Guilt money. Guilt for Dad being a jerk and Mom being weak. Just like my car. They knew I left Connecticut to escape their lunacy, the heartbreak that lived and breathed and festered all around. So, in true Dad fashion, he’d bought me a car that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to wash away the feel of living amongst love gone bad.
I accepted it. I accepted everything. It was too much hassle not to—Mom’s pouting, Dad’s disappointment.
Elissa didn’t buy into the lie. My sister didn’t go home for Christmas. She didn’t call on Thanksgiving. She didn’t put up with their shit. She’d drawn that line years ago and lived without parents.
“Why do I need them when I’ve got you?” she’d asked me.
Sweet, loving, loyal. Then again, that was my Lis. All of that in spades.
By the way, Lis hated Elliott too. She’d loved him, probably for the reasons I loved him, before he died. After he’d died and how he did, nearly taking me with him, not so much.
I carefully selected an outfit and shoes. Grabbing them I dashed to my bed and laid them out. At the dresser, I carefully selected underwear. I had a lot to choose from. I didn’t pay attention to just how much lingerie was shoved into my drawer or to my room, with its cream walls that held a hint of pink, the tall, huge king-sized bed with its colossal, sweeping, padded headboard and matching footboard. The expensive sheets and shams. The wide, round, antique white nightstands with their curved, elegant legs. The smooth, shining, crystal-based lamps.
All the trappings of home.
Thinking of it, suddenly feeling suffocated, I rushed to the bathroom, bent under the vanity, and pulled out my basket of makeup. Leaning over the basin, I applied it, all of it, and there was a lot.
On to my hair, spritzing and squirting and spraying and teasing until it was out to there. I pulled just the top back in pins an inch from my forehead then teased and sprayed the hair at my crown so it was taller.
Sluttier.
Out to the bedroom I went and pulled on the scanty, sexy, lacy black demi-bra and teeny-weeny panties. The short jeans skirt. The tight, nearly see-through white blouse with its wide collar, close sleeves, long cuffs with a dozen small pearl buttons each, the buttons down the front didn’t start until mid-cleavage.
On to the jewelry box. Big hoops. A wide silver choker. Lots of silver rings.
Spritz of perfume. Another one. More.
High-heeled platform sandals with sassy ankle straps.
I turned out the lights, teetered downstairs, grabbed my purse and keys, and headed to my car.
I’d never done this before, not in my life.
But I was alive, breathing.
Alive.
Hop told me so.
Time to start living.
I walked through the courtyard, opened the back door to the garage, hit the garage door opener, swung into my car, pulled out and headed into the night.
* * *
I was alive, breathing.
Living.
And I’d f**ked everything up.
I knew this because I was in the dark parking lot of a biker bar, lured there because I was more than a hint drunk, far more than a hint stupid, and thus an easy mark.
The guy said he had big tires on his truck, huge, taller than me.
That was something I had to see.
The girl came with us. She was there to set me up. What she thought would happen to me after she backed away and disappeared into the night, I didn’t know. I just knew she didn’t care, which made her, officially, the number one biggest bitch in history.
Setting up a sister?
She should be stripped of membership.
Of course, if I made it through this alive and breathing and hopefully not violated, I would approach the Council of the Sisterhood and ask them to see to this immediately.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a Sisterhood Council to report bitches to.
Alas.
Also unfortunately—much more so—it didn’t look like I would make it through this not violated.
The alive and breathing part was up for grabs.
“Seriously, I want to go back inside,” I told him, pushing against his big, doughy body, smelling beer on his breath.
He had me pinned up against the tire of his truck and, bad news, it was taller than me. So was he.
“Baby,” he ran his hand up the outside of my hip, “don’t play this game. You were all over me.”
“We danced,” I reminded him, trying logic first. Just in case a miracle happened, he’d see it and back off without an ugly scene. At the same time, pushing harder, wishing my purse, which he’d pulled off my arm and thrown to the ground, was closer since my phone was in it, and wondering if anyone would hear me scream. “That’s hardly all over you.”
His head dipped and his mouth went to my neck. I felt his tongue, damp and sloppy there.
At that, I also felt bile slide up my throat and pushed harder, definitely deciding to scream.
“You danced close,” he muttered against my neck, pushing me further into the tire, which didn’t feel real great.
“I did not.” And I hadn’t. We were line dancing, for goodness’ sakes!
His hand was gliding up my side and getting close to my breast.
Okay. Time to scream.
And, possibly, engage my fingernails.
I opened my mouth to do just that, heaving at the same time when, suddenly, his face was not in my neck and his body was not pressing me into the tire.
No, I watched with some fascination, some awe, and some queasiness as his head snapped back unnaturally and his body went with it. The former did this because Hop had his fist in the guy’s hair and the latter did this because Hop had his arm around the guy’s chest.
Although I was thrilled beyond belief that I was no longer against the tire and someone was there to save me (although I wouldn’t have picked Hopper for obvious reasons, at that point, I was also not going to quibble), I wasn’t sure this was good. The guy was a jerk. Not to mention, he was huge. He had to have three inches and fifty pounds on Hop.
It was then I watched with some fascination, a lot more awe and no queasiness—because there was so much awe there wasn’t room for queasiness—as Hop beat the absolute crap out of the guy.
He did this swiftly, methodically, effortlessly, viciously, and with what appeared a good deal of practice.
It took him, maybe, three minutes.
I watched the whole thing, frozen, with my mouth open.
When the bloodied, unconscious mountain of beefy jerk dropped to the pavement of the dark parking lot, I stared at him lying there, not moving.
“You. Bike. Now.”
The queasiness came back but it was different. This time it came in the form of fear. Fear caused simply by the low, lethal, enraged tone of Hopper’s voice.