Page 88 of Cruel Lies

"You’re going to give the poor girl split ends if you torture her hair like you do yours, Nash," he grumbled, singularly focused on his task.

I took the moment of distraction to step between her legs, relishing the feel of them spreading around my hips as I closed the distance between us. Her eyes danced with an inner fire and fierceness that had me sticking my tongue out at her, and she returned the gesture in kind with a light chuckle that gave me hope she’d be okay when we were gone from her life again.

It simultaneously tore at my insides, too. I wanted to hear that laugh every day. And instead, I was forced to bank every sound, sigh, and step she made in my mind, to keep me warm in the cold when she left us.

"There," Angel announced, tossing the towel around her shoulders. "All finished."

Harper patted the top of her head and smiled, but that grin of appreciation wasn’t for me. It was for my arrogant, vain brother, who didn’t even appreciate it.

He wasn’t even looking at her anymore.

Angel had turned around already and marched off to the couch in the other room, plunking down next to Rowan with a groan.

I watched Harper’s gaze follow him, and my heart broke for her. She’d been trying to find the old Angel buried under years of self-flagellation and masking, and he was determined not to show him to her. He pretended that part of him was dead, but Iknew better. Angel hadn’t changed a bit, but I couldn’t just tell her that and expect her to believe me. And their problems were none of my own. I had enough shit on my plate. I didn’t need to add his to it.

Nobody spoke for a long time, too involved and caught up in the idea of time running out on our little arrangement. I think a part of all of us was afraid to ruin the moment by saying something wrong, really. That and none of us knew what to say in this sort of situation.

Here’s to the last night you’ll ever have to spend with us?

Happy Birthday and see you later?

Please don’t leave us?

The whole thought sounded and felt too sentimental and painful to examine. So I did what I always did best, and I buried that shit so far down it had no chance of surfacing while we were alive.

And then I reached under the counter where she sat, pulled out a bottle of fire whiskey and four shot glasses, and grinned widely.

When all else fails, pull out the good booze and get wasted.

"Who wants to do shots?"

THIRTY-EIGHT

HARPER

I didn’t normally drink.But when Nashville Blackwood pulls out a bottle of fire whiskey and four glasses and asks you to do shots with him, you don’t really say no.

So I didn’t bother. I just grabbed a glass out of his hands, held it out like a good little bitch waiting for him to fill it, and downed it in one go the second he filled it to the brim.

And then I waited for another.

And before I knew it, we were all doing shots, Angel included, and I was fucking wasted.

Wasted.

Like full-on, white girl wasted at a frat party kind of shit.

And I hadn’t felt this free in a long ass time.

Angel and Nash leaned against one another on the other side of the kitchen counter, swaying to the beat of a song on the radio. I tapped my feet as I smiled and watched on, the sight of them finally getting along like a balm to my soul.

This was what I wanted for them. Friendship. Brotherhood. Love. They felt like actual brothers at this moment, not at each other's throats, not fighting for dominance like two vicious wolves in the wild. The thought that they would have each other when I was gone was the only thing keeping me together right now.

That, and the insane percentage of alcohol flowing through my veins.

Rowan leaned over me to grab for an empty glass, and I took the opportunity to slide my hands drunkenly up his chest, grinning like a coquette when his muscles stiffened, and his free hand fell to my back, tugging us together. He abandoned his search for a glass and lowered his head to kiss me, and it was unlike the ones from before.

This was a different man, a different emotion. There was urgency in this kiss, a sadness tinged with resignation, that permeated the two of us.

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