SAVING RILEY 🦋

1- Suits, Ties And Masks

There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion- Edgar Allan Poe

He looked at me.

That was my first hint.

He began walking.

That was my second hint.

And then he stopped right there, in front of me and opened his mouth. There was nothing more I wanted to do than to run. Run from the clutches of Parker Hampton. "And you are?" He asked, trying to be cute even though he knew me. A glass in his hand and one of his beautiful eyebrows arched quizzically.

Wait. Hold on. This probably makes no sense to you right now. Let me just rewind real quick. Parker Hampton killed my best friend. Metaphorically speaking, she's dead, gone, kapoof. Not so metaphorically speaking, she's sitting at home eating ice cream and watching a sad movie.

In fact, the last thing she'd done that day was order me to attend this party and pour my drink all over him and tell him he's a jerk. I was moments away from mission accomplished. Mere moments.

"Not interested" I said bluntly and his eyebrow dropped; his white mask only covering half of his face. Hold on, let me rewind again; it's a masquerade party. We're all rich and snobby and blah blah blah. Yeah I get it, stereotype me but before you go on to do so, I barely attend these events so ha! In your face sucker. Point Hailey.

I raised my own glass of punch, determined not to waste any more time and get back home to my wreck of a best friend. But he saw it coming, of course he saw it coming, he must've had thousands of girls pull the same move on him daily.

So he reached out just in time and knocked my wrist to the side, making my drink spill onto the back of a different poor guy. "Oops" he said, his stare still on me and I clenched my teeth. "You jerk" I spat hastily before turning to apologise to whoever Parker had spilt the drink on.

"I'm so-" Riley Deaton had turned, his black blazer slightly soggy on the back. All Parkers doing and I stepped sideways slightly as Riley cracked his knuckles. "Parker you son of a-" he began, his voice deep and pissed as ever. But Parker pointed right. Right at me.

Riley turned his head swiftly and I pressed my lips hard together, he didn't wear a mask because it was just like Riley to forget something. He looked at me and then back at Parker and then back to me before finally rubbing his temple lightly. "She's a girl" he stated and I snorted. No shit.

"I know" Parker said cautiously, looking me up and down as if he had X ray vision and was just checking. "I don't hit girls" Riley continued and I breathed. He was normally a cheerful guy, he never really had a care in the world because most the time he was high. Mostly on Thursdays. Thursday was getting high day I guess. But when he got pissed, he got piiiiiissed.

He removed his blazer with a shrug and pulled his arms out of the sleeves, leaving him in a white shirt and tie, his brown eyes studying Parker and his soft lips parted. "I want it clean by Monday" he instructed and Parker held his jacket in one hand.

"Why don't you get her to do it? I mean that's what girls are for, right?" Parker tried pathetically to joke and Riley glared at him, "March 22nd 1972? Do you know what happened that day? Discriminating because of gender was banned due to the Equal Rights Amendment," he cleared his throat, suddenly aware I was there. Almost as if he were embarrassed to have just been clever in front of me. But he totally finessed Parkers ass.

"Plus I don't like you" Riley added for good measure and I snapped my fingers very suddenly. "What he said" I commented and Parkers blank expression contorted but then went blank again. "Whatever, I'll get Jude to drop of your stupid blazer on Monday" he yawned and Riley nodded.