Page 2 of Nash

Ordid.

My daughter confided in me last week how Chad’s stalking is hell for Vale, how she’s scared and has every reason to be. Alena told me how Chad’s violated Vale before. He was violent with her when they were dating years ago, and by the look in his eyes tonight and the drug he just snuck into Vale’s drink, he plans on doing it again.

I gnash my teeth:the fuck he will.

Touch who I love and die.

Vale’s friendship saved my daughter, and for that, I’ll always love her.

But I never expected to want Vale, too, sharing the most erotic night of my life with her when she was only eighteen and I was thirty-two. It was a mistake I fantasize about every day.

Every night.

It fills me with shame.

And lust.

I swear Vale’s the pretty poison I’d drink every drop of and offer my last breath. She’s smart and a smartass. Sweet and snarky. Loving and aloof. Funny, but in pain. She’s rare and every goddamn thing I want, and it sickens me how she’s grown into a young woman I dream about, staining my sheets, my desire for her a nightmare.

Don’t worry. I can hide it.

I’m hiding right in front of you. There. In the dark shadows that prickle your skin.

I have a syringe in my pocket with a special drug just for Chad, one he’ll never wake from. I have a yacht, a lavish hearse to the perfect grave, the Atlantic Ocean. There will be no headstone for Chad because I always have a plan, and I never work alone.

I thirst for Chad’s blood, but blood and bullets are evidence, and I’m no fool.

You only see me if I let you. If not, I blend in. I’m a regular guy. Leaning against a wooden pavilion pillar, my black golf shirt, khakis, and thick eyeglasses disguise who I am, what I’m capable of, and who I work with.

It’s one of the six men I’m sworn to, waiting by the men’s room for Chad.

As always, silently, we work together. It’s a matter of time before we act.

Making people disappear is our specialty.

But before rapey Chad takes his last breath tonight for hurting what’s mine, I’ll tell him who it’s for, who I love.

Vale will have her vengeance.

It’s me.

Nash Allen.

VALE

“I’m not drinking dollar drafts,”I mutter to Alena, “I’m chugging dread.”

“I’d say I can’t believe the dickhead is here,” she replies, “but I do. It’s typical Chad. He heard from Conner you’d be here, and like a fart, he reeks in the air around us.”

Alena tries to make me laugh, so I fake a smile for her. I won’t ruin her birthday.

I can’t go anywhere in Charleston without my ex showing up, butfuck him. My stomach lurches when he’s near, fear racing my heart just like that night years ago, but I’ll never let his pathetic, preppy-ass see it. I won’t give him the satisfaction.

I keep my back to him. I lift my chin and fake ignoring him.

I focus on my best friend and my twin sister, pounding down a Jägerbomb, and wince at the concoction. “You just wasted ten bucks to barf in ten minutes.” I’m older by five minutes, so I’m the boss of her.

“Like you wasted ten bucks on that dress?” Blair, my mirror, smirks back. “You know, you look like Wednesday Addams, the aspiring pornstar version.”

---