Page 42 of Too Late

“Keepme?”

He pulls the black shirt over his head. He starts laughing to himself as he’s buttoning it up. “I had lunch with Carter today,” he says casually, sitting on the bed.

Lunch? What? Our class together ended at lunchtime. Carter left class after making me feel the things I felt, and then went directly to lunch withAsa?

Why?

I sit on the opposite end of the bed and attempt to sound disinterested. “Oh yeah?”

Asa begins pulling on a pair of socks. “He’s not so bad. I kind of like him. Might even ask him to be a groomsman in our wedding.”

He’s already planning the wedding?

Asa slips on his shoes and stands up, turning toward the mirror. He runs both hands through his hair. “Have you thought about who you’ll ask to be your bridesmaids? You don’t really have any friends, do you?”

You make it kind of difficult for me to have friends, Asa.

“We just got engaged this morning,” I say to him. “Then I had class all day. I haven’t really had time to think about the details of a wedding.”

“You could ask Jess to be a bridesmaid,” he says.

I nod, but internally I’m laughing. Jess hates me. I don’t know why, but the girl hasn’t looked my direction in six months, no matter how much I try to reach out. “Yeah,” I say. “I could ask Jess.”

Asa opens the bedroom door and motions toward the dress still fisted tightly in my hands. “Take a shower and get ready. I want you dolled up tonight for the big announcement.”

The door closes behind him. I look down at the dress. I look down at my ring.

This hole I’m digging for myself is getting deeper and deeper. If I don’t figure out how to climb out of it, Asa’s going to fill it with cement.

Asa likes my hair best when it’s straight. I know this, because there have been a couple of times I’ve put some curl in it and he’s asked me to redo it. The first time was right after we started dating, when he was introducing me to Jon and Jess for the first time. And once on our first anniversary when we went to dinner at a restaurant I reserved myself. The anniversary dinner I had to remind him about three times.

He said his mother had curly hair and he prefers for me to wear mine straight.

I know nothing about his family, other than that he doesn’t have one. And that one sentence about his mother’s hair is the only time he’s ever mentioned her in the years that I’ve known him.

Yet … here I am, standing in front of the mirror with the curling iron, adding curls to my hair. Simply because I know Carter likes them. I catch him staring at my hair sometimes when I put curl in it. Like he wishes he could touch it—slide his whole hand through my hair and pull my face to his. And even though he’ll be on the opposite end of the room from me, not even looking in my direction tonight, I curl my hair. For him.

Not for myfiancé.

The music is loud, the house is full of people, and I’ve been in my bathroom for an hour and a half getting ready. Of course an hour of that was probably spent staring at myself in the mirror, wondering how in the hell I got myself to this point in life. But I have to stop dwelling on all the bad decisions I’ve made and figure out how to make better ones.

I go see my brother on Sunday. Now that his care is private pay, I no longer meet with the social worker to sign his annual forms. But I think I’ll schedule an appointment with her while I’m there Sunday. I want to figure out what I can do to get his benefits back in place without Asa finding out.

Someone beats on the bathroom door, so I put down the curling iron and switch it off. I open it to find Asa gripping the doorframe. His eyes run down the length of me and then back up again. “Holy fuck,” he says, stepping inside the bathroom. He wraps his arm around my waist and his other hand drops to my thigh, crawling my dress up with his fingers. “I was planning on waiting until I got you in bed tonight, but I’m not sure if I can.”

His breath reeks of whiskey. I doubt it’s even nine o’clock yet and he’s halfway to being comatose already.

I push against his chest. “Well, youhaveto wait. I just finished getting ready. I’d like to be able to torture you with this outfit for afewhours, at least.”

He groans and pushes me onto the counter, pressing himself between my legs. “Sloan, how can one guy be so fucking lucky?”

I close my eyes while he kisses down my shoulder. How can one girl be sounlucky?

He grips my waist and pulls me off the counter. He doesn’t set me on my feet, though. He scoops me up in his arms and I’m forced to grab him around the neck to steady myself. He carries me out of the bathroom and down the stairs. Before we reach the bottom, he stops and sets me on my feet. “Wait here,” he says, disappearing down the rest of the steps and into the kitchen.

I look around the living room at all the people. So many fucking people. My eyes catch Jess’s stare and I smile at her. She looks away, but I’m almost certain she cringes before doing so.

I have no idea what I’ve done to her or why she hates me so much. But honestly, I’m used to people treating me like she treats me. I stopped worrying myself sick about it before I even reached high school.

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