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Colt certainly never told me he loved me. We made no pretense about love or feelings. We were clear in our intentions. It was nothing, just a few fucks.
I’m delusional to think it meant something more, to think that a few orgasms meant something to him when he gets that every day from his girlfriend. Just because he gave me something no one else ever has, that doesn’t mean I did the same for him. Crawling on the floor for him didn’t make up for all the other shit I’ve done. If Royal taught me anything, it’s that sex isn’t love—even good sex. I’m smart enough to know better.
I shift into reverse and spin my tires, spitting gravel as I grind the gears in my rush to leave this place behind, and my humiliating miscalculation with it. Colt Darling makes me so damn stupid, and I won’t survive the rest of the year if I don’t have my head in the game. I need to be sharper than ever. As I put miles between myself and Colt’s house, the hypnosis he had me under fades, and my mind clears. I remember him joking about that last year—“I could be the world’s first professional dick-notist”—but it doesn’t seem so funny now.
How could I have thought he’d want to see me? He doesn’t want the truth. Remembering is my punishment, and he’s done nothing to deserve that kind of retaliation.
He’s happy. He’s in love.
The worst thing I could do is tell him and bring him down with me. It’s not his job to fix this, to fix me. I made the choices I did, the mistakes I did, and now I have to face the consequences. Colt Darling has nothing to do with that. He made that clear when he saw my car outside and walked away. He didn’t want me there. He’s not going to be on my side just because we’re both losers now. I’m on my own.
For once, no one is going to tell me what to do, what to wear, what to say. I’m finally free.
I just never knew freedom felt more like loneliness than triumph.
two
Colt Darling
I startle awake from a very disturbing dream where I’m driving around with Gloria Walton in her car. And even though that happened today when I rode along with her toTwo Scoops of Lovefor root beer floats, this was different. I was dreaming about her telling me she was my dream girl, and I guess she is, because she fucking haunts my nights lately. I can’t shake the chill of the dream, so I roll onto my back and wrap my arms across my chest, my fingertips pressing into my biceps right where those fingernail marks are tattooed onto my skin.
Not Gloria’s nails, I remind myself, shaking the thought away even as the dream lingers, the feel of it, so real I’d be sure it happened if literally everyone in my life hadn’t told me that we never hooked up. I’m not sure if it’s worse to know I’m cracking up and losing my mind, or that my subconscious is filling the blanks in my memory with my enemy. If it’s going to make shit up, at least it could choose a model, or hell, I’d take Harper at this point. Sure, we’re just friends, but she’s hot and unlike Gloria, not a living nightmare.
“Babe?” I mumble, fumbling across the bed when I remember that I fell asleep while watching a movie with Dixie.
“Yeah?” Dixie turns and steps away from the window, dropping the curtains. I can barely see her face in the shadows, but her voice sounds strange, distant.
“What are you doing?” I ask, pushing up on my elbows.
“Nothing,” she says, turning to the bed. The curtains sway back into place over the glass, the filmy white that Mom pickedfor all the windows, back when Mom still cared about shit like that. The thick, inner curtains are pushed aside, only drawn when the maid comes and cleans them. The room is dark except for the moonlight filtering in and the flickering light from some flowery candle Dixie brought over.
I hear tires on gravel outside, and the light that I thought was moonlight grows a little dimmer. “Who’s outside?” I ask, sitting bolt upright, my heart jackhammering in my chest.
“No one,” Dixie says.
“I heard something,” I say, slipping from under the blanket. I nearly break my neck tripping on my jeans, which are around my knees. I’m pretty sure I passed out with my clothes on, but I don’t have time to worry about Dixie’s inability to leave my dick alone. Yanking open the bedside table, I pull out my gun and load it with shaking fingers.
“Colt,” Dixie cries, alarm in her voice. “Calm down. It was just someone who made a wrong turn. They pulled in to turn around.”
“But it could be the Dolces,” I say. “They could be out riding around with a friend.”
“They left,” Dixie says, grabbing my arm. “You’re acting crazy.”
I probably am. But after three years of this shit, I’m always on guard. I wasn’t here when they threw lit fireworks through the window, but Dad was. Mabel was.
“Don’t be so paranoid,” Dixie scolds. “Whoever it was just got turned around. They left without even getting out of the car. See?”
She pulls aside the filmy white curtain again. I can see taillights through the barren trees.
“They could have dropped something,” I mutter, setting my gun down to fix my pants.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” I say, since telling her they might have dropped a grenade in my driveway is only going to confirm her suspicions about my mental state. I usually keep it together better than this, but being caught off guard after what happened this afternoon…
I almost fucked Gloria “the Queen” Walton. She might have told them, using the intel about me as a bargaining chip to claw her way back in after her humiliating public dethroning.
Probably not, though. I’m probably losing my mind like Dixie says. Dr. Swift says the brain’s a mystery. Who knows if having your skull bashed in can lead to insanity?
