Shredded - Wolff Tracy (книги бесплатно без онлайн .txt) 📗

I’ve given her space all evening, partly because I feel guilty because of that stupid bet and partly because I still intend to win it. Not just because I have no intention of losing my freaking Landlord but because after spending the last few hours with Ophelia, I want her more than ever.

At first she was nothing more than a distraction. Then she was a challenge. Now … now she’s still a challenge, but she’s something else, too. Something more. The thought has me shifting uncomfortably in my chair. I never do more. I never even want more. It’s crazy to think that any of that might change just because some pretty girl with a peaches-and-cream accent dumped a fucking drink down my pants.

“You ready to go?” I demand, more harshly and loudly than I probably need to. But I can’t help it. If I have to sit here and watch Ophelia do obscene things to that scoop of chocolate cherry ice cream for one more second, I’m going to say to hell with space and drag her very sexy ass onto my lap so I can do some obscene things of my own.

“Yeah, sure.” Ash shoves his chair back from the table like he’s been searching for a reason to get the hell out of Dodge. Not that I blame the guy. The last half hour can’t exactly have been fun for him. Not with the way Luc is making goo-goo eyes at Cam, who keeps glancing at me from under her lashes while I lust after Ophelia, who is doing a damn good impression of giving head to an ice cream cone. Ash probably feels like he’s fallen down a fucking rabbit hole—of the pornographic kind.

“But I’m not done with my ice cream,” Ophelia complains.

“Yeah, you are.” I snatch the cone out of her hand and dump it into the nearest trash can. It’s one thing for her to eat the thing like that in here, where we’re the only customers. There’s no way I’m taking her out on the street with it, where every asshole tourist in Park City can imagine exactly what I’ve spent the last thirty minutes thinking about.

“So much for the Welcome Wagon,” Luc mutters, but Ophelia doesn’t object about the lost cone. Instead, she just looks at me, her big green eyes so innocent that I know—I know—she’s screwing with me. She’s been playing me from the second she came back from the bathroom tonight, messing with my head just because she can.

Which somehow only makes me hotter.

Not that I have any intention of letting her know that.

I’ve been desperate for a distraction for two days. Desperate for something, anything, to hold back all the bullshit tumbling around inside me. So far, meeting Ophelia has done a pretty decent job of it. Which means it’s time to take things to the next level. Time to—

I catch sight of a mom and a little girl walking through the door of the ice-cream shop and freeze in the middle of pushing back from the table. The girl, maybe six or seven, has long black hair, big blue eyes, and cheeks rosy from the cold. One of her hands clutches her mother’s, while the other holds a ragtag stuffed rabbit that has definitely seen better days.

Oh, shit. Oh, shit. She looks just like April. Her hair, her eyes, her smile. Even her damn purple jacket looks the same.

I turn away, just in time to realize that Cam has seen the girl, too. I can tell by the way her eyes widen and dart back and forth between the girl and me. By the way she grabs Luc and wrenches him to his feet. By the way her voice sounds all wrong when she says, “Time to go.”

Then again, maybe it’s my ears and not her voice. God knows, everything feels off inside me, the pressure building up where no one can see. Just like last night, only worse. So much worse. Because tonight I’m shaking apart, ripping at the seams until the jumbled mess inside me is even more mixed up. I’m shredded all over again.

And because of what? A morbid anniversary that I shouldn’t bother remembering and a little girl and her damn stuffed rabbit.

It’s ridiculous. Humiliating. And at the moment I couldn’t care less.

I head for the door at the closest I can get to a run, brushing past the girl and her mom without so much as an Excuse me or a Fuck you. I’m sure I look like a total pussy to everyone—Z, cracking under the pressure—but right now that doesn’t matter. Nothing does but getting out of here.

I hit the nearly deserted street and start walking, barely aware of the fact that the others are trailing me down the sidewalk. I’m pissed—at life, at the universe, at that damn little girl even though none of this is her fault.

It’s my fault. It’s always been my fault. Trying to blame someone else won’t change anything.

The thought has me slowing down enough that the others can catch up to me. Ash bumps shoulders with me on the left, while Cam grabs my elbow on the right. I know they’re concerned, know they’re just trying to help, but right now sympathy is the last thing I need—especially when it’s sympathy that I don’t deserve.

I want to shrug them off, to tell them to back off, but none of this is their fault, either. So in the end, all I do is knock my own shoulder into Ash’s even as I wrap my arm around Cam’s shoulders. Then I turn to grin at Luc, who is walking right behind me, a worried look on his face that I know I’m responsible for. Even Ophelia looks uncomfortable, like she’s aware she missed something important and doesn’t quite know how to act in the face of all this tension.

Time to change that, and fast.

“So, who’s up for a party?” I ask, reaching into my back pocket for my phone. “I got a couple of texts earlier about one at Mandy’s house and one at—”

“Seriously?” Luc interrupts me. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

Damn straight. “I was also going to ask if you wanted to stop by Danny’s and get some weed, but—”

“You’re a jerk. You know that, Z?” Cam looks furious.

“I never said I wasn’t,” I tell her with a grin.

I glance at Ash, expecting him to say something to back me up, but he just looks sick. Goddamnit. Bad enough that I’ve already been to the ER today, but now I’m dragging them down with old baggage that none of us can escape from.

“You don’t have to front with us, man,” Luc says. “We get it—”

“No, you don’t.” The words pop out before I even know I’m going to say them. But I’m not doing this. Not here. Not now. And sure as hell not in front of Ophelia. “I’m fine.”

Ash actually grinds his teeth. It’s obvious he wants to say something, but unlike Luc and Cam, he’s very aware of the fact that Ophelia is with us. I wait for his frustration to get the better of him, but it doesn’t, and in the end he keeps his mouth shut.

That doesn’t mean Luc and Cam will, though. And I’m done with being the charity case of the week. Before I really know I’m going to do it, I turn and sprint toward the small community park at the end of the street. I can hear them behind me, their boots crunching on the new layer of snow that coats the ground all around us.

Reaching down, I cup a handful of snow as I wait for them to catch up. Then, after shaping it into a perfect ball, I fling it straight into Cam’s face.

For long seconds, nobody moves. Even Cam just stands there with her mouth open as snow drips off her eyelashes and down her cheeks.

“What the hell?” Luc demands, looking pissed all over again. But before he can say anything else, a snowball hits him square in the chest.

I glance over at Ophelia, who is grinning with pride. “Cool,” she says. “This is my first snowball fight.”

There’s something in her eyes, something that says maybe she understands where I’m coming from, though I don’t know how she could. I barely understand myself. Still, I’m not about to waste the opportunity she just presented me with.

“Your first snowball fight?” I demand, even as I scoop up more snow. “How is that possible?”

“There’s not much snow in New Orleans,” she answers dryly.

“Is that where you’re from?” I ask, suddenly curious to know more about her.