Page 34 of Drown in You

She manages a small, thin-lipped smile. “Thanks. Wes and I have had each other to lean on, but Luke...he won’t really open up to anybody. I worry about him, honestly.”

“I’ll get him to crack.” Juliet studies Luke like he’s a specimen under a microscope. “I’m a psych major.”

“So they were friends?” I have a good feeling I already know the answer, but I want confirmation from someone who obviously knows Luke better than I do.

Violet doesn’t answer right away. She keeps her attention on the dessert bar. “They were kind of more than that. They went out on a date and kissed once, but that was it.”

Juliet shovels a peanut butter cookie into her mouth. “You think he’s still hung up on her?”

For some reason, my breath catches.

“Not exactly.” Violet glances to the table where Wes is staring at her, and Luke is staring at me.

The knot in my chest tightens.

The other Devils are all enraptured by a girl with platinum-blonde hair that drifts past her waist. She’s small, shoulders hunched as she aims for an empty, secluded table in the corner and eats alone. An ethereal beauty, even from this distance. They really are insatiable.

“I think he feels guilty for some reason,” Violet says. “He’s hard on himself. But I get it. I felt a lot of guilt over Chloe’s death too, for a long time. We were all there that night, but none of us saved her.”

Juliet’s gaze flashes to me. At the guilt she knows still weighs on me over what happened to Marcus. Maybe my new stepbrother and I have more in common than I thought.

Chapter 10

Luke

At the bar, the girls still haven’t shown. My foot bounces against my stool as I clutch the drink in my hand, ignoring the puck bunnies fawning over Finn, Damien, Knox, and me. They all know better than to bother with Wes. He’s only got eyes for one girl, and now, so do I.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from Sienna to Ten.

Sienna

Going out tonight! I miss you.

She follows up the text with a photo she snapped in the mirror. My mouth waters at that little black dress hugging her every curve. She knows exactly what she’s doing, trying to bait me into responding. I wish I could. Wish I could tell her how gorgeous she is, no matter what she’s wearing. But she’ll just have to settle for hearing it from me in person.

“Finally!” Wes calls, leaving my side to meet Violet.

Behind her, Juliet is dolled up in a skimpy, all-black outfit, and Sienna?—

Fuck. Sienna.

The little black dress she squeezed into leaves little to the imagination. She’s even more gorgeous now that I can see the way she moves in it. Judging by the way her gaze shifts from confident to cautious when she spots me, she didn’t pick that dress herself.

Sienna grabs her friends, dragging them to the dance floor with the few people hammered enough to dance in public. Wes follows without hesitation, happy to grind against Violet’s ass.

A small smile crawls across my lips. Sienna thinks she can avoid me tonight. She’ll learn soon enough that she’ll never escape me. That she won’t want to.

Knox grins when the girls form a circle to dance together and smacks his glass down on the bar. “That’s my cue.”

I clap a hand on his shoulder, keeping him rooted in place. “Keep your hands off my sister.”

He smirks at me. “Relax, Valentine.”

At a nearby booth, Damien whispers in the ear of the redhead on his lap, and Finn rests a casual hand on a puck bunny’s hip while she grinds against him.

On the dance floor, Sienna is magnetic. Her movements are awkward and choppy, but she’s grinning. My watchful gaze is forgotten as she loses herself in the music and laughter. A glimpse of that girl she was when we met at the hotel—confident, bold, bright. She’s good at hiding the pain underneath. So good at compartmentalizing, you’d almost think she wasn’t a girl who’d been beaten and chased out of her hometown. The kind of girl who hides her dark secrets beneath humor and smiles.

I can’t take my eyes off her. I haven’t been able to since we met. She’s more enchanting than I ever imagined.

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