Page 56 of Beautiful Sinners

Shaking my head, I push the shot glass across the smooth wood of the small table. “Nope. One is enough.”

Of course, Andie doesn’t listen to me and signals one of her bodyguards, who promptly goes over to the bar and flags down a bartender.

“I thought tequila shots involved lime slices and salt.”

Andie makes a sour, disgusted face. “This shit is pure deliciousness on its own.”

“At three-thousand dollars a bottle, I hope so,” Alana says.

“What?” I exclaim a little too loudly and garner a few head turns from the table next to us.

The bodyguard, a man who looks like he could be Raquelle’s bigger, taller brother, comes back over with a tray laden with drinks.

“Thanks, Z,” Andie says as she removes them one by one and lines them up in the middle of the table. There are a dozen total. She really is out of her mind.

Rubbing her hands together excitedly, Andie makes eye contact with me, then Alana.

“Here’s the game. Truth or dare. You fail to answer a question or do a dare, you have to drink.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No,” I say more sternly.

“I’ll start,” Andie replies.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Andie aims her unnerving violet gaze at me. “Truth or dare?”

Stubbornly, I cross my arms over my chest, refusing to play. Unfortunately, one of the guys sitting at the adjacent table to my left goes slack-jawed when he sees the burns on my arm. He elbows his friend beside him.

Every second they stare, the tighter my skin constricts until its confines strangle me. There’s an idiom where someone says they feel uncomfortable in their own skin. For me, that figure of speech is a physical manifestation. The longer these assholes stare, the more painful my skin squeezes around me until it feels like I can’t breathe.

But before I can say the very unkind thing that’s on the tip of my tongue, Alana beats me to it.

“Fuck. Off.”

I’ve never heard her utter even a mild cuss word before.

At being called out, both guys’ eyes widen, and their heads whip back around to the people sitting at their table.

“Want Z to take them out back and remind them it’s not polite to stare?” Andie asks, all serious.

“No. I’m used to it.” The rude stares still bother me, though. People need to learn to mind their own damn business.

Alana doesn’t try to expound platitudes or tell me to ignore them. I go stock-still when she reaches across the table and brushes her hand down my hair, looping a loose strand behind my ear. Examining my bruise, her finger traces its outline.

“We haven’t gotten a chance to talk, but could you at least tell me if you’re okay. Did you get hurt?”

I circle a sarcastic hand in front of my face, because obviously I did.

Alana sighs. “Sweetheart—”

“Can I get a basket of fries?”

I’m starving. I’m also not stupid. Hard liquor on an empty stomach equals trouble for someone like me who doesn’t drink. But I have a sneaking suspicion that is exactly Andie’s intent.

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