Page 62 of We Are All Liars Here

“Did you do what I asked?” Billie’s voice is a whisper. Her gaze cuts around the bustling street, as though she’ll see Preston come out of nowhere and catch her in the act, but of course she’s not expecting him for another two hours.

Two hours is more than the time she needs.

Charlie reaches into the inside of his coat. There must be a pocket, she thinks, as he draws out a black leather flask and—he pauses. He hesitates. But Billie snatches the flask out of his grip and quickly shoves it into her feathery bag.

Before he can speak a word of protest or doubt, she smacks a fifty down on his still-out hand.

“Don’t say nothin’,” she warns him and in answer, he just nods, his fingers clasp around the bribe-disguised-as-a-tip.

She leaves him out there, pushes through the door herself, and rushes for the elevator. The quicker she’s in the apartment, the sooner she’s tucking into the Ketel One vodka hidden in the flask.

Premium shit.

Vodka she asked Charlie about a few times since she’s been out of rehab, vodka that he’s probably had in his coat pocket for a week now, but that she’s fought the urge to actually take. Until now.

Now, she wants nothing more than to sit in the bathtub and taste that beautiful burn of booze down her throat. She wants the numbness back, the aches gone.

And maybe—

Just maybe…

Billie simply likes a drink.

20

BEFORE

JUNE 1998

“Are you in or out?”

Silence is Preston’s answer. Pensive to match his distant gaze, eyes fixed on the pitch-black road ahead, yet seeing a different darkness that he faces.

Preston runs the pad of his thumb over the smooth touch of the steering wheel. Then, as always, his thumb snags on a tiny tear that shouldn’t interrupt the creamy leather at all—but it does. A tiny tear in the steering wheel, a memory of her.

He remembers all of her. And how every little mark and scratch came to be in this Cadillac.

The imperfection his thumb grazes over, back and forth, back and forth, is as fond a memory as any other he has with her. Billie is a poison, an addiction, but one that—even when miserable—he breathes like air, like oxygen; an addiction so entwined with him now that the thought of living without it is a bullet to the brain, a blade to the heart.

So this one little tear on the steering wheel that’s invisible to careless eyes, the mark Billie left when she tried to hit him with a beer bottle; it means everything.

His perfect imperfection.

And the clues of her messy existence in his life are scattered all over the car.

Preston sinks back in the driver seat, his hand slipping down the edge of the steering wheel, until it rests near the gearstick. Right where she’s left a scrunchie; periwinkle blue and fragranced with a blend of stale cigs, cheap booze and too-strong fruity perfume.

That blend of scents lingers, not only on the scrunchie, but on him. His clothes, his hands, his mouth. Fuck, he can stilltasteher. Can taste the salt of her tears on his lips, still.

And if he lets himself, he can see her—she slides down the fridge to sit on the floor, cheeks blotchy and wet, her eyes full of hatred and pain. So much pain.

He didn’t help it. Trying to steal her back into his arms, his life, but he ended up just fucking her in the kitchen and leaving her on the floor. And worse still, the moment he got that call from Trevor, a call to meet, Preston wasrelieved. Relieved to have an urgent getaway from Billie, from their wretched love.

And yet, the moment he’s away from her, all he can think about is when he gets to be with her again, lay his eyes upon her, smell her unique scent, feel the subtle blonde hairs on her arm as he caresses her, and fights with her all over again.

But now?

After tonight?

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