Chapter 1: Whiskey-Stained Confessions
The whiskey bottle on the floor wasn’t quite empty. Shane stared at it, a dark amber eye watching him from across the carpet of discarded clothes and takeout containers. The apartment wasn’t hot, but he felt suffocated. Evie’s perfume, something like vanilla and rain, was everywhere. It was on his skin, in the sheets, a gentle accusation hanging in the air beside the stink of old beer.
He didn’t look at her. Looking was dangerous. It made things real.
“You’re staring at that bottle like it’s going to get up and walk over here,” Evie said. Her voice was quiet, a steady hum in the stale room. She was curled at the other end of the couch, wearing one of his old hoodies. It swamped her.
“Maybe it will,” he grunted, finally tearing his eyes away. He reached for it, his movements deliberately rough, and took a long pull. The burn was a familiar punishment. It didn’t help. She was still there. “You should go. Don’t you have class?”
“It’s Saturday.”
“Right.” He took another drink. The silence stretched, tight and uncomfortable. He wanted to break it, to smash it against the wall. He wanted her to flinch. “So what’s your excuse then?”
He saw her fingers, small and delicate, tighten on the cuff of the hoodie. She was tracing a coffee stain. “I don’t need one.”
“Everyone needs one.” He set the bottle down with a hard clack. “Mine’s at the bottom of this. What’s yours? Pity? Some fucked-up charity case for has-beens?”
“Stop it.”
“Why?” He turned now, letting himself look. Her hair was a mess, the kind of messy that made his gut twist. He’d done that. In the harsh flicker of the bare bulb, her face was pale, her eyes too bright. She looked young. She was young. It made him want to be crueler. “You like it, don’t you? The drama. The fixer-upper. Think you can scrub the loser off me.”
“I don’t think you’re a loser.” Her voice didn’t waver, which just pissed him off more.
He laughed, a short, ugly sound. “Bullshit.” He stood up, his body throbbing with a restless, mean energy. He paced to the window, looked out at the shitty view of another brick wall. “You should be with some frat boy. Someone who buys you shit and talks about his future. Not here. Not in this dump.”
He heard the soft rustle as she moved. Felt her presence behind him before her hand, feather-light, touched the middle of his back. He went rigid.
“This is where I want to be,” she said.
Her touch was a brand. It didn’t soothe; it ignited something dark and frantic in his chest. All the nameless frustration, the anger that had no target—it suddenly had a shape. Her. Her stubbornness. Her quiet, enduring presence. He wanted to dirty it. To prove her wrong.
He spun around, catching her wrist. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away. “You have no idea what you want,” he muttered, his voice low and thick.
He backed her toward the bed, a ragged mattress on a frame. She stumbled, but her gaze never left his. There was no fear in it. Just a sad, deep understanding that felt like a knife sliding between his ribs.
He kissed her, but it wasn’t a kiss. It was a takeover. His mouth was hard, demanding, all teeth and whiskey. He wanted to wipe that look off her face. He pushed the hoodie off her shoulders, the fabric catching on her arms. She helped him, shrugging it away, and then her hands were on his chest, under his shirt. Her touch was still gentle. It infuriated him.
He ripped his own shirt off, pushed her down. The springs squealed in protest. He covered her body with his, one hand fumbling with the button of her jeans. He was rough, yanking the denim down her hips. She lifted herself to help him, a small, submissive gesture that made his blood hammer.
“Shane,” she breathed, as he pushed her thighs apart with his knee.
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. There was a roaring in his ears. He was already hard, aching. He freed himself, not bothering with anything else. There was no tenderness, no preamble. He just looked down at her, at her body exposed and waiting, at her face which held too much, and he drove into her in one brutal, unyielding thrust.
She gasped, a sharp intake that sounded almost like pain. Her nails dug into his shoulders. She was tight, and dry, and he knew he was hurting her. He paused, buried inside her, trembling with the effort of holding still. A part of him screamed to stop. The louder part, the part that was winning, leaned down close to her ear.
Her scent overwhelmed him. It wasn’t the perfume. It was just her skin. Clean. Good.
His lips brushed her earlobe. The wrong name fell out of him, carried on a hot, whiskey-soaked breath. “Lydia.”
He felt her whole body stiffen beneath him. For a second, everything stopped. The world shrunk to the feel of her clenching around him, a visceral spasm of hurt. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the shove, the slap, the tears.
It didn’t come.
Instead, her legs came up to wrap around his hips, pulling him deeper. Her arms circled his neck. She turned her face, pressing it into the sweaty hollow of his shoulder. She held on.
And she let him move.
It was furious, mechanical. A piston firing in a broken engine. He fucked her with a punishing rhythm, each thrust an attempt to outrun the shame coiling in his gut. He was using her, blatantly, and she was letting him. He could feel the hot spill of tears against his shoulder, but she made no sound. Her silence was the loudest thing he’d ever heard.
He came with a ragged groan, his body bowing over hers, every muscle locking. He emptied himself into her, a final, pathetic act of violence. He collapsed, his weight crushing her, and for a long minute, the only sounds were their ragged breathing and the distant wail of a siren.
Slowly, the world leaked back in. The chill of the room. The stickiness between them. The crushing weight of what he’d done.
He rolled off her, onto his back, staring at the water-stained ceiling. The space between them on the mattress felt like a canyon.
“You should go,” he said again, his voice flat and empty.
This time, she didn’t argue. He listened to the soft sounds of her moving. The rustle of denim. The shuffle of fabric. The gentle snick of the hoodie’s zipper. He didn’t turn his head.
Her footsteps were soft on the carpet. She paused by the door. He could feel her looking at him.
“The draft combine is next Thursday,” she said, her voice strangely clear. “Your agent called. He left a voicemail. It’s on the counter.”
Then the door opened, and closed with a quiet, final click.
Only then did he let his head turn. He looked at the empty space where she’d been. The sheets were still rumpled. He could still smell her. He reached for the whiskey bottle beside the bed. It was empty.
He hurled it against the far wall. It exploded in a satisfying shower of brown glass. The noise was tremendous. It didn’t change a thing.
He got up, walked naked to the window. He pulled the blind aside just a crack, just enough.
Down on the street, he saw her. A small figure in a too-big hoodie, walking toward the bus stop. She didn’t look back. Not once.
He let the blind fall, plunging the room back into its familiar, oppressive gloom. He stood there for a long time, the cold seeping into his skin, until his legs felt numb. Then he turned and started looking for another bottle.