Torrid Exposure New Adult Romance Series - Books 1 to 5

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

“April?” My mom says my name loudly, stopping in front of the table.

She already has a drink in her hand. I am not surprised. Mom always was a bit of a drinker. Dad is standing next to her. He is looking casual in khaki shorts and a ratty looking t-shirt. He is clutching a bottle of water, clearly surprised at seeing me.

“Hey, Mom,” I try to say calmly.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” she says to me but it comes out in an accusatory tone.

“It’s because of me, Mrs. Flemmings,” Emily speaks up. “I asked if she could get me in.”

Mom looks at Emily for the first time and smiles kindly at her. “Ah, well, Emily, we could have gotten you in. I’m sure of it.”

We all know that’s a lie. Kevin disliking Emily’s dad is well known. He is probably irritated at me for bringing Emily to the party.

“Mind if we speak to you?” my dad asks me.

How can I say no? I stand up, suddenly clutching my drink as if it is a lifesaver. My dad looks surprised at the drink in my hand. I am full of surprises lately. We wander away from the small pool and head to a quieter area near the gardens. Here, people are sitting at tables, eating food and talking to each other as if they are at the mall. We grab a table and sit down.

Mom doesn’t wait. “I am surprised to see you here after you have made it so perfectly clear about what you think of our money.”

“I told you. I was letting Emily and her boyfriend in.”

“You’re drinking!” Mom fires back.

“Katy—” my dad says to my mom, a note of warning in his voice.

“Yeah, I know,” I reply. “I saw Mr. Hunter and we spoke a little bit. Then I saw Bennett and we spoke a bit. Then I saw Spencer and we spoke a bit. Sort of been hard to get out of here.”

“Your sister has been trying to get in touch with you,” my mom says, shaking her head enough that her earrings hit against the side of her neck. “You finally spoke to her?”

“Yeah. Listen, I really was trying to leave,” I say, hoping to get out of here quickly.

But Mom has decided that this is the perfect time and place to rant to me about my life choices. “I’m just surprised to see you here. You’ve made it perfectly clear that you have no interest in our money. You seem to think you’re above it.”

“No, I don’t,” I counter even though deep down I know it is useless.

“And now here you are, at Kevin’s party. A party, which if I seem to remember, you complained about attending every year we had to go. What did you say it was? A silly display of wealth,” Mom snaps, moving her hands so much that some of her drink spills onto the table.

Dad goes to clean it up and doesn’t say anything. He never does when it comes to Mom and her drunken rants. I can only watch as he tries to sop up her drink with a napkin.

“Richard, don’t bother,” Mom snaps at him. “Someone else will get it.”

The way her words slur slightly at the end make me realize that she must have taken a shot or two upon entering the party. That, plus the drink in her hand, are the only ways she could already be slurring her words. For some reason this makes me furious.

“Drunk already, Mom?” I say, even though I know I am just starting trouble.

“How dare you speak to me that way,” she snaps at me. “After everything your father and I did for you. After what we did for you.” She repeats that twice, as if she really wants it to sink into my head, “And you basically make fools of us.”

“How did I make fools of you?”

“We look like bad parents!” Her voice raises an octave and my dad looks around. “You’re basically telling the world that you don’t want to be in our family.”

“You know that isn’t true. I just don’t want the money.”

“Yet here you are at the party,” she says with a swig of her drink. “Strange.”

“I told you a million f*****g times... I was here to help Emily get in!” I snap, losing it. “Maybe if Kevin wasn’t such an uppity asshole about her dad, I wouldn’t have had to come.”

Dad looks horrified at the fact I have lost it on Mom. She has polished off her drink and is looking at me angrily. She opens her mouth to say something but I shove my drink at her.

“Here, have mine. You can finish it faster than I can.”

Dad calls out to me as I leave but I am furious. I storm through the crowd, back towards the pool area. I stop once to grab a shot from a passing server. I am turning into my mother. The shot burns on the way down. I am seething but I can’t even pinpoint why.

With my parents lost in the abyss of the party, I find a place to sit. It is near one of the bars. I am close to another pool here. This one has some sort of weird jungle theme to it. It is near the small water park, I think. I am having a hard time remembering the layout to the party.

I don’t sit at a table and instead sit underneath a willow tree. The sky is streaked with orange. The sun is setting. How long have I been at this stupid party? I close my eyes and try to figure out why I am so upset.

Everything I didn’t want to happen happened. I got dragged into this party. I thought Spencer and I were going to have it out. Instead, we just took a stroll down memory lane. When I think about how far we were torn apart, it seems to hurt me all over again. I realize I had been wanting a fight with her. I didn’t want sadness. I had wanted us to scream at each other in Kevin’s library. Instead, the entire conversation had left me with a sense of loss that just made me feel bummed out.

I think of my parents. I think of Mom already hitting the booze hard upon entering the party. She had always liked her drink. I have to admit that it has been getting worse lately. Seeing her act like a sloppy drunk always made me angry. I never had a close relationship with my mother.

All she ever wants to talk about is the money. Why I don’t like the money. Why the money bothers me. Why I won’t just accept the money. Never once did she ask if it was something more than that. Was it my fault because I never hinted that it was anything other than how weird I felt about having so much money?

Dad has always stuck his head in the sand when it came to anything other than business. He was upset at my choice to leave the family and cut myself out of the will. He was upset I wasn’t going to do anything with the family business. There wasn’t any mention of any personal reasons about why I was choosing to do this.

Maybe I was angry because I had wanted them to ask. Maybe I had wanted to tell them everything. But they were in another world. They never asked. I wasn’t going to tell.

It was then that I remembered what Bennett had said to me before – about using my family for money to get through college and then leaving.

But the event that made up my mind had happened afterwards. It wasn’t until it happened that I had decided...

I open my eyes. I’m sick of thinking about it. I feel dumped on and tired. My phone is buzzing in my purse. I yank it out and see it is a text from Emily.

You okay? I saw your parents but not you.

I quickly text back. Fine. Usual s**t.

I notice I have a missed call from Spencer. I shove my phone back in my purse. The music is so loud now. It has gotten louder now that the sun is starting to set. It feels as if even more people are on the property. It is a sort of an anonymous feeling. I feel as if I could sink into the crowd and no one would look twice at me.

Even though the sun is setting, it is still hot. I am wearing jeans and a t-shirt and my clothes are sticking to me. I never wear dresses or skirts anymore. I stand up and go over to the bar, ordering another one of those strawberry drinks I never got to finish. Am I being self-destructive in wanting to drink to deal with my problems? Maybe, a little. But the anonymity of the crowd makes me grab the drink anyway.

>>

It doesn’t take me long to end up drunk. Two of those strawberry drinks and I am tipsy. Normally, I would stop there. But I have a third one. The sun has set and the lights have come on. Everything feels more vibrant. Colorful. I like the music the DJ is playing. I like dancing by one of the pools. I like not thinking.

I lose track of time on how long I am dancing. My legs are aching. The music has wormed its way inside my head and I am loving every second of it. Why didn’t I take up dancing at clubs earlier in life? I had always thought I’d be too shy to dance in public around all these strangers. But with everyone dancing, no one even notices. No one cares if you can’t dance... you just feel the music and move.

I realize I am thirsty. I manage to move through the wave of bodies to go to one of the bars. I want water now. No more booze. The small, sober part of me knows I will be regretting it come morning. I am going to have to take a taxi home. Or find Emily. I haven’t seen her anywhere. I haven’t checked my phone.

I manage to get a bottle of water and end up over by the willow tree I had been at hours earlier. I find myself sitting on the grass, staring up at a set of twinkling lights. My body feels warm. It is a pleasant feeling.

Something catches my eye. It is over by one of the tables. Someone’s shirt. Hey, I know that shirt. I squint, trying to get a better look. The image slowly comes into focus. It is Adam. His hair is messy and his face is red. He has clearly been drinking too. There is no sign of Emily. Instead, he has his arm wrapped around another woman. A stranger. He is leaning towards her and whispering in her ear.

The gesture is intimate. It is definitely something he shouldn’t be doing with another woman. In a drunken rage, I get to my feet and march across the grass towards him. Adam looks up and sees me coming. Panic crosses his eyes quickly.

“What the f**k?” I say when I get to the table.

Adam is standing up now, the girl is forgotten, “Wait, April. I thought you left.”

“Who is this? Where is Emily?!” I snap at him.

The girl glances at Adam. Apparently, he isn’t worth my outburst because she gets up and slinks away into the darkness of the party. Adam is pale. The color has drained from his face. The low rage that I’ve been feeling towards myself and my parents and everyone else threatens to spill out onto Adam.

“Listen, April,” he says, although his voice sounds far away, “I can explain. She said she knew this record producer. Emily went home. I thought—”

Suddenly, I feel dangerously sick. It is as if all the drinks I had tonight hit me all at once. Whatever Adam is saying goes in one ear and out the other. I hold up my hand to silence him and then turn around, walking quickly back towards the willow tree.

Once I get to the tree, I press the top of my head against it and start counting. I really don’t want to throw up here. Talk about a lack of class. My head is swimming. How many drinks had I had? I can’t even remember. The mental image of Adam leaning towards that girl pisses me off. What the hell did he think he was doing?

I raise my head and the world tilts for a brief moment. Adam is gone. He is probably off to try to do damage control before I tell Emily what I saw. I put my head back against the trunk of the tree. The music is so loud here. I have to go somewhere else. Even my thoughts feel as if they are filled with static.

“Looking classy as ever, April.”

I know exactly who the voice belongs to before I even look up. I am dreading looking up. With a sigh and a last second attempt not to look drunk, I look up directly into the light blue eyes of Bennett. He is leaning against the tree trunk, smirking at me, as if he has stumbled across his Christmas presents early.

“Go away,” I say to him.

His smile grows bigger and he leans over to me. I can smell his stupid cologne. His suit jacket is gone. He is wearing a blue dress shirt that goes with his eyes. He is overdressed, I think dully, like his dad is. Even so, he stands out. Bennett always stood out though, I suppose.

“Are you drunk?” he asks with glee.

I push off the tree trunk and attempt to stand up as straight as I can while keeping the nausea at bay. He is looking down at me now. His hands are in his pants pockets and he is leaning forward a little. He seemingly towers over me and makes me feel as if I am being bullied.

“Go away,” I say again, “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t like you.”

I go to move but I lose my footing in the grass and lurch forward. He catches me. Even though the music is ringing in my ears, I can tell he is laughing at me.

“Oh man, you are drunk,” he says to me as he straightens me out. “I don’t even remember the last time I saw you like this.”

“I remember!” I snap. “I was like, fourteen and you told me it wasn’t that strong!”

“You swigged it down in an attempt to keep up at the party,” Bennett finishes, grinning. “You threw up everywhere. Your parents were so mad at you.”

“I still didn’t tell on you, did I?” I reply. “I could have.”

Bennett’s grinning face softens slightly at the memory. It is true. It was a boring cocktail party my dad was throwing. Bennett and a couple of his friends were over and were giddy about spiking their fruit punch with vodka. I had been drinking with them, not wanting to look like a loser. Peer pressure at its finest, I suppose.

I didn’t tell on Bennett after I had been caught. I don’t know why. He had always seemed so together. He was cocky and proud and he pissed me off. But I still hadn’t told on him.

“Listen, you can’t drive like this and you won’t be able to find a cab,” Bennett is saying now as a song kicks up loudly. “You should crash here.”

I yank myself out of his arms. The music is so loud – a swooping beat that crashes down on me when it gets to the chorus and everyone starts singing along – that I feel as if I am going to throw up again.

“I don’t want to be around you,” I mumble but it is clear that he has not heard me.

He grabs me by the arm and drags me away from the willow tree. We walk down a garden path. The music is slowly growing quieter down the pathway. There are still a lot of people but they are all huddled in groups, talking with each other.

I find myself gripping onto his arm so I can stand properly, trying to focus on placing one foot in front of the other. His arm is firm and I can feel the muscles underneath the fabric. I sneak a glance up at him. He is looking straight ahead. For a brief second, my heart constricts. I look away from him and try to focus on walking again.

“Where are we going?” I ask but I realize I am slurring.

Bennett doesn’t reply. We stop at a small tiki bar near the edge of the gardens. The music is faint here. I can see people near the pool area all dancing. He goes over to the bar and comes back with water, handing it to me.

“For me?” I ask stupidly.

“Yes. Drink up.”

I expect him to leave me now but instead he sits down across from me. In the dim lighting of the tacky tiki torches, I can see the outline of his jaw and the stubble across it. I open the bottle of water and take a sip. It is freezing cold and seems to hit the heat in the center of my stomach.

“I didn’t drink that much,” I protest, even though it sounds pathetic to my ears.

“What were you drinking?”

“Some... strawberry thing.”

“Those are really strong,” he replies. “Way too strong for someone like you.”

“I had like three. Or four.”

Bennett leans forward a little and his hair catches the light. For some reason I want to touch it but I hold back. He is looking at me closely as I drink my water.

“Are you going to tell me what drove the Amazing April to drink?”

I scowl. “Don’t call me that.”

When he doesn’t reply, I realize he really is asking me about why I am so drunk. In any sort of normal circumstances, I never would have told him anything. But for the first time in ages, Bennett is actually being nice to me.

“Just my parents,” I finally say. “And Spencer. And Adam. Everyone.”

“Adam? Emily’s boyfriend?” he asks, frowning.

But I barrel on. “I know I made the right choice in distancing myself from my family but how can I distance myself from them if I show up to parties like this? Mom totally called me out. Implied that I act like a martyr for deciding to leave my family’s wealth. And she was drunk too. Of course she was, right?” I am rambling now but cannot seem to stop. “And Spencer wanted to talk about the past and there isn’t anything else to say about what happened. And Dad just stands there, shrugging, like oh, how could these things be going on? And the only reason I am at this stupid party is because I just wanted to help Emily out.”

I am suddenly out of breath. Bennett is just staring at me. His expression is blank. I find myself admiring his face again. I like how strong his face is. I’ve always wanted to photograph it properly, although I would never tell him that. I don’t mean like the photos I did for his website earlier. I mean, I want to really take his photo, contrast his facial features and really expose his mind in the photographs.

I shake my head. What the hell am I thinking? I am glad that I didn’t say anything like that out loud. I quickly take a swig of water. I am starting to feel tired now. My eyelids feel heavy.

“Time for bed,” Bennett announces, standing up. “Come on.”

“I am not sleeping in a guest room,” I slur. “People will get in.”

“I’ll give you the locked guest house. Come on.” He yanks me up and the world tilts dangerously for a few seconds.

I grip his arm again but I find myself wavering on my feet. In my other hand, I clutch the water bottle.

“The one with the fingerprint scanner?” I ask him.

Bennett nods. The guest house he is speaking about is the nicest guest house on the property. It is locked down with a fingerprint scanner so only the most important guests can use it if they are here to see Kevin. It has its own small pool and is more of a hotel suite than anything else.

“I haven’t been there in forever,” I say to him, thinking back. “How old was I?”

“You were eighteen,” he replies. “I remember it too.”

The memory comes back to me, bright and hot. It sears through my drunken haze and starts to unfold in my mind.