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Chapter 4
Hastings~
It was Friday afternoon, classes were over, and I was ready to leave the stress behind. Kincaid had plans tonight with Saxton, so that was going to leave me with the entire place to myself if I chose.
While I could be considered a social butterfly, my patience for people was actually pretty low. Besides my sister, I had no real close friends. I would consider Kincaid the closest I had to a best friend, but that’s it. When you were raised with the kind of wealth that my family had, it was hard to know who was interested in you for something other than your money. I wasn’t crying a poor-little-rich-girl story, so much as it was just the truth.
People were users, and while some didn’t mean to be, there were a lot of them who did. However, it was hard to knock someone who was always looking out for themselves first. Depending on how you were raised, a lot of us were reared to believe that we were responsible for ourselves and no one else. Whether poor or rich, the lesson was the same one; you had to look out for yourself because no one else was obligated to do that for you. Hell, even parenting had a legal deadline. After the age of eighteen, we were no longer our parents’ responsibility. While a lot of parents were good parents and didn’t just kick you out on your eighteenth birthday, they could if they wanted to.
These days, there was a lot of hype about self-care, and that was pretty much the same thing as someone telling you to make sure you were looking out for yourself first. It was advertised in a much nicer way, but the message was the same. Every now and again, you had to put yourself first. Unfortunately, a lot of people worshipped money enough to confuse self-care with trying to con someone out of all their life’s savings.
That was one of the reasons why I enjoyed people on a superficial level only and liked it that way. I had a better time going in with the mentality that my emotions, thoughts, and expectations were protected against someone who might be as fake as a three-dollar bill.
I partied, socialized, had a good time, and all of it with no risk.
Brantley liked to joke that my distrust of people was the reason why I was so drawn to animals, but it wasn’t because I distrusted them, per se. I just…preferred to play it safe.
“What are your plans tonight?”
I peeked up from laptop, ready to end the studying as soon as I finished this last assignment, and I saw Kincaid walking from her bedroom into the kitchen.
“Nothing, actually,” I answered. “I think I might just stay home and hit a horror movie marathon.” With Halloween only a week away, there were scary movies everywhere.
Kincaid came and sat on the couch, a bottle of water in her hand. “Really?” She sounded surprised, and I didn’t blame her.
“Drummond Markle is having a party tomorrow night, and I need to conserve all my energy if I’m going to go,” I teased.
Kincaid smiled. “Girl, the last thing you need to do is conserve energy. You have enough of it in spades.”
“Well, there’s a pre-Halloween party happening at the Eraser House, but I’m not sure if I’m feeling it.”
Kincaid’s eyes narrowed. “You know how I feel about that place,” she grumbled.
The Eraser House was not the safest place to party if the rumors were true. The house was actually a three-story Victorian monstrosity where a lot of jocks lived. The parties were wild, and no one was ever not invited to one of their parties. However, it’d been dubbed the Eraser House because it was rumored that roofies were aplenty, or else you’d get so drunk that you’d pass out and forget everything that happened the night before. It was hardcore partying with a lot of morning-after regrets. As far as I knew, nothing has ever been reported to the school or the police, so that’s why it was still going strong, regardless of the rumors.
“And you know that I’m smarter than that,” I replied.
Kincaid took a sip of her water before saying, “I do. However, just because no one has ever been violently raped, doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
“That’s true for any place, Kincaid,” I told her. “C’mon, give me a break here.”
“I just worry about you, Hastings,” she said. “While Drummond’s parties are epic, everyone knows better than to get out of hand and piss him off. The same can’t be said for Eraser.”
“Just like you, you know my last name protects me from most of it,” I reminded her.
Though it was jacked-up, it was true. Most men didn’t attack women who could fight back physically or financially. Most men attacked women who had no resources to fight for justice. The police, the public, the news outlets, none of them cared about a beaten and battered prostitute, or the sexual assault of poor ‘nobody’. Oh, but if you tossed in the daughter of a high-profile figure, or someone who had money, then they cared.
They cared like a sonofabitch.
“True,” Kincaid conceded. “Still, it makes me uncomfortable knowing you might be there.”
“Well, you can always blow Saxton off and come with me if I decide to go,” I joked. I knew there was no way she’d cancel on Saxton for me. Whatever bond she had with Saxton Voss, it was ironclad. He was her best friend in every sense of the word, and I couldn’t see her ever picking someone else over him, even if it was just to hang out.
Kincaid scoffed. “Saxton would lose his mind if I told him I was going to a party at Eraser,” she replied. “He’d duct tape me to the couch, if not worse.” She cocked her head as she regarded me. “Besides, why would you want to go? If you have an itch, call Scott.” Kincaid knew all about my comfortable arrangement with Scott.
My shoulders drooped against the back of the couch. “I don’t know,” I mumbled.
Her onyx gaze widened. “And what is it that you don’t know, ma’am?”
