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I’d just skip the party entirely if I didn’t know it’d hurt Andie’s feelings if I don’t show. Women are emotional like that, especially Andie. A few months ago, she decided to take a hiatus from her role in squad leadership to nanny for her little cousin, and she actually broke down in tears when she told the rest of us that she was stepping back for a year, as if it somehow meant we wouldn’t all still see each other regularly. It was fucking ridiculous.
So while the last thing I want to do tonight is be stuck in a room with my ex, hopefully I’ll be able to avoid her easily enough. It’d be in her best interest to avoid me, too. I’m on edge, ready to self-destruct, and if Sloane puts herself in my path at this party, I’ll make her regret it.
I’m in a shitty mood before we even arrive at the lodge later that night. Avery and I always roll into events like this together, but as I’m getting ready to leave, I get a message from her saying she’s ditching me to catch a ride with someone else.
Okay, maybe those weren’t herexactwords, but it was easy enough to read between the lines of her vague message and put two and two together as to who that ‘someone else’ is, and the thought of my twin choosing Sloane fucking Masters over me makes me want to put my fist through a wall.
Knowing Aves, her heart’s in the right place. She probably didn’t want to leave Sloane to walk into the party all by herself when she just got back into town, and she knows better than to ask me if she can catch a ride with us. I already told her I’m taking Roxy, so I’ll bet she figures it’s no big deal for her to go with Sloane, instead.
It shouldn’t be, but I’m so pissed off about it that I’m white-knuckling the steering wheel the whole drive over to the lodge, thinking about how Sloane wouldn’t need an escort to this damn party if she didn’t fucking abandon all of us in the first place.
If she didn’t abandonme.
Because nobody else felt her absence as profoundly as I did; nobody else was completely fucking destroyed by her leaving.
The party is in full swing when Roxy and I arrive. She’s clutching onto my arm as we walk through the door like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she doesn’t anchor me, and I guess I can’t blame her with the way I’ve been acting. When I’m in a mood like this, everyone around me becomes collateral damage. She’s borne the brunt of my bad mood the whole drive over here.
At one point the Cedar Ridge ski resort was a thriving business that attracted tourists from all over the country, but after a decade of disuse, it’s hard to picture it as anything other than the dilapidated shell it’s become. The darkened hallways feel haunted, pictures hanging crooked on the walls and furniture stacked haphazardly in corners. Remnants of parties past still litter the floors; a red plastic cup here, a burned-out cigarette there.
Despite the condition of the rest of the building, the girls did a decent job of cleaning up the old ballroom in preparation for tonight. There are tables full of liquor bottles, kegs floating in tubs of ice, and Ace hauled his DJ equipment in and has music pumping through a tall set of speakers, the bass beat vibrating the floor. Ace Conway is the son of the Norbury pack’s beta and best friends with Alpha Chase’s son, Seb- you rarely see one of them without the other, and that’s the case tonight, the two of them huddled together over the turntables. They’re both eighteen, set to join the squad this summer after they graduate high school.
I came to a lot of parties here in my teens. Hell, I was the one who threw them. They were always under the radar back then, but nowadays, we take the proper precautions before hosting one, extending the night’s patrols to encompass the perimeter of the lodge- which is easy to do when the hosts of the party are the same ones in charge of the security squad. In light of the hunter situation, we also put a ban on shifting tonight in the event the unusual activity at the old lodge were to draw any outside attention.Safety first.
“I need a drink,” Roxy mutters, clutching tighter to my arm as we step into the fray.
“My thoughts exactly,” I grumble, immediately steering us toward one of the tall cocktail tables filled with a cluster of liquor bottles, mixers, and a stack of plastic cups.
Roxy wastes no time in grabbing a cup and pouring herself some horrible coconut rum and fruit juice concoction, while I peruse the selection of liquor for something a little stronger, landing on whiskey. The moment I reach for it, I hear the familiar sound of Sloane’s laugh from somewhere nearby, ringing out like an echo from my past. I cringe at the sound and the memories it elicits, foregoing the cup to just grab the whole damn bottle, ditching the cap and taking a long pull.
The burn of the whiskey sears my throat on its way down, settling in my stomach and warming me from the inside. I’ll need a hell of a lot more of it if I’m going to make it through tonight.
Roxy side-eyes me as I swallow down another gulp, licking the whiskey from my lips. Then her gaze drifts past me and she moves closer, grabbing onto my arm. “Come on, lets…”
Before she can finish that thought, my sister’s voice calls out.
“About time you two showed up,” Avery teases, laughing as she comes up beside me and slings an arm around my waist. She peers up at me, the glassiness of her eyes a telltale sign that she’s already buzzed. “I was beginning to wonder if you were ditching out on me.”
“Hey, who ditched who tonight?” I fire back bitterly.
She rolls her eyes and gives me a playful shove, liquor sloshing from her cup and splashing my feet.
“Damnit, Aves,” I growl, stumbling back, only to collide with someone behind me.
I hear a little yelp of alarm and whip around to grab onto their arm to prevent them from falling, only to meet the wide green eyes of the one person I was hoping to avoid.
Sloane blinks back at me, and for a long, painful moment, I’m just frozen there, imprisoned in her stare.
I can’t move.
Can’t think.
My breathing stalls.
My heart races.
Time slows to a crawl, our gazes still locked- then slowly, her expression softens, the corner of her plush lips lifting in a little smirk.
“Um, Hi. Can I have my arm back?” she asks, her eyes finally leaving my own to flicker downwards.
