Page 169 of Whistle

After a quick glance to confirm he wasn’t following me, I went to the bar and leaned across it, my feet flying up in the air behind me as I swiped my hand around beneath it.

“Can I help you?” the bartender asked.

I glanced up. “I want a bottle of vodka.”

The man lifted an eyebrow. “You used to getting everything you want?”

“It’s the Elite way.”

Recognition flickered on his face. “As in Westbrook Elite?”

“You ever seen a swimmer who can’t swim?” I cracked, finally leaping off the bar and onto my feet. Lifting my arms, I showed myself off. “Now you have.”

“I think you’ve had enough to drink.”

Reaching into my back pocket, I pulled out two one-hundred-dollar bills and tossed them on the counter in front of him. “I’ll take that one,” I said, pointing to a bottle on the shelf.

He pursed his lips, dividing his stare between me and the cash. With a sigh, he grabbed the partially empty bottle and slammed it down on the bar top.

“Where is he?” someone roared, and I turned to see a red-faced man stumble out of the bathroom.

“And that’s my cue to leave,” I said, grabbing the bottle by the neck and racing for the door.

“Stop him!” roared the man whose balls I’d bashed in, and I darted around a half-assed attempt to do just that.

Outside, the air was cold compared to the crowded, hot interior of the bar. I didn’t slow down, though, and ran around the side of the building, pressing up against the brick and clutching the bottle against my chest.

“Where’d he go?” a voice around front hollered. “Son of a bitch!”

“C’mon, Jones. Let him go. I’ll buy you a drink,” someone else said.

A moment later, a door slammed, and everything went quiet. I waited a few more and then peeked around the corner, noting that the lot was empty. Taking the path between a row of cars, I walked toward the street I’d arrived on and tilted the bottle to my lips.

The vodka created a fiery path down my esophagus and made my eyes water, but I drank another swig. I could still feel that guy’s hands all over me and the way he tugged at the diamond. Lurching to the side, I hit my hands and knees and puked up the alcohol still swimming around in my belly, the retching drowning out the memory of hands that were not Em’s.

Sitting back, I swiped my mouth and stared up at the dark sky, wondering how the hell I used to live like this.

Party after party. Drink after drink. Guy after guy. It all blurred together like one long, endless orgy, and it made me sick.

I’d lived like that so much longer than I had here at Westbrook, but it was unfathomable now. The idea of drowning my insides in alcohol and letting random men fuck me seemed like hell.

Probably why I’ve hit rock bottom.

All these weeks, I thought I was just serving a sentence, doing what I had to do to get by. I truly believed that nothing really changed… when, in fact, everything has.

Including me.

How did I not see it when I looked in the mirror?

Because some change is more than skin deep.

All this time, I’d been growing. Changing. Healing. I couldn’t go back to my old ways because I wasn’t that man anymore.

Where did that leave me?

Pushing to my feet, I snatched the bottle and walked on, gravel crunching beneath my shoe.

I didn’t know who I was anymore or where I was going. But one thing was the same. Something that seemed would be a lifelong affliction.

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