Page 213 of Poison Aches

“What?” Governor Hughes says.

“Who is it that you want me to marry?” I question.

I have a guess. I just want him to confirm it.

“Well, we’ll discuss that later at home. I have to attend to something.”

And with that, Governor Hughes stands and leaves, going in the same direction Emmett, George, and Vaughn went, leaving me with Beverly and her daughter.

“Since the night is almost over, let’s all go back—” Beverly starts, but I cut her off.

“Yeah, you can do that by yourself,” I snap as I stand and grab my clutch. “I’m going out tonight.”

“Excuse me?” Beverly screeches. “You’re not going anywhere!”

“Watch me.”

With that, I leave them and find Jackson.

Earlier when I invited him to come rescue me from this crap, he told me we could hit the streets of NYC and go clubbing.

I didn’t want to before, because I’m not a clubbing girl, nor was I in the mood, but now, I don’t care about anything.

“That was something else,” Jackson says when we’re walking down the block toward the East Village. “I’ve never seen so much money being spent on just one person.”

I can see the interest in his eyes, but I don’t want to talk about that.

“It wasn’t for me.”

“But they all hurdled around you like you belonged to them,” he says with something in his eyes.

I ignore it and smile at him. “Well, I don’t belong to them. I promised my night to you, so are we going or what?”

“Oh, we so are,” Jackson says, but his smile makes the hairs at the back of my neck stand up on end, but I ignore it when he grabs my hand and we go.

When we get to the first club, he orders shots from the bar that we down in one go.

We dance for a while and then we take shots again.

I’m not a good drinker but tonight, I’ll pretend even if it kills me.

We leave that club and go to another one that’s underground.

Jackson tells me to find a seat and he’ll order our drinks.

I let him but I don’t find a place to sit. I go straight to the dance floor and start dancing with strangers.

I feel… hot.

Maybe it’s all the mess in my head, the stuffy anger in my chest, and the heartbreak in my soul, but I can’t make sense of anything.

In fact, I don’t want to make sense of anything, so I throw my hands and shimmy to the techno mix of Beyoncé’sRenaissancealbum and K-pop mesh up.

It’s heady and so good that when Jackson finds me, I gulp down the drink he offers me.

He smiles so big and hands me another drink that I down again, then I go back to dancing.

He moves in closer to dance with me and then he starts rubbing his hands against my thighs.

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