Page 38 of Forever Mine
Liz: I feel awful putting you in that position.
Me: Liz, it’s OK. Stop worrying.
Liz: You sure?
Me: Yes. I’ll text you tomorrow.
Liz: Ok. Good night, Julien.
Me: Nite, bestie.
I throw my phone across the floor and collapse back. When I next open my eyes, Ryder is thrusting some nasty green shit in a glass at me, along with a couple of pain relievers.
“Drink this, followed by these. You should start feeling better in an hour.”
Like a newborn babe on trembling arms, I sit halfway up to take the stuff. I eye the green liquid for a long time before I force myself to drink it.
“This stuff’s rancid,” I complain as I guzzle it all, then down the pills.
Ryder takes the glass from me and sets it on the coffee table.
“Looks gross, but it works. I used to make it for Jay.”
“Where is he?” I ask.
Ryder sits on the sofa arm next to my head. “At a fight. How did today go with Elizabeth?”
I had texted him and Jay earlier to let them know what we were doing. Jay was not happy at all when he wanted to come, and I said no.
“It was really good. She let her guard down. Laughed a lot. I took her to Belly’s. We danced. We sang bad karaoke. She drank me under the table.”
Ryder’s chuckle stops abruptly. “Wait. You bought her alcohol? Elizabeth doesn’t drink.”
“She does now,” I inform him.
Ry thinks about that new revelation. Just another facet of Liz’s new persona that we’re discovering.
“When are you meeting up with her at the track tomorrow?” I ask.
“Around two. After we help Elijah move into the dorms in the morning, I’m going to head there to test drive Fallon’s new Radical RXC before she arrives.”
Fallon tends to buy a new car every other week. Ah, the life of the insanely wealthy.
“Lucky bastard,” I comment, ignoring the other thing he said about Elijah moving back into the dorms.
Two cardboard boxes that contain the stuff he brought here for the summer sit on the bedroom floor. Every time I walk by them, I want to rip off the tape, take everything out, and put it all back where it belongs.
Ryder pats my shoulder. “I’m turning in. Need help into bed?”
I glare squinty eyes at him. “For the last time, I amnotdrunk.”
I actually feel a lot better. That Soylent green shit really works.
Grabbing the remote, I turn the television on at low volume, stopping on a John Wick movie that I don’t pay attention to because my nerves are absolutely shot. That panic increases tenfold when I hear the front door open.
I sit up just as Elijah stops under the large archway that separates the living room from the foyer. A vast ocean opens between us, its waters turbulent and unsettled.
“Hey.”
