Page 123 of Secrets That Bind Us
Zoey grins and rubs his back. “It’s gonna be fiiiinnneeee, babe. You’ll see.”
Chapter Forty-seven
Dean
Age Twenty-Four
Five Months Later
“NOTHING IS FINE. EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE.”
I grimace, swallowing down the banana I was eating, and step aside to let in a frustrated Evan and a very upset Zoey in from the heat. “What happened?”
Zoey begins pacing my entire living room, hand on her hip. “Micah just called us. He’s proposing to Verity, and he wants us to be there.”
My stomach swoops and drops through the hardwood I recently installed.Shit. “What are we gonna do?”
Zoey stops pacing, looks at me, then begins pacing again. “You have to show up. You have to stop it from happening. Or something. It’s gonna be a yacht party. He’s been drinking a lot. Like the type of drinking that’s worrying. Maybe you can slip something into his drink before he proposes so he doesn’t do it.”
“He wouldn’t take a drink from me.”
“What if you dress up like a waiter?”
One Month Later
I’m in a fucking tux.
The itchiest fucking tux I’ve ever rented, and the fucking pants are too small. I’ve been squatting too much, I think. I grew my hair and my beard out,too. So I feel fucking weird. I can do scruff. I just hate having an entire beard. Fuck. This is crazy. This better fucking work.
I’ve learned this is not Micah’s and Verity’s yacht, but a friend of theirs. Zoey and Evan help me sneak onto the damn thing when the sun goes down. I have GHB I stole from evidence in my pocket, but it doesn’t seem like I need to do much. Micah has been sipping on everything he can get his hands on since before the guests have started to arrive. He’s always been a Nervous little Nancy. Always puked his guts out before every game.
But I’m nervous as fuck, too.
I stay in the shadows watching.
I put three drops of the shit I stole– and had to drive all the fucking way to New York for instead of fly because I knew TSA would search me– into three flutes of champagne and head his way with my head down. He gulps down the champagne immediately. I throw the rest of the flutes into the black ocean water that glitters with each wave, due to the lights reflecting off the water that’s getting choppy.
I watch when the band quiets, and he gets on one knee in front of what feels like a hundred people. The look on her face is of pure embarrassment and shock. She hates this. She blinks down at him– at the ring– and plasters on a smile that says she’s been put on the spot. So she says yes. Not because she wants to-- because she feelsobligated.
She’s not gonna marry him.
She’s gonna call it off as soon as they’re off the boat.
After the applause ends, Micah goes to the side of the boat and faces the ocean, another fucking flute of champagne in his hand. He’s not even celebrating with Verity, but he looks smug as fuck. It’s then that a rough wave hits, and he leans over the edge to vomit, probably finally starting to feel the effects of the GHB. He leans a little too close over the railing, and right when I think he’s gonna fall overboard, I reach out and grab him by the back of his jacket and tug him back.
Not like this. It’s not gonna happen like this. I may regret it later, but I won't kill him.
Someone screams just as I let him drop back over the deck. I keep my head down, catching his beady stare before he passes out, and walk away from the situation. I get off of the boat, not wanting this to be how Verity sees me– for the first time in six years. Not on a boat full of people. This wasn’t the right time. I flee. I take the rental car back to the company and hop on a plane.
Because no fucking way Verity would marry a fucking drunk like that.
I saw it in her eyes.
TWO MONTHS LATER
“We’re ‘announcing’ the re-engagement party for two months from now.” Zoey says while swallowing her slice of pizza. “This time, it’s going to be a costume party since it’ll be so close to Halloween. You can wear a mask, Dean. Approach her this way. Have a dance. Talk to her.”
I shake my head, not having touched the pizza in front of me she ordered before I got here. “What’s the point? She never called the engagement off.”
