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Nila squeaks a sound, then curses under her breath, giving up the hope of speaking as Penny leaves.
Nila finishes filling up her cup, and Liam looks adorably confused.
The young Wilder bumps her hip with mine, glaring at me like she’s mad I didn’t warn her. I hold a very straight face, even as she silently tells me all the things she knows her mouth won’t.
Then she’s gone, and I silently laugh to myself.
“She’s a Wild One?” Liam asks, confused.
Nila, for all intents and purposes, looks anything but wild. Her hair is blonde and beautifully straight. It hangs down to her waist. And her dress is actually a really nice one, for a change.
She looks completely polished and put together, despite the fact we just went to war. She’s the kind of pretty that makes you instantly hate a girl, but then she’s also really awkward and adorable, so you hate her more for making you adore her. And at the same time, you sort of freaking love her too.
She’s complicated like that.
Usually, she goes for the whole Jane of the Jungle look just to scare the hell out of people—make them worry about just how wild the Wilders have gone. Then she’ll have spells where she gets tired of that and dresses normal.
“Yep,” I say with a frown, noticing how he’s staring after her. “And her brothers would kill you dead for looking at her like that.”
His lips turn back up in a grin that is taunting as he faces me again.
“I’m just confused by the gibberish she spoke. I’m only into girls with Shirley Temple curls, who stay covered in paint.”
I grimace, remembering that I am, in fact, covered in paint. How did I forget that?
My legs are dripping with green, yellow and red. For some reason, my dad never buys blue. My dress is basically ruined, but it’s not like I expected any less. I’m going to shoot Nila a few times and paint her up a little when that damn song comes back on.
That’s what she gets for being so annoyingly pretty and awkwardly sweet.
A warm hand cups my cheek, and my face is tilted back up so that I can stare into Liam’s eyes that are twinkling with humor. His thumb strokes across my bottom lip, and he studies me like he always did, constantly trying to unravel every twisted thread that is knotted up to form me.
“I’ve really missed you, Shirley,” he finally says.
And I decide I’m going to need something stronger than beer to numb all the reactions I have to him. Because I almost, almost drag the tall bastard down so I can kiss him again, ready to throw my heart into the grinder.
With Liam? I learned I can’t just have fun. I let him slip inside uncharted territory, occupying more of my heart than I realized…until I had to spend the last year trying to get over a guy who consumed me in less than a month.
Then broke me.
Now he’s here.
Ready to break me again.
The two choices I have are to be stubborn or be stupid.
Stubborn if I pretend not to notice how committed he seems to be, despite the unlikeliness of it. Stupid if I trust him then he hurts me, even though I knew it was probably going to happen.
I grab a bottle of vodka, knowing it’s my weakness, and turn and walk away.
No one said I had to choose today. A girl can take some time to think about this sort of thing. I hear it’s what adults do.
Chapter 12
Wild Ones Tip #8
Never get drunk first. You could end up hanging from a tree with honey all over your body, while the woodland creatures lick you clean. Or eat you alive.
KYLIE
Cold.
Wet.
Cold.
Wet.
I shiver, my eyes blinking open, and then shutting again. Then my eyes dart open as I jackknife up to the seated position, and…curse my freaking father and cousins!
The air mattress I’m floating on is taking on water, and I scramble to grab the…oar? No, this is not an oar. Not unless I was a freaking gnome!
That’s another not-so-subtle short joke from the five giant spawns of evil.
Water laps at my legs, chilling them even as it tries removing some of the dried paint still all over me.
The tiny little decorative oar looks like a kid’s toy in my hand, but I desperately start paddling toward the closest dock. Because I’m in the lake. The sun is out, and I’m floating in the middle of the lake.
Because I got drunk.
And then…fucking cousins and father.
I’m going to kill them all.
The oar is pointless, so I toss it aside, panicking when more and more water starts coming onto the mattress. The water isn’t as cold on the surface as it is about a foot down, but it’s still really cold.
Even in summer.
