Page 21 of Nightmare

I hear someone cough, so I pull away from Atticus and peek over his shoulder, only just remembering we’re not alone. Trystan is kneeling beside Andie, shaking his head at us with a smile as he buttons his jeans. Andie’s sitting on the ground with her knees pulled up to her chest, scrunching her nose at us in confusion.

“You two are fucking weird,” she says, making me and Trystan laugh.

Atticus passes me my skirt, and I slide it back on, removing my boots to pull the ruined fishnets from around my ankles. Once I’ve got my shoes back on, he takes my hand and helps me to my feet, tightening his grip when I move toward Andie. I glance at him over my shoulder, and he frowns, looking down at the empty bottle of tequila he’s holding.

“Five minutes,” he says, although I can tell he’s furious about it.

“Twenty.”

“Ten,” he bites out, and I roll my lips with a nod.

“Meet us at the bar,” Trystan says to Andie, blowing her a kiss when she just glares up at him.

He tips his chin at Atticus, and the two boys walk off toward the main party, disappearing into the darkness between the trees. I sit down next to Andie and rest my head on her shoulder, wrapping my hands around her arm and hugging it to my chest.

I haven’t even said anything yet, but I know she notices the shift in me already.

I may not have admitted it—to her or myself—but I was miserable and heartbroken when we started this night together, and now I can’t stop fucking smiling for some reason. It probably looks creepy, so I force myself to stop and relax my face.

She opens her mouth to say something to me, but I cut her off before she can get a word in. “Don’t even think about it. You first.”

She sighs and bites her lip. “Don’t judge me.”

I raise a brow and make a point to look down at my body—at the bite marks and the bruises and the dirt all over me, the scent of tequila soaking the men’s shirt I’m wearing, the cum between my legs and the plug in my asshole, all at the hands of my walking red flag of an ex-boyfriend.

“I won't.”

CHAPTER 9

ATTICUS

“You got her back.”

“Almost,” I say to Trystan, scanning the bottles of alcohol me and the boys stashed behind this tree earlier, about a minute walk away from the fire we lit. “I’m working on it.”

I find some of Violet’s favorite tequila, and then the two of us continue walking toward the bar, grabbing two solo cups to pour ourselves a drink each. It’s lighter and louder over here. The music’s still blaring, the partygoers acting a lot more crazy and drunk than they were when I was here earlier. There are couples and threesomes everywhere, grinding and dry-fucking each other, and there’s even a guy on his knees throating another guy’s dick in the middle of it all, earning a few heated glances from the people around them.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were getting out today?” Tryst shouts so I can hear him over the chaos.

“Because you’re all big mouths,” I shout back.

The random guy I gave my drugs to earlier walks by us, and I stop him to take a pink pill out of the bag he’s holding, popping it onto my tongue with a smile. Trystan snorts as he takes a pill for himself, but he doesn’t say anything else, which is weird because he usually doesn’t shut up. I pull my brows in and study his face a moment, wondering why he’s being so quiet. Tonight’s not the first time I’ve seen his dick, so I know it’s not about me or what we just did, but it is the first time I’ve seen him put it in the girl who’s despised him for as long as I’ve known her. He teased the shit out of her back in high school, and even though it wasn’t that bad—I wouldn’t call him a bully or anything—she’s a snippy little thing and she can’t take a joke. Not when it comes to him.

“What’s up with you and Andie?”

He smirks to himself but doesn’t answer, giving me no clues as to what he’s thinking. I can usually read my friends better than this, considering we’ve known each other our whole lives, but tonight I’ve got nothing—not with him or with Phoenix.

I’m the crazy one out of the three of us, the one outsiders tend to stay away from. Phoenix is the nice one, the sensible boy we can all rely on when it counts. And Trystan’s a bit of a wild card. He’s got a heart of gold and this annoying, happy attitude, but he also has a mean side, and he can be a nasty motherfucker if you give him a reason.

He sips his drink, his eyes tracking something over the rim of his cup, and I turn my head to follow his line of sight. The girls are back, hands linked together, as usual, laughing with each other as they walk toward us. Violet doesn’t give a shit about the side-eyes she’s getting, completely at ease and unashamed of the state I left her in.

Jesus Christ, she’s so sexy.

Sometimes I can’t believe she’s real.

My dick stirs again at the sight of her, and I reach down to adjust it through my jeans, gritting my teeth at Trystan when I realize he’s watching my girl, not his own.

“The fuck are you looking at?”

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