Chapter 14

I wanted Bella to be happy and to enjoy her bachelorette party but I was reaching the end of my ability to squeal at random intervals and consume a fruity drink through a penis straw. I didn’t know any of her friends well except for Kennedy, who she had been friends with since high school. For the most part they ignored me and for the most part I was okay with that. My role was silent observer to the party.

Stifling a yawn, I made an attempt to take a picture of Bella but she yelled at me. “Ew, stop! I wasn’t ready for that.”

“It’s candid. I’m capturing a beautiful moment with you and your girlfriends. It’s spontaneous, not posed.”

“Delete it!” Bella was super-drunk. Her words were slurred. She pointed a manicured fingernail at me. Coffin-cut acrylics. I knew that’s what they were because she had told me three times.

It was unusual for Bella to get trashed. She didn’t like losing control like that and she didn’t need the social lubricant. She was far too worried usually about how sloppy behavior would reflect on her. This actually had me a little concerned. The whole week had been weird. She didn’t seem happy so much as she seemed manic.

“Okay, it’s gone,” I said, pretending to delete the photo. I wanted to look at it later and see if she looked as off as I thought she did. I was glad I had made the decision to stay sober. I had only had one beer so far and one girlie shot the other bridesmaids had forced on me that tasted like flavored water. “Are you okay?” I asked her, knowing what the response would be, but feeling compelled to inquire nonetheless. “Maybe you shouldn’t drink anymore.”

Bella snorted. “Everything is fucking awesome. Everything is great. I’m getting married, Soph. Fucking married. And I’m going to drink until the bar closes. Because I can.”

Being a babysitter to a gang of drunk women wasn’t my usual Wednesday night but I figured I didn’t have much choice. I wasn’t going to convince Bella to go home. This was her second bachelorette party. The first had been the “real” one, a cruise out of Baltimore to the Bahamas, that we had allegedly surprised her with. Meaning my mother went to great lengths to pretend Bella had no clue, packing a bag for her and creating a whole bait and switch of going to a concert in Baltimore and then jumping on a ship. Also allegedly, I had planned the whole thing. Which of course the wedding planner had done, not me. I had spent the majority of the three days bored, ready for all events in ten minutes while the other girls spent ninety minutes getting themselves primped to eat dinner. But it had been fine overall. No objections.

This little outing seemed an unnecessary add-on to what had frankly been a damn nice bachelorette trip. This was like a desperate, last-minute attempt to be wild by a woman who was not wild. Or something like that. I had no clue what was going through her head.

Cain had texted me a couple of times and I wanted to answer, but at the same time I didn’t because there was no way I could meet up with him and I didn’t even want to be tempted. It was so easy to be tempted with Cain. But I couldn’t manage his intensity, his kisses, when Bella seemed to be determined to jump on the Hot Mess Express.

Christian had been watching the bachelorette party all night. He seemed to be flirting with all Bella’s friends, and even a little with me. Which disgusted me. But Bella seemed oddly interested in him. She kept insisting she go to the bar to get another round and she had taken some selfies with him, which seemed way weird. I hoped like hell she wasn’t drunkenly posting them on Snapchat.

“Give me your credit card,” she said, holding out her hand to me. “I lost mine.”

“You lost your credit card?” I gaped at her. “Isn’t that Bradley’s credit card?” I had seen it. A little black thing with his name on it. Not good. “You should text him and let him know so he can cancel it.”

“I’m not texting him. Tonight is all about me.”

Tonight was all about vodka. “Let me go get the drinks. What do you want?” I was not handing her my freaking debit card. She might lose that too.

“Get me whatever.” She waved her hand, rolling out her bottom lip in a look that she would never do in public sober. Ever.

“K.” I jumped off my chair and walked to the bar, texting Bradley about the credit card. The guy deserved a heads-up.

He texted me back immediately.

No big deal. I’ll cancel it. Hope Bel is having fun.

Loads of fun.

I wasn’t sure that was entirely accurate but I wasn’t about to get involved in their relationship at all. I went up to Christian at the bar. I wished there was someone else to order a drink from, but he was it. “Hey, can I get a cranberry juice with a small, almost nonexistent splash of vodka?” That way I wouldn’t have to lie to Bella if she asked if it had vodka in it, but it might increase her ability to metabolize the alcohol already in her system if she was not continuing to drink more.

“Are you pretending to be a cool girl?” he asked with a smirk.

“No.” I didn’t like him. I couldn’t like him after what he had done to Cain. I didn’t explain anything further. I couldn’t care less what he thought of me.

When I took the plastic cup and turned around I drew up short. “Oh! Hi.” Cain was standing behind me.

I had figured he had gone home by now. But not only was he standing there, he had a stormy look on his face. He was pissed I hadn’t texted him back, that was obvious to me. The wolf wasn’t hiding. He was out in full force. I actually shivered. I had never seen his anger directed at me and it was intimidating. I didn’t like it.

“You didn’t answer me because you’re too busy talking to my brother?” His voice was low, drawn out.

Yep. Very angry. But I wasn’t taking responsibility for that. “I ordered a drink for Bella,” I said. “She’s trashed. And I didn’t text you back because I was afraid if I did I would beg you to take me away from here, where I’m stuck being the world’s worst babysitter. It’s not a role I excel at.”

“You could have just told me that in a text.”

“You’re right.” I didn’t say anything beyond that. I wasn’t going to apologize for not being in constant communication with him when I had made it perfectly clear this night was about Bella and I had sister shit to do. He may not like that, but too bad.

But then there was a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes that melted my heart. “Can I just have one drink with you?” he asked. “Then I’ll leave you alone.”

“Yes,” I said. “But explain to me why you’re angry. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m angry because I’m fucking walking around and all I can do is think about you. And want you.”

My eyes widened. I didn’t know what to say to that. “I want you too.” Because I did. I wanted more than the hookup. I wanted the fantasy that my mother said was stupid and unrealistic. I wanted Little Red Riding Hood to have her big bad wolf and I had tried to tell him that but my attempts at self-preservation had been weak at best.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Because what I mean is I want you. For real.”

“That’s what I mean too.” I was never one for talking in circles and he knew that. “And you know that. So that’s that.”

Cain’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s that?”

“Yes. Now let me take this to Bella and you can order me a beer if you’d like.” I couldn’t do super-romantic in a bar on the tail end of Bella’s bachelorette party, aka the shit show. Romantic was a challenge for me on the best of days, but this was not the environment I could let it shine in.

Apparently, Cain felt the same way. He just said, “Okay,” and shifted himself around me to the bar top.

Bella was talking to some guy in a plaid shirt. I handed her the drink. She sipped it and made a face. “Ew. There is like zero vodka in here.”

“No, I watched Christian to make sure he put it in there.” Truth. Just not a lot.

“I love you,” she said, leaning over and giving me a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

“I love you too. Do you mind if Cain stays for one drink with me then leaves?”

“That’s so fine,” she said, slurring her words and waving her hand. “Oh, my God, it’s so stinking cute that you have a boyfriend. Your bae is like so dark and dangerous. Soph, I didn’t know you had it in you, girl.”

I almost wanted to laugh. Fortunately, she was dragged off by her friends to dance with a group of guys wearing plaid shorts. I was watching them, marveling at their ability to gyrate, when Cain sat down. “Bella called you my bae,” I told him.

He snorted. “I’ve been called a lot of things but never that.”

“It’s a good look on you,” I teased.

For being a man who had just told me he wanted to be with me he didn’t look very happy. He looked just as agitated as he had when he walked in the door. “So what did Christian say to you?” he asked.

The question was so out of left field I just stared at him. “He said I owed him seven dollars for Bella’s drink.”

He had gotten himself a drink, of course, and he lifted the glass to sip it, brooding and intense as he stared at me. “Do you think that I should have fought Christian for custody of Camp?”

It was a mine field but I was never one to know how to navigate social traps. “I thought your mother has custody.”

Cain frowned at me. “Technically. But the courts and everyone else think Christian is his father. Even though there is no way to prove that.”

It was loud in the bar and this seemed like such an irrational time to have this conversation. “Maybe we should talk about this tomorrow.”

“So that means you do think I should have fought for him.”

Getting upset, I reached across the table and touched his hand. “Cain. It’s just loud in here. Let’s talk tomorrow when I can actually hear you and we have some privacy.”

He didn’t say anything for a second. Then he said, “Sure. That’s cool.”

That was not very reassuring.

Especially when he added, “You see that blonde at the bar? That Christian is trying desperately to ignore?”

I turned automatically. I saw her. She was with two other girls and was laughing loudly, darting glances over at Christian between sips of her fruity drink. “Yes.”

“That’s Ali. My ex. Camp’s mother. Apparently, she’s back in town.”

I was both astonished and instantly jealous. She was pretty, like Bella. Coy, flirtatious. I don’t know what I was expecting from the chick who had abandoned her baby. An ogre? A drug addict or a woman who wore her callous bitchiness on her face. Not like any other twenty-something girl with long hair and contoured cheeks. She was the reason Cain sat in the bar night after night. Which made her powerful and I resented that. My emotions all rose and collided and I started to ask Cain what that meant, how he felt, but at that moment I heard a scream and turned to see Bella throw up all over Kennedy. It was like The Exorcist. It shot out full force. It was Kennedy screaming in horror.

I stood up but Bella was already running to the restroom. I accidentally bumped into a guy.

“Whoa,” he said, reaching out to steady me.

I tried to move to the right to get past him but he moved to the right as well. Then we both moved to the left. He laughed. “We’re dancing.”

“Sorry,” I said with an automatic polite smile. But then I realized I had forgotten my purse so I sat back down briefly to snag it from under my chair.

The guy started to move on past our table, giving Cain a glance.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Cain asked the guy, who looked startled.

I was startled too. I’d never seen him get jealous before. “He just glanced over here,” I said. “Calm down.”

“I’m not going to calm down. What are you doing with my girlfriend?” Cain asked him.

“Nothing,” the guy said, shaking his head. “Jesus, man.”

I felt guilty that we had stayed there, at the bar where his brother worked. But then I realized I couldn’t take responsibility for that. It had been his choice to come here in the first place and his choice to stay even after seeing Ali. “Cain. It’s fine. Now let me go see if Bella is okay. She clearly needs to be taken home.”

He ignored me. “Do you want to fuck her, is that it?” Cain asked the guy, his voice steely. He stood up, knocking the chair back. It tipped precariously, but righted itself.

The guy was already walking away but he paused with a scoff. “Dude, your girlfriend isn’t that hot. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”

The disdainful tone of his voice shocked me. I felt my cheeks heat with embarrassment. I could feel eyes on us, the stare of the curious, the judgmental. There was no way Ali could have heard this conversation from where she was at the bar but when I glanced over I saw her watching us, murmuring to her friend behind her hand.

I was the first one to admit I wasn’t a traditional college girl, and my goal was not to enter a room and have every man’s eyes on me. But no one likes to be told they’re irrelevant.

“What did you say?” Cain asked. His voice was low, edgy. Nasty.

I didn’t know this Cain and I didn’t like him. “Sit down, Cain,” I told him in a low voice. “It’s not a big deal.” For whatever reason I was afraid, not used to violence or being a problem-solver. He was going to start an actual fight with this guy for an accidental bump that was half my fault. It was ridiculous. Maybe it was admirable that he wanted to defend me, except that I knew that wasn’t what this was about. It was about him being pissed off about Ali being in the bar.

His outrage had nothing to do with me.

Which made me feel even more irrelevant.

He reached down and picked up his glass and took a sloppy swallow. He wiped his mouth and slammed the glass back down so hard I jumped. Then he turned and grabbed the guy by the shirt. “Say that to my face, motherfucker.”

I grabbed my purse off the floor and slung the strap over my shoulder. Bella needed to be my concern, not his histrionics. “Bella needs me,” I said, my voice louder than I intended. I tried to lower it, but I was too angry, too hurt. I dug in my pocket for my phone so I could call a ride for Bella.

Cain whirled. “I need you!” he shouted, his face furious.

What the hell? I had a horrifying feeling I might cry and there was no way I wanted him to see that.

Without any warning, he flipped the table onto its side with a huge crash and a nasty curse. Startled, I jumped back with a gasp as my beer went flying and sprayed all down the front of me. For a second I was too stunned to move or speak. I stood there blinking, the front of my top damp and sticking to my skin.

I’m no stranger to being singled out in attempts to humiliate me. Kids love to do that to the smart girl, the weirdo who had to sort her graham crackers by genus and species. I would look up to find all the eyes on me, the snickers, the laughter. I got used to it, and though it stung as a kid, it almost never bothered me anymore as an adult.

But this was attention I didn’t want. Attention I didn’t deserve.

“Fuck you!” Cain said to me. “Go to your sister. Go home to your big fucking house and your easy life.”

They weren’t the worst things he could have said to me. He didn’t slash me personally. He was just lashing out. But I was standing in a bar in a town where the locals all knew Cain hooked up with tourist girls on a regular basis, and most likely never went off on any of them. Just me. I could feel the weight of their stares, curious gazes silently observing. I could see the rage in Cain’s eyes, the fury he felt at his ex-girlfriend and his brother.

Who were most likely observing the whole thing.

And none of this was about me.

I didn’t belong here. With him.

This wasn’t my life, my world, my problem. He wasn’t mine. He belonged to the pain and to the booze.

“Fuck you too.” Shaking the beer off my hand, I shook my hair back. I was trembling and I wanted to cry, but I wasn’t going to do that in front of him. “Get your shit together,” I said. “And then call me or don’t call me. I don’t really care.”

Which was a lie. A complete lie. I did care. I cared so much that it felt like I couldn’t breathe. Like I had been punched in the chest at high speed.

“I’m just fine,” he said. “Go ahead and walk away from me. I don’t want you anyway.”

I realized he had lifted his whiskey glass to safety in his hand before he tossed the table. If that wasn’t the sign of an alcoholic I didn’t know what was.

His words were a direct hit. They shouldn’t be. But he didn’t understand that I almost always struggled with feeling unwanted. In my family. With my peers. And mostly guys. Intellectually, I comprehended it. Emotionally, it hurt. And I was falling in love with him. I truly could love him, with all the parts of me that had nothing to do with my IQ and everything to do with my heart and soul. And for him to say he didn’t want me? It felt like a serious low blow, and he had to know that. My nostrils flared. My vision went blurry from the tears I couldn’t stave off.

“Well, maybe I don’t want to be the one who has to put up with you. Maybe I don’t want to be there when you wake up every morning, hungover.”

The barback came over and clapped Cain on the back. “You gotta go, Jordan. You know the drill.”

“I’m leaving,” I told the guy. “He can stay.” I didn’t want that on me—him being tossed out of the bar before he was ready. Besides, I was ready to go. I couldn’t stand there and be forced to acknowledge that I was looking at the first man I loved, and he couldn’t allow himself to love me back. That he loved to hate his life more than he could ever be willing to embrace it.

Unfortunately, Christian came to the table.

“Cain, you’re an asshole.” Christian asked, “Are you okay?”

“Don’t ask my girlfriend if she’s okay,” Cain said, draining the last of his drink.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry to him but not to me?” Cain said. “What the fuck, Sophie? What the actual fuck?”

“All right. You got to go.” Christian reached for his brother’s arm.

Cain swung.

I tried to jump back away from him and his brother. But the floor was slick from the spilled beer and I lost my footing. I went down hard, landing on my hip, and colliding with the overturned table. I wasn’t hurt, just stunned and totally embarrassed. Male arms that did not belong to Cain lifted me off the floor. I turned to see a total stranger looking at me with concern. One of the guys in plaid shorts who had been dancing with Bella’s friends.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’m fine,” I said, my voice shaky.

But I wasn’t. Because Cain was more invested in punching his brother in the face than he was in making sure I wasn’t hurt. They were circling each other now, both with fists up.

I made a break for the restroom. Inside I found Bella crying and Kennedy swearing profusely as she attempted to wash her shirt off in the bathroom sink. She was standing there in her bra, raging. Bella’s makeup was smeared to shit and she had a wet spot on the front of her romper, where she had presumably blotted out puke. Unfortunately, the majority of it seemed to have blasted Kennedy.

Peeling my cardigan off, I handed it to Kennedy. “Here, just wear this.” I had worn it to Bella’s dismay, who thought it was frumpy. The only upside to any of this was that Kennedy was not wearing a romper. That would have been disastrous. “Just throw your shirt away.”

“Thanks,” she said, taking the sweater with shaking fingers. “Can you get us a ride? Clearly, it is time to leave.”

“I’m sorry,” Bella blubbered. “I didn’t mean to throw up.”

“Whatever,” Kennedy snapped. “I know. It’s fine. Just fucking gross.”

Bella tried to hug me but she fell into me and we both careened backward into the wall. “Bel, come on. Stand up. Time to go home.” It took everything inside me not to be a bitch. I was so done with this night. My heart was aching and I was so angry at myself for being stupid enough to fall for Cain. I had wanted to believe that he wanted a relationship and that made me an idiot.

“Don’t tell Bradley,” she said, her words slurring. “He’ll leave me.”

“He’s not going to leave you because you drank too much at your bachelorette party. He loves you. But I won’t tell him.” Hopefully, her paranoia was just alcohol-induced.

But then life got that much worse when the door to the restroom swung open and Ali, of all freaking people, walked in with a friend. She took in the scene and rolled her eyes. She maneuvered her way to a mirror, wrinkling her nose at Kennedy, and started putting on lipstick. She caught my eye in the mirror.

“So you’re Cain’s latest? Good luck with that. Nothing more awesome than a guy who leaves you on the floor while he starts a barroom brawl.” She snickered and exchanged an amused glance with her friend. “That’s not pathetic or anything.”

Ali was clearly pleased with herself. She looked like she knew the fight between the twins was over her and she was enjoying that. She had also tapped into the one thing that would hurt me—being singled out. Because I was at the end of my patience and thoroughly disgusted with her, I said, “Fuck off.”

Bella gasped. Kennedy gave me a look like she had a renewed respect for me.

“Classy,” Ali said. “All of you.”

That made me seethe with rage. “Says the bitch who abandoned her baby.”

She narrowed her eyes.

Bella gasped. “Is this Camp’s mother?” Bella straightened herself up. “Bitch isn’t even strong enough.” She went over to Ali, pointing a finger at her in the mirror. “You’re a horrible human being.”

I had secretly been hoping Bella would pull out “twat” or “cunt” but that wasn’t my sister’s style. And while I wasn’t sure how “horrible human being” was worse than “bitch,” I did appreciate her in essence defending a baby.

“You don’t know my life.” Ali turned and got in Bella’s face. “You want to start shit with me, you fugly lush?”

Uh-oh. Those were fighting words. It would insult my sister no end to be called ugly or a lush, but both? Though I was pretty sure that in an actual physical altercation Bella would not come out on top.

“And you don’t know mine,” I said, not wanting this to go further. “So back the fuck off.” I tried to sound threatening as I pulled Bella by the arm. “Let’s go.”

Bella came with me, thank God.

Kennedy, in high-waisted shorts with heels and my cardigan, tossed at Ali, “Your extensions look like shit.”

And with that, we walked out and the bachelorette party came to an end.

Just like my relationship with Cain.

I didn’t even look in his direction as I hustled my sister out of the bar.