep me restrained, I knew I was going to have fingerprint bruises on my body. I tried to make as much noise as I could in the hope someone would hear me, but the music playing downstairs was too loud to hear anything above a shout.
Tears spilled from my eyes, and I tried to kick out, but even drunk, Cannon knew my tricks. He shifted his lower body so that my knee couldn’t make contact with his crotch and kissed me even rougher. My teeth tore against the inside of my bottom lip, and I cried out in pain as blood filled my mouth.
Then he was jerked away from me. Through my tears, I saw Remington punch Cannon in the face, and he landed at my feet.
“What the fuck were you doing?” Remington shouted at him as Cannon tried to catch his breath.
“She kissed my best friend, so I kissed hers!” Cannon yelled, wiping his mouth. When it came away red, he blanched then looked up at me. That was when he realized what he’d done, and he turned green. “Violet… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…”
I turned away from him, my tears only coming faster. I felt sick, and shock was starting to set in. Cannon had just broken my heart, and I couldn’t even look at him.
Remington wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his body, and I pressed my face against him. But then I remembered the blood on my mouth and pulled back. “I got some on you,” I muttered lamely.
He cupped the back of my head, pressing me back into him. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s only a shirt.”
Shaw was stumbling her way up the stairs as we started down them. When she saw my face, her face clouded over. “What happened?”
“Ask your douchebag brother,” Remington told her in a hard voice.
“Vi?” Shaw sounded less drunk all of a sudden. “Oh God, Violet. You’re bleeding.” She grasped my hands, her fingers shaking. “Tell me what he did.”
“He…” I sucked in a deep breath. “He said since you kissed his best friend, he was going to kiss yours. And he… He hurt me.”
