Page 159 of My Heart Still Beats
Skye shrugs. “You’ve known him as long as I’ve known Braden, and we’re in love. Sometimes you just know.”
“And sometimes one person feels something the other doesn’t.”
Skye shakes her head. Her two heads. I don’t feel so well.
“Tessa, you’re a catch. We both know it, and so does Garrett.”
“I’m not sure he does.”
“Then honestly? He’s not worth it.” She grabs her purse. “I’ll be back in a flash. Dump the rest of that.” She nods to the vodka bottle.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Once she’s gone, I take the bottle to the bathroom and dump the tiny bit that’s left in the toilet.
Then I slide to the tile floor and—
“Oh, shit.”
The convulsions start in my stomach and rise. Acid, bile, vodka, everything putrid…
It all comes up and out into the toilet bowl…
My head… Spinning… The toilet goes blurry… And… And…
Darkness.
…
Present Day…
“I know you’re in there, Tessa,” Garrett Ramirez says. “There’s someone here who wants to say hello.”
The man with Garrett on the other side of the door is the bartender from Jamaica, the one Ben got fired.
He holds up something white. “Recognize these, Tessa?”
Rita scrambles out of my arms, and I lean against the wall for support. My heart is racing, and the familiar tingle of panic hits my fingers.
No. Fucking. Way.
That’s why that bartender looked so familiar. He was the altar boy. The one whose name began with D. David. I remember now. David Conrad. My first communion. He took my panties, and he—
I gulp back the nausea that threatens to make its way up my throat. What kind of sicko keeps a little girl’s panties?
Must focus. Must stay strong. Can’t panic. Won’t panic.
“You two get the hell away from here. I have a restraining order against you, Garrett. I’m calling the cops.”
“You might want to talk to your new boyfriend before you do that,” Garrett says. “Because if you call the cops, things could get real dicey for him.”
My new boyfriend? Ben? How do they even know about Ben?
Right. Jamaica. The bartender he got fired. Of course.
The urge to protect Ben swarms through me, overruling my own panic and fear, and in a flash I’m a lioness, ready to strike.
“Get out of here right now,” I demand.
