Page 28 of First Verse

The doorknob rattles. Wilder leaps backward so fast he collides with the brick wall. Our eyes meet for one second—a second that stretches for years—before he jerks into action, grabbing the door before it can swing open all the way. I glimpse Kendra’s pretty, worried face before he slips out and closes the door behind him.

Over the pounding of my heartbeat, I hear the rumble of his voice.

“I’m fine… She followed me in… Yeah, just some girl…”

My eyes close.

Just some girl.

CHAPTERTEN

wilder

The hands that were on Evangeline’s luscious body are now on Kendra’s shoulders, steering her away from the bathroom. Halfway down the hallway, she digs her heels in and spins to face me. Brown eyes full of a familiar blend of cunning and curiosity narrow.

“The bathroom? Really?”

My eyelids twitch as she echoes the same words Evangeline used but with an entirely different meaning. I glance back to see the door still closed. All I want is to go back inside. Be insideher.I want it so badly I can barely breathe.

I force my focus back to Kendra. “It’s not what you think.”

She glances below my waist, then lifts a sculpted eyebrow. “You know I don’t care. Why all the secrecy?” She takes a sultry step toward me, pressing herself to my chest. “We usually share.”

“Not this one.” The rough words slip out. Kendra’s eyes instantly shimmer with suspicion.

“Why not?”

Her gaze veers past my shoulder, narrowing on something.Someone.My spine stiffens, prickling under the scrutiny of mismatched eyes. When the sensation fades, I glance back to see Evangeline walking away from us, back toward the party. Hips swinging. Blond hair waterfalling over a cropped leather jacket.

She’s probably going to find Michael Dresden.

Fuck that guy.

“No. Not her.”

My head swivels back to Kendra. Despite the Botox keeping her forehead smooth, it’s easy to see she’s furious. I’m not surprised. She doesn’t know much about Evangeline’s and my history, but she possesses the same instincts as all women. She recognizes a great white shark in our waters.

I want to laugh in her face. Laugh at our fucked-up excuse for a relationship. We barely tolerate each other unless we’re high, and we both sleep with other people. Sometimes together, sometimes separately.

Rye hates her and thinks she’s using me. I know she is. But I’m using her, too.

“She’ll never accept your life, your needs,” continues Kendra, misinterpreting my silence. Her voice is smooth now. Cajoling. “I know you don’t want to lose what we have.”

She lifts a hand to my face, cool fingertips on my jaw.

Evangeline’s fingers were warm.

Irritation flares inside me. Pulling Kendra’s hand from my face, I frown. “You think I can’t find someone else? There are at least ten people in my living room right now who would happily set me up.”

Her lips compress, nostrils flaring. Just as fast, her expression clears and a soft smile forms. The same smile that sucked me in when we met. When I thought she was a nice, normal girl. Someone I could tolerate and have a good time with. Introduce to my parents so they’d get off my back and stop thinking I was hung up on Evangeline.

By the time I found out Kendra’s smile was as fake as mine most days, I lacked the motivation to cut her loose—due in large part to the pills she sells to me.

“Wild.” My name is wrapped in syrupy superiority. “Think about what you’re saying. You can’t trust any of these people. You think they want you to succeed?” She shakes her head, eyes pitying. “You and I both know they’d love nothing more than to bring you down. You don’t want to risk that, do you?”

Unfortunately, she has a point. Outside of Rye and the guys in the band, the list of people I trust starts and ends with my family. But even that trust only goes so far. None of my friends or family know about the rigid control I maintain day in and day out. How I self-medicate in order to show up as the frontman my band needs. They don’t know that once every few months, I cut myself off and spend a week in the misery of withdrawals.

They all think my weird, periodic ritual of locking myself in my room for days is a part of my songwriting process. It’s not entirely a lie—I wrote the bulk of our next album while my skin felt like it was melting off my bones. But it’s not the whole truth. I do it so I won’t become a true addict, upping my doses over and over until I can’t function without the drugs.

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