Page 11 of Lights Out

“Definitely.”

“We need water,” Lowen announces, lifting his arm to gesture towards our table where Bane and Jerryn are still nursing drinks.

As I exit the dance floor, I feel a hand grab my ass and swing around. Sure enough, it’s the creepy ginger, clearly drunker than he was during our first interaction.

“I was enjoying the show.”

His breath turns my stomach. “Well, show’s over.” I pat his chest. “Gotta go.”

“No,” he growls. “You got five minutes for me.”

“Let me go please. I’ll only ask nicely once.”

He scoffs. “Or what?”

I know I’m hardly intimating to a guy like him but that’s my superpower. In one swift move, I grab his arm and twist it behind his back until he’s squirming and in pain. I bend down to make eye contact with him.

“Or I’ll tear your balls off and feed them to you. Got it, Ginger?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

I let him go and smile. “Good. Let that be a lesson to you.”

I saunter off while my friends holler and cackle with laughter. The ginger’s friends are stunned as he rubs his arm and turns his back on me.

“God, I love you, Rid,” Lowen says.

Grinning, I take a seat and the cool glass of water pushed in front of me by Bane. “What a loser. Too bad. That face held a lot of promise.”

“Story of my life,” Lowen muses. “The hotter they are, the more toxic. Present company excluded.”

“Eh, I don’t know. There’s a trail of men who probably think I’m pretty toxic,” Indy says.

“Truth,” Kit says, grinning.

I laugh. “Eye of the beholder.”

“Fair,” Lowen says. “Sorry you aren’t getting laid tonight, Rid.”

Shrugging, I lean on the table. “S’okay. Jer is right. I have a lifetime of opportunities to have sex but only tonight with you guys.”

“No,” Bane says. “We’re not losing each other. No fucking way. I’ll hunt every one of you fuckers down before I let you ditch me.”

Indy holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Yes, sir.”

“I mean it,” he grumbles as Jerryn rubs his back.

“I know,” Indy says, with a serious tone. “I agree.”

The mood definitely dips but I’m not letting the night end on a downer. “Remember the night we went to that frat party over at the university?”

“Oh god,” Lowen moans. “How can we forget that?”

Indy cackles, slapping his thigh. “I thought we were wild. We looked like fucking monks compared to those dudes.”

“Right?” Kit says. “Wild shit.”

Bane laughs. “It was my first time seeing a circle jerk that wasn’t porn.”

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