Page 92 of Let the Light Shine Through

It feels good in the worst way possible. Right eyes, wrong lips. Right guy, wrong girl.

If only I wasn’t wrong for Roz. If only…

“What’d they do to earn that?” Roz sneers, piercing the tension with a knife and twisting.

“They…” They… They… They did nothing to earn this. Nothing to earn me, my body, my time. Not like Roz did. He earned more kisses than I let him have. He earned more time than I gave him. He earned more from me than I thought possible.

But I took it all away before cancer could.

The heat rises and rises and rises, surrounding me, invading me, until it’s too much and my throat fills with acid the second another finger joins the first one in an attempt to stab awkwardly at the outside of my crotch.

I push the two fuckboys away, avoiding Roz’s heavy stare.

Rowdy pokes his head out the slider, asking, “G? You good?” He knows I don’t ask for permission for anything I do, but he still likes to make sure I’m coherent enough to make those choices for myself. I just wish he would’ve thought to check in with me before I decided to get into a hot tub fully clothed because that’s a choice I should’ve never made.

I give him a nod that feels like a shake. What is good? Because this doesn’t feel good. Nothing about these guys feels good. Not their lips, not their hands, not even their attention. Roz’s attention didn’t just affect me, it changed me, and now nothing else compares.

“She’s being fucking mauled and you’re okay with it?” Roz spits at Rowdy, his expression not matching his words. There’s anger, for sure, but there’s also a lot of pain. Pain I’m still putting there.

This isn’t to hurt Roz. It’s to hurt him less. Him watching me die wouldn’t just hurt, it’d debilitate him. Look how he handled one death. He couldn’t handle another. He shouldn’t.

He won’t. Simple.

“She’s a big girl, Roz.”

Roz switches his glare from Rowdy to me and, raising my own eyebrows, I mouth the word “big” for him in case he missed it the first time even though I don’t feel big right now. I feel tiny, insignificant, but I’ve gotten really fucking good at faking a bigger presence around men thanks to them constantly trying to challenge me, like Mitch did.

“She knows what she’s doing.” Rowdy pins me with a hard look, then mumbles, “Most of the time,” while turning away.

Maybe I’m not as good as I thought.

Shirt guy chimes in, saying, “You’re welcome to join us. If you and Kori are up for round two.”

“Or three or four,” says his friend.

Even though I shouldn’t, I wait with bated breath, listening for Roz’s answer. Kori doesn’t give anything away as she drops her gaze shyly and Roz… Roz just hesitates, his thumbs rubbing roughly over his grimy knuckles all the while his jaw tics like the seconds hand on a clock.

Well?

Kori interrupts the stretched moment, suggesting, “What about a game of two truths and a lie?”

A game? How fucking camp counselor of her. No wonder Roz is out here looking for a fight instead of banging Kori’s brains out.

Unless he already did.

Did he or didn’t he?

I reach for the half-empty bottle of gin sitting on a tall table off to the side. Unfortunately, it’s out of my grasp in the next instant as Roz pulls it away and tosses the entire bottle out the propped-open screen door.

Rude.

“Rich people are so wasteful,” I tsk.

Not nearly concerned as I am about the spilled gin, knee guy asks, “What are the rules?”

Kori smiles up at Roz and I have to fight to keep myself above the water. I told Kori to do this. I don’t have any right to be upset. But…

But I hate her. Roz, too. Mostly Roz, for falling for the cheap shot he should’ve seen coming a mile away. A stupidly hot girl dangled in front of his face seconds after I stomped out his little crush? Come the fuck on. He can’t really be that naïve.