Page 79 of Wild and Bright

A slow smile spreads over his face. “You’ll like it better in a second. Wait till you try one of their drinks. They’re like pure alcohol and only four bucks. God, I love the Midwest.”

I scowl at him. “What do I look like to you? Seventeen years old with my first fake ID? For the last two months, I’ve been drinking French wine from your brother’s cellar. I’m not getting one of their nasty drinks.” I glance around the area. “Someone will probably slip a roofie in it.”

My phone chimes, and my stomach sinks. When I pull it from my purse and flash the screen, I find exactly what I feared.

Cam: Where did you go?

“Shit,” I mumble.

“What?” Hunter asks.

“Cam is asking where I went. He must be back at the hotel.”

“Ignore it.”

I lift my head, glaring incredulously. “Do you know your brother at all? He’ll probably send like four hundred more. And then he’ll call the police.”

“God, he’s a psychopath,” he says under his breath. “I don’t know… Tell him you went out to get tampons.”

I roll my eyes. It’s a sign of how drunk he is that he thinks there’s a chance in hell he can pull off our little night out without his brother finding out. “We have sex regularly. He knows I’m not on my period, and anyway I’m not lying to him.”

His eyes grow hard. “Well, you promised me you wouldn’t tell him where we are. Were you lying to me?”

I huff, shaking my head. “Don’t pull that shit with me. I didn’t promise I’d point blank lie to him.”

“If you make up an excuse, I promise I’ll only have one more drink, and then we can go back to the hotel together. But if you tell him where we are, I’m calling my own Uber and finding another bar.”

When I narrow my eyes, he smiles lazily, and it makes me want to hit him. “I fucking hate you right now.”

His smile widens. “It’s your choice, babe.”

I shake my head as I lift up my phone. My stomach sinks as I think of plausible excuses. Ultimately, I send something I know will lead to more questions, but at least I feel like less of a liar.

Me: Just stepped out for a bit. Be back soon.

After setting my phone down on the bar, I jab a finger in Hunter’s face. “You only ever pull shit like this when you’re drunk.”

His smile widens. “Yep. Because I’m more fun when I’m drunk.”

“No, you’re not. You’re annoying and manipulative and whiney… And you’re even mean when you’re really drunk. I’ll have one drink with you because I promised, but after that, I’m never drinking with you again. Not ever. Not even when you try to bullshit me by saying things like you’ve been sober for six months, so it’s okay if you have a beer now.”

His smile vanishes. “So you’ve become just like him, huh?”

I roll my eyes at his drunken melodrama. Even given his recent anger at Cam, he would never say something like that sober.

“No, it’s okay,” he says, his tone biting. “I knew it would happen eventually. I knew once he brought you over to his side, you’d become a judgmental bitch just like him.”

I raise my hand in the air and gesture at the bartender. “Make me an extra-dirty martini. As a matter of fact, give me straight vodka and an olive.”

Hunter claps his hands, and I wince at the sound. I’m not in the mood for this. I want to be back in my hotel bed, waiting for Cam to come home so we can finally start our new relationship.

“That’s my girl,” Hunter says. “Let’s get you good and drunk.”

I turn sharply toward him. “No! I didn’t order that for you. I ordered it for me, because if I hear one more second of your whining, I’ll literally throw up right here on this bar.”

His smile stays fixed, though it no longer meets his eyes.

“You have a brother who loves you like crazy, and he’s going to be devastated when he finds out about this. Think about how you’re breaking his heart when you order your next drink.”

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