. . . .
|| VALERIE ||
He found us in the shed.
I can't remember how we got in there but it was Ace's #1 place to go after losing a game. His piece of sanctuary and refuge outside of me. There was the smell of wood shavings. The creaking of the shed doors as they slammed shut behind us. Darkness only partly illuminated by slivers of moonlight pinching between the cracks of the roof.
I hovered in front of a power saw, tracing my fingers along the edges of the blade's sharp teeth. My eyes so heavy from whiskey shots, I felt them drooping at the corners. Adrian shifted behind me, his breath stirred the hairs on the back of my neck, and sent a fuse of nerves tingling together through my scalp.
"I didn't ask for help."
I said, a note of tension faltered between us. We'd been dancing this way a long time. A slow car and mouse crawl. That was quickly turning into a gallop. I'm not sure when it began, or where it would end. Adrian's eerily calm demeanor scared me to death.
"I know, just came to see if you were okay."
From the corner of my eye, I watched his tatted forearms cross over his chest.
"I'm not a little girl anymore, I can handle this."
We were looking for something, but between the sips of Jack Daniels, Adrian's lucid green gaze. Bending over a box of emergency candles I disturbed a nest of cobwebs.
"You're really not a little girl anymore, are you Valerie?"
"Are you out of your mind?"
Anger swelled under my ribs, I turned away from him, pretending to have found what it was I was searching for. Adrian abandoned the mission, the second we stepped through those doors. His body heat was vibrating so badly he should have been glowing.
"You think I care, what he thinks... of us?"
Ace was not only my boyfriend, but Adrian's twin brother. I lost my sense of danger in a moment of purely enriched lust. The argument started slow, my words spilled from my mouth rapidly.
"You're pathetic... he's your blood. I do care about what he thinks and if you had a spine you would too."
He inched closer, I made out the shape of his jaw in the shadows, curly black hair. Lean shoulders but small biceps.
"Is that so? All of a sudden you've grown a conscious?"
"I've always had one."
"Under the stairs. In my room, the closet. By the pool yesterday. His car. My car. After Sunday dinner. Little red skirt, white boots, blue tho-"
