Page 16 of Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

I wasn’t dating Dustin. I wasn’t dating anyone.

Evelyn reached for my hand, where she sat beside me, watching Die Hard on the TV. It was her silent way of saying, Don’t cause a scene. We need to lay low.

I bit my tongue, ignoring how Dustin tried to get my attention from his spot on the floor, the closed door at his back.

“Isn’t that right, Skyler?” she asked, smiling a sugary smile. Her red lips peeled back to reveal whitened teeth, courtesy of her top-end dentist.

Alice loved to cause drama and she loved even more to squash threats underneath her high heels. For some reason, she saw me as one, which struck me as strange. I’d always been invisible in her world, but now I was the prime target.

Instead of replying, I focused on the screen, watching Bruce Willis crawl through a vent. Alice hated nothing more than to be ignored, and while the others continued chatting, I could feel her glowering at me. It didn’t faze me so much as Nate’s glare did. His was intense in a different way. He wanted to crawl beneath my skin and unearth my secrets.

Dustin rose to his feet across the room and nudged his chin for me to follow. Standing up, I rounded the glass coffee table and followed him outside. Multiple family photographs of Alice at various stages of her life lined the cream-painted walls. Her mother used to take Alice to beauty pageants when she was younger, and it struck me as amusing and a little sad that it wasn’t only the dog she subjected to her fascination with perfection. Everyone who lived and breathed beneath this roof were objects to showcase.

Dustin entered the spacious kitchen with me close behind, softly shutting the door behind us. The kitchen was modern, with exposed brick, navy-blue matte cupboards, and ash-gray marble tops and laminate flooring. My shoes felt too dirty to be in this spotless place.

Standing across the island, Dustin interlinked his fingers behind his neck, his head tipped back. I didn’t want to speak first, so I waited until he finally looked at me, and when he did, I dug my nails into my palms to give myself something to focus on.

“I don’t want things to be awkward between us,” he finally said, his hands still behind his neck while he waited for me to reply.

“I don’t either.”

Dustin looked at me for a long moment, the kitchen clock ticking loudly above the door behind me. This was the reason I shouldn’t have consumed alcohol at the party. Or any night. I made shit decisions when I was drunk.

Wisps of blonde hair stuck out from beneath Dustin’s red backward cap, his blue eyes swimming with regret. “I fucked everything up, didn’t I?”

Why did he have to make it more awkward than needed? I wanted us to be good friends, like we had been. Could we go back to that, please?

“The thing is,” he said before I could reply, “I like you.”

“Dustin,” I started, my hands burning with searing pain as I dug my nails into my palms, but he cut me off, “I think you know how I feel. Fuck, everyone knows!”

Visibly wincing, I dropped my gaze. What did he expect from me?

Dustin rounded the island with determined steps until he was right in front of me, gripping my hips.

His fingers pressed into my skin through my hoodie and his head dipped low to look me in the eye. I couldn’t escape him. “I like you, Skyler.”

I wanted to tell him I didn’t feel the same, that I could never be what he wanted, but the words wouldn’t come. I stood frozen as he slammed his lips to mine. Dustin was a good kisser and I soon melted into him, allowing him to drown the little voice inside me, telling me this was wrong. I let him drag it out into the sea, where the waters were shallow, forcing it beneath the stormy waves until it stopped thrashing, while I watched from the safety of the sandy shore.

The door creaked open and Nate sauntered inside. I wrenched away from Dustin with a gasp, like I’d done something wrong, my cheeks flaming with embarrassment.

Nate’s gaze drifted down my trembling body, and he said to Dustin, “Alice wants to talk to you.”

“Does she?” The surprise in Dustin’s voice was evident.

“She does,” Nate confirmed, not taking his eyes off me.

As Dustin walked out, I backed away from Nate, who slowly approached me like a stalking lion on the prowl. My eyes darted left and right, but there was no way out. I’d have to escape past him, and I already knew Nate had no intention of letting me leave until he’d said what he came in here for. It unnerved me how his presence affected me, how the tinge of fear mixed and danced with the simmering excitement inside me.

“What do you want?” I asked, my back connecting with the fridge. His eyes slid down my body, caressing my skin through my clothing.

He snapped his gaze back up and his lips lifted at the corners. Confidence oozed out of him as he trapped me with his hands on either side of my head. “Are you scared of me, Skyler?”

“No…” My voice was weak and shaky. Of course I was scared of him when he cornered me like this with his assertive, dominant presence.

The light in his eyes had long since burned out and this new version of Nate, dipped in shadows and smoke, made me tingle with anxiety and something else, something far more disturbing.

Nate noticed, inching closer. I could barely breathe. My sanity slipped from my fingertips like ink dripping from a feathered pen when he curled his fingers around my throat and began to squeeze.

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