“Have fun today. I’m sure you’ll be able to find something to occupy your time.” Ella pats me on the back before wandering back to the patio.

In the media room, I find Lauren sitting by herself, painting her nails.

“Where are the twins?”

The petite redhead lifts her head at my arrival. “Seb went to pick me up some ice cream at the store and Sawyer forgot something in his room.”

“We’ve got ice cream here.”

Lauren swipes a white line across her nail. “It wasn’t the kind I liked.” She lifts her hand and blows on it.

Jeez. Lauren has those boys wrapped around her finger. But I bite my tongue and go to find my brother.

I catch Sawyer carrying a shopping bag from Gucci. I squeeze the back of my neck. Do not say a thing, I advise myself. This is none of your business. “Want to go out?”

“And do what?”

“Dunno. Just get out of the house.”

“Let me see what Lauren wants to do.” He pushes the door open, but I know what the answer is going to be. Lauren doesn’t like being seen hanging out with the twins outside of home. At school, she generally acts like she’s only dating one of them. The twins think it’s funny. At some point, though, it’s going to start pissing one or both of them off.

Sawyer steps back out in less than a minute. “Lauren passes.”

“What about Sawyer?” In other words, what do you want to do rather than what does Lauren want to do?

My brother makes a face. “I pass, too.”

“Come on,” I wheedle. “You can go out for one afternoon. Or you know what, fine, let’s chill here for a while and plan something epic for tonight.”

“Lauren doesn’t want to go out tonight, either. Last time we went out, we got hassled and Lauren didn’t like it.”

“Maybe you need to date someone with thicker skin,” I suggest.

Sawyer folds his arms across his chest and glares. “Why don’t you go find someone who gives a crap what you think?”

“Why don’t you find someone you can leave the house with?”

“Screw you.” He backs up and slams the door in my face.

Good job, Easton. You’ve alienated everyone in your house.

Ella’s choosing homework over me. The twins are choosing their spoiled brat girlfriend. Hartley made me promise not to bother her this weekend.

So, although it’s barely past noon, there’s really only one thing left for me to do.

Pay a visit to the liquor cabinet.

Chapter 13

I am drunk, drunk, and drunk. And somehow, nobody in my dumb family has noticed. Ella and Dad left for their meeting with the DA without even sparing me a glass. I mean, a glance. They just waved and left. The twins, I don’t know where they are. Maybe upstairs with Lauren. I’m sure one of them is fanning her while the other feeds her grapes.

I’m never gonna let a chick own my balls like that. Especially not Hartley Wright. Screw her. She’s mad at me ’cause I like to fight? So what. Guys fight. We do stupid shit. She has no right to get all judgmental on me.

I can’t believe she doesn’t want to hang out this weekend. I thought we were friends.

She’s the worst.

I hop off the couch and leave the media room. I meander down to Dad’s study, where I grab the vodka off the liquor shelf. I already finished all his whiskey. I doubt he’ll notice, though.

I take a swig straight from the bottle and sit in my father’s worn leather chair. On the desk are some documents. I carelessly flip through them. It looks like an investigative report of Steve’s movements from the past few months. Steve picking up his dry cleaning. Steve at a hotel bar. Steve, Steve, Steve. Lots of pictures of good ol’ Uncle Steve, the murderer.

I know I should feel bad about Steve killing Brooke, but I don’t. She was a toxic bitch. The thing I don’t like is that he tried hurting Ella in the process. And he didn’t come forward when my brother was arrested.

It wasn’t Steve who tried to pin Brooke’s mess on Reed—that was all on Dinah. She wanted revenge against the Royals, so she whispered in the prosecutor’s ear and even hired some caterer to lie and say that Reed threatened Brooke before she died. Dinah did everything she could to ruin our family. And Steve let her. He just stood there when Reed got thrown in jail, and didn’t confess that he was the real killer.

That’s unforgiveable.

And it pisses me off because I like Steve. Liked. I correct myself. Past tense. I can’t like him anymore. I can’t look up to him. I can’t wish I was him when I grow up.

Which is easy because I plan to never grow up. Adulting sucks. Adulting requires you to pretend to care about someone other than yourself. And that means doing shit you don’t want to do to make someone else happy.

What if I’m not happy? Who’s gonna take care of that problem? No one. No one but me.

I pour some more vodka down my throat and dial Reed. His game’s done by now. I wonder if he won. Probably. His team’s good.

“What’s up?” he answers.

“My dick,” I joke.

“Jesus, East.”

“Sorry. Being around Ella gets me going, you know?”

Reed breathes into the phone. I grin and suck down more liquor.

“When are you going to smarten up?”

“Why would I want to?”

“Because your act’s going to piss off everyone you love,” he says bluntly. “Knock it off with the Ella shit. It’s disrespectful to her.”

“And we wouldn’t want to do anything to upset the precious princess, right?”

“What is up with you? Why are you home on a Saturday night?”

“Nobody wants to play with me.” Well, that’s not true. There’re two parties tonight and three girls sent nudes in the past hour, but I’m too drunk and lazy to move.

“And you’re bored out of your mind,” he guesses.

“Oh, look at how smart you are since you went away to college.”

“You’re in a mood tonight.” There’s a short beat. “How much have you had to drink?”

I hold the bottle up to the light. It’s half full. “Not enough. What’s the plan for next weekend? Where’s your game?”

“Louisiana. Ella’s flying in for it. She’s getting in Friday night.”

“Of course she is.” I don’t even try to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Ella kissed me first, I want to yell at him. I stepped aside for you.

“We’re not trying to keep you out. Why don’t you fly in after your game? Or Saturday morning?”

I hate the gentleness of his tone. It’s so fucking obvious he thinks I’m pathetic. “Sorry, bro. No can do. I’ve got lots of plans.”

I hang up and toss the phone onto the desk. It starts ringing two seconds later. Reed’s name flashes on the screen. I ignore it.

The bottle calls my name. I take another huge swig and wait for the buzz to kick in. Lately, it’s taken more and more drinks to get me to the place of comfortable numbness. The walls of Dad’s study seem to be narrowing. The air in here is heavy. So I pick up the bottle and walk out to the patio.

It’s dark outside, but our pool has lights that make the water look blue and eerie. I stare at it for a while before heading toward the path to the shore.

I wander down to the beach and toss a few pebbles back into the ocean. The vastness gets to me. It’s too quiet and too big out here, and too suffocating in the house.

I start walking, drinking as I go.

Stupid Hartley. She wants me, I know she does. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have stuck her tongue in my mouth when I kissed her. She would’ve just smacked me across the face and told me to never, ever kiss her again.

She’s pretending she doesn’t like me, and that bugs me. And now I have to pretend we’re just friends, which is dumb as fuck. Ella’s right—I’d totally give up Hartley’s friendship if it meant getting together with her.

Not that I want us to be together. I think she’d be fun to fool around with, that’s all.

But I’m tired of chasing after someone who keeps telling me to get lost. It ain’t fun.