Page 53 of Lotus

He promised.

Oliver spins toward me as he walks down my stony pathway, still pacing backwards across the lawn. “Of course.”

My desperate smile is matched with his smile of concession.

And as I clutch the lotus flower to my chest, I have no idea why that hurts so much.

Four painfully high stilettos saunter up to the familiar bar counter, our arms linked, our bodies sheened in the sexy kind of sweat you can only produce while dancing to Justin Timberlake.

Brant sends a wink our way as he multitasks like champ. “Neville. I thought that was you shakin’ your shit out there.” A nod to my sister follows. “Good to see you again, Clem.”

Clementine leans into me, her lips grazing my ear. “Are you sure he’s gay?”

Hazel eyes travel over me for a split second before my co-worker hands out a round of shots to the group of girls beside us.Hmm. “To be determined,” I whisper back.

“Howdy!” Rebecca is working the bar with Brant tonight, her neon-green pixie cut and pierced eyebrows a striking statement to her punk rock style. Her petite frame and dainty features make her look like a badass Tinkerbell who will fuck you up. “It’s nice seeing you on the other side for once. What can I get you girls?”

I’m leaning forward on the counter, debating our poison for the evening, when Brant sweeps in and slides two shots in front of us, accompanied by another wink and a quick glance at my cleavage.Double hmm. My ‘thanks’ meets his back as he retreats to the opposite side, servicing a different group.

“Eww, God, what is this?” Clem’s nose puckers as she sniffs the mystery shot, squeezing in beside me and another patron. “It smells like citrus and battery acid.”

Mine is down the hatch in no time, my wince only slight. “Kamikaze.”

“I’ll need a chaser. I think I’m too old for shots.” Clem deflates, a pitying look washing over her face before she swallows down the cocktail. “Shit, that’s depressing. More shots, please.”

Rebecca grins amidst her Jägerbomb creations. “I got you, girl.”

An hour later, we’re huddled over a high-top table, our mutual intoxication spurring an emotionally-charged discussion about frogs.

Clementine’s eyes are glazed with unshed tears. “You don’t understand, sis.” She squeezes my forearms over the table. “I’ll never know what happened to them.Never.”

“You did everything you could,” I say with adamancy.

My sister is reliving the traumatic story from her childhood when she captured a bucket of tadpoles from a local pond. She tended to them daily for weeks, having named all nine of them: Tad one-through-nine. So clever.

One dreary summer morning, Clem ventured out to check on her reptilian children, and they had all disappeared. Just gone. For some reason, this memory still stands out seventeen years later and almost always comes up during our drunken conversations.

Clem releases my arms with a melancholy sigh. “I hate not knowing.”

“They probably grew little legs and hopped away to a murky swamp made of froggy dreams.”

“Or they were eaten by an asshole fox.”

“Certainly the more likely scenario.”

We both sigh then, reaching for our near-empty beverages. My gaze cases her, taking in her side-swept hair, still streaked blue and partially matted to her forehead. “Speaking of not knowing…” I begin, twirling my glass between my fingers. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened with Gabe?”

A flinch, and then a shoulder shrug. “Meh. It’s not a big deal, honestly.”

“He said you bolted mid-sex, then no-showed his party. Sounds like a big deal to me.”

There’s a flicker in her eyes, a flash of something earnest hidden behind her cobalt blues. “I’m still adjusting. I thought I was ready, but he just reminds me of…” Clem’s words trail off into the sea of club noise, her attention now fixed on her watered-down Rum Runner. “Never mind.”

I frown. Nate isnothinglike Gabe with his never-wrinkled-suits and country club attitude. “Gabe wouldn’t intentionally hurt you, sis. He’s the best guy I know.”

“And Oliver.”

My turn to flinch. “Yeah,” I reply in a subdued breath. “And Oliver.”

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