Page 87 of Flock
“She’s here somewhere. Go find her, and I’ll come get you in a bit.”
“You’re seriously leaving me here?” I whisper yell. “Alone?”
He drains his beer. “Yep.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Is this like a ‘throw her in the deep end thing and see if she can swim’ test?”
He laughs. The bastard laughs. “No floaties. Show me that mean mug.”
Furious, I grip at his arm as he begins to saunter away, and he shakes me off easily. “You’re fine, baby.”
My pulse rocketing, I scan the party for Tyler, Layla, Russell or anyone I know, and see Sean find Tyler by the raging fire before they both disappear behind a few cars.
I decide to bite Sean’s testicles the minute I’m able to.
Trembling from head to foot, I toss back more beer.
“What’s he like?” A feminine voice sounds up from behind me and I spill half my beer jumping out of my skin before I turn to face her.
“Sorry,” she laughs lightly. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Must be your first time here.”
“It is,” I take her in. She looks to be my age and has jet black hair with purple tips. She’s dressed in black from head to boot, a silver and black raven wing’s necklace resting in her ample cleavage. “Are you asking about Sean?”
She’s exotically beautiful, and jealousy simmers through me to the point that I can’t help my question. “Why?”
She takes a step toward me, hesitation clear as she lifts her light brown eyes to mine. “Sorry, I guess that was weird to ask his ... girlfriend?”
She wants Sean, and she’s brazenly telling me within seconds of meeting me. Is that how this works? An even better question is, would he be interested to know about her?
“I don’t know ... what we are.” I take a sip of my beer. “We’re new.”
“Hard to know what you are with any of these assholes unless you get winged,” she sighs. She glances at my cup. “You’re out. Let’s get another one.”
I never used to drink, not like this. I blame the new men in my life and the nerves associated with them. She nods toward the guy minding the keg as we walk the few steps to get to him and hand him our cups.
“I’m Alicia.”
“Cecelia.” She’s taller than me by a few inches, and definitely not a girl any male eye would pass over. She sizes me up just as carefully. “Did you come with anyone?”
“My brother,” she supplies. “We’re Virginia.”
“Oh.” Not “from” Virginia—no, she claimed a whole state.
“Dominic’s never brought ... neither of them have ever brought a girl here. I thought you came with Dom, so I wasn’t sure which one you were with?”
I fumble with my reply because I don’t know exactly how to answer. And I decide I’m not going to. She smiles and does me a solid by taking the question off the table, so I do her one back, despite the lingering sting of jealousy.
“Sean is kind, considerate, smart—so smart, caring, sexy, funny, protective.” And mine.
“I thought as much,” she blows out a breath, pushing her waist-length dark hair away from her shoulder. The woman has the most beautiful head of hair I’ve ever seen.
“So, you’ve got a thing for him, huh?”
I’m graced with an apologetic grin. “He used to come to Virginia a lot when I was younger. I never said a word to him, but yeah, I guess you could say I do. Hope that doesn’t piss you off.”
It does, to a degree. But she’s being honest.
