“Murder.”
“Murder,” he repeats back to me.
I swallow, dipping my chin. “Yep.”
“That’s it? What’s the main character’s name? Arden reads a lot. Maybe she’s read it. Actually, maybe she’d like to join this little club.”
Well, that can’t happen, seeing as it doesn’t exist.
I stare at him, my jaw tightening. “Ally…son.”
His face remains the same, blank and bored. So, I keep talking. Because I’ve already put my foot in it, I might as well put the other one right in there, too.
“Allison murdered her husband, and she and her friends do someWeekend at Bernie’sshit.”
His jaw pulses again. “Right, and how’d you find this club?”
“Online.”
“Where?”
“Facebook.”
“You still use Facebook?” he asks, cocking a brow. He knows I don’t. I haven’t touched that app in years.
“Sometimes.”
“Who else is in this book club?”
We’re glaring at each other, both well aware that I’m lying. Carter pushes himself from the table, striding toward me in his gray sweatpants and crumpled hoodie. I’m struck with the reminder that he’s been waiting for me. All night.
He’s pissed.
Carter steps right into my space, studying my eyes, trying to see if I look different. Looking for a clue in my face.
“Try again,” he bites out quietly.
“I don’t have to tell you my every move, Carter.”
He doesn’t budge. “Try again, Ari.”
I glare up at him, fury surging through my veins. I’m not a child. He’s not my father. He’s not my keeper, either. I’m just trying to live a little, and unfortunately, it’s in the way that pisses him off the most. Because I’m bad at it. I do what is wrong for me because it gives me a morsel of control. I have a scientific approach to this entire process that works to utter perfection. I can never get hurt. But I hurt everyone else a bit in the process. Including him.
He judges me for it. He tears a strip off me for it, all the damn time. I don’t want to hear it anymore. I want to be allowed to be who I am with no opinion from the peanut gallery. Still, I fess up, because I just want to go to bed without the lecture.
“I’m going on dates.”
His eyes shut with disappointment. “Multiple nights a week?”
“So?”
He used to have a different girl in this condo every second nightof the week.
“And you’re stumbling home this late, multiple nights a week,becauseyou’re going on dates?”
“Don’t judge me.”
That sentence is apparently his last straw.
