AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Laughter bursts through my lips and immediately, the atmosphere in the car changes. Bee relaxes, stops picking at her cuticles, and finds her breath again. “I’m sorry about what he said about Elena,” she offers.
“Don’t ever think you have to apologize for that fucker.”
“I just wanna get in bed and sleep for days.”
“Well, you’re pregnant. It’s understandable.”
She smacks my arm with a girlish giggle and we fall into silence for the rest of the drive. She’s no doubt thinking about the five pregnancy bellies tucked away in our storeroom right now.
As for me? I’m thinking about Elena.
And Wren.
And the fact that thinking about the latter makes me feel guilty for not thinking about the former instead.
My first indication that something is not quite right comes when the elevator reaches the penthouse.
Bee’s forehead wrinkles. “Is that music…?”
“Doors opening.”
The moment the doors part, we’re rocked by a tidal wave of drums and bass blasting so loud through the in-built sound system that the crescendo dissolves into nothing but hissing, staticky feedback.
“What the…?” I know Bee’s screaming but it sounds as though she’s barely speaking.
I follow the bass into the living room, which looks like a nuke was dropped in the middle of it. Ripped pillows and couch cushions spew their cotton guts everywhere, and the tattered shreds of a duvet lie in a rat’s nest pile amidst stacks of books missing chunks of their pages. Shelves are upended, glass trinkets broken, liquid sloshed over the walls.
And then there’s Wren.
She’s wearing a pair of far-too-short shorts and a tight pink tank top that make it painfully obvious she is neglecting a bra. She’s also standing on top of my ruined sofa with a drink in hand, bopping her head along to the music. She looks deliriously, blissfully out of this world. Totally in another dimension.
I rush over to the sound system controls and kill the music. It dies instantly, though my ears remain ringing and the adrenaline stays humming in my veins.
“Explain,” I demand, whirling around to face Wren. “Explain yourself right fucking now.”
Surprise, surprise, Bee has decided to slink off to her room without a word. This is my mess to clean up, apparently.
Wren just gawks at me, completely unfazed, and takes a noisy slurp of her drink. Her lips are stained purple. It’s weirdly mesmerizing, oddly beautiful. “What?” she asks innocently without bothering to get down. “You left me trapped here with nothing to do and no one to speak to. I had to find new and creative ways of entertaining myself.”
“By destroying my living room?” I cast a hand in every direction, not even sure which disaster offends me most. “Are those my sheets?”
“I was trying to build a pillow fort.” She shrugs and giggles. “It didn’t work out so well.”
I don’t know where to begin. It’s so blatantly disrespectful that I’m actually rendered speechless. The worst part is that I know she wants me to blow up. She’s pushing every button I have and inventing a few more just for good measure.
She wants me to haul her off that couch, bend her over my knee, and spank her raw.
She wants me to pin her down and fuck the defiance out of her.
She thinks this is a game we’re playing, a tug-of-war with no consequences.
She doesn’t fucking understand anything.
“Well then,” I grit. “Carry on.”
Before I can give into all those temptations swirling through my head, I storm out of the living room as fast as I can.
The music starts up again, but at least this time, it’s considerably less loud.
