Page 108 of Filthy Beautiful
The night Xander Rush called mekid—and blew me off in favor of screwing some other girl in the bushes—was the night he came crashing down off the pedestal I’d put him on.
And Angeline Delacroix found me crying in a closet.
It was Brody Mason’s closet, so it was a pretty nice closet. Spacious, lined with his clothes. Smelled pretty good, too. The man was wealthy and he had good taste. Plus I was pretty damn glad that while he threw an off-the-hook party, no one was allowed in his bedroom, so it was deserted when I snuck in.
Fortunately, I’d found a loophole in his security system. His bedroom door was locked, but the one off the rooftop patio that opened into it wasn’t.
So there I was, hiding out in Brody Mason’s bedroom closet. In tears.
Maybe about half a minute after I’d collapsed in a pathetic heap, there was a little tap on the closet door. It slid open a few inches, and some pretty girl peered in at me. Then she turned on the light.
I started mopping at my face with the backs of my hands, but they weren’t very absorbent. They just kind of smeared the tears around.
No way she could miss that I was crying.
I peered up at her. She looked a few years older than me. She had long, light-brown hair and wore a colorful tank top with turquoise skinny jeans. The top featured what appeared to be a drunk unicorn, throwing up glitter.
“You’re not really supposed to be in here,” she told me.
“I know.”
Then she slipped in the closet with me, closed the door, and offered me one of the two Jell-O shooters she was holding.
I sniffled and took it as she sat down next to me. “I didn’t know there were Jell-O shots,” I said, trying to sound normal and not like I’d just been caught bawling my eyes out in front of a stranger.
“I brought them,” she said. “I never do a party without them. You really haven’t lived until you’ve watched a grown man scoop a Jell-O shot out of a little plastic cup with his tongue.”
I laughed despite my tears and wiped my cheeks with my hand again. “Thank you.”
“Cheers.” She tapped her shot cup to mine and we sucked back the shots. I definitely had to scoop most of mine out with my tongue. I could totally see how watching some hot guy do that would be yummy. Some hot guy… like Xander.
Fuck Xander.
He’s fucking someone else in the bushes right now, remember?
“If Jude catches us, by the way,” she said, plucking my empty shot cup from my hand, “we’re toast.”
“Who’s Jude?”
“Big biker security guy.”
“Which one?”
“I know, right?”
I looked her over a little more closely. “Who are you?”
“I’m Angeline. You can call me Angie if you’re nasty, though.”
“Huh?”
“That’s a Janet Jackson joke.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, you’re not in the mood. I get it.” She cocked her head at me. “Do you know Elle? I’m her sister. Angie Delacroix.”
Whoa. Well, that explained how pretty she was. She had this kinda pixie face and amazing blue-gray eyes, and her figure was all willowy-yet-curvy.
