Parrish climbs into the backseat about five seconds later which is both good and bad because I want to get the hell out of here but also, I want to be nowhere near the guy. He’s a disease that I can’t stop obsessing about, and now have inextricably tied my reputation at Whitehall to.
I should’ve stayed home and headshotted some aliens. Or had a heart-to-heart with Tess which, other than this party, sounds like the worst possible thing in the world right now.
“That was an interesting night,” Parrish remarks, like he didn’t stick his tongue down my throat thirty minutes earlier. “Let’s get out of here before things get dull.”
“God, I hate you,” I murmur, closing my eyes in frustration as he laughs behind me.
Neither of us is laughing by the time we get back to the house to find that most of the lights are off.
“Stop here,” Parrish tells Maxx, causing his friend to roll his eyes and sigh.
“This isn’t my first time doing this, you know?” X reminds Parrish as he pauses at the street corner and both Parrish and I hop out. I turn to thank Maxx for the ride when I realize that Parrish has just taken off without me.
“Thanks, I’ll talk to you soon,” I tell him, starting to shut the door. Then I pause and frown. Maybe I’ll talk to him soon? Maybe not at all? It might be better if I didn’t. I glance over my shoulder and notice that Parrish has already unlocked the gate and is strolling through it.
“No problem, anytime,” Maxx replies, but he’s hardly paying any attention to me. Instead, he’s watching Parrish walk away with a strange expression. He quickly returns his green eyes to mine and smiles again. “See you next time Maxine is in Seattle.”
Our goodbye gets suddenly awkward, so I slam the door shut, take a huge breath and close my eyes while Maxx drives away. As soon as his taillights are around the corner and up the hill, I turn and head for the gate.
Realizing that it’s about to close, I start to jog and then sprint, but I don’t make it in time, and the gate slides shut.
“Hey Parrish,” I call out, before he’s too far ahead. I can’t exactly shout to be heard without waking Tess or Paul up. Or hell, Kimber. She’d probably break sibling code right off and run to her mother with the news that I’d snuck out.
Parrish’s walk slows slightly but doesn’t stop.
“Can you please come back and open the gate?” I ask, but he doesn’t turn around. In fact, he doesn’t even stop walking. I gape after him as he slips around to a side door and lets himself into the garage and then, subsequently, into the house. I can see his shadow against a dim kitchen fan light as he passes by.
With a sigh, I pull my phone from my pocket to look up the gate code … and find out that it’s dead.
“No, no, no,” I murmur, frantically squeezing the power button. “This is not fucking happening to me.”
But the phone stays dead, and the front gate stays closed, and I find myself shivering with my arms crossed over my chest. I walk the edge of the property, but there’s no other way to get in, and there’s no way in hell that I can climb it. It’s an eight-foot-tall metal fence with absolutely zero in the way of ornamentation.
Fantastic.
It takes two rounds of pacing outside the fence for me to give in to the inevitable: I am stuck out here for the rest of the night. Tess is going to find out that I left the property. Sure, I could lie about the party but what’s my excuse?
After a while, I end up sitting with my knees pulled up to my chest outside the gate, waiting for morning. If I’m lucky, maybe Parrish will let me in before breakfast? That still gives me several hours of sitting out here in the cold, but at the very least, I’ll avoid Tess’ wrath.
My mind goes immediately back to that awful kiss. I mean, it wasn’t awful in the moment—actually, it was kind of nice—but then I remember the smug look on my stepbrother’s face and I want to scream. How could I have kissed him like that? Wrapped my arms around his neck, lifted up on my toes, leaned in.
My cheeks flush but at least there’s nobody out here to see it.
How dare he lock me out like this, I think instead, realizing as I sit here that he isn’t coming back. No, he’s planning to leave me out all night. In the cold. In a neighborhood that I don’t know. He did say he was going to bury me, so I suppose I should’ve expected this.
