CRUEL TRUTH (Cruel #4)

4. Lark

4

Lark

Katherine Van Pelt was bathed in a puddle of light that seemed to have been made just for her. That was how it always was with my oldest friend. The universe revolved around her. She had that something that everyone else would kill for.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

Katherine turned to face me. Her brown hair was down past her shoulders in supermodel waves that looked effortless. Her big brown eyes were lined with kohl, making them appear to be twice their normal size. Her lips were painted a deep, dark red. The kind of lipstick that had a name like—Uncensored, Siren, or Don’t Stop.

She arched one perfectly groomed eyebrow. “Do what?”

“Make the light bend your way. We’re in a club, for Christ’s sake,” I said, gesturing to the gyrating masses before us. “How do you have a f*****g spotlight?”

She shrugged. A keen look coming into her eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to face the crowd. English and Whitley should have been here already. I hadn’t heard from either of them yet either, except a text after work from English, saying that they’d meet us.

“Where are they?” I muttered. “I’m usually the one who is late.”

“Stop worrying.” Katherine took another glass of champagne from our waitress.

She’d procured a booth for us by dropping the Van Pelt last name—old Upper East Side money. Unlike me, Katherine had no qualms about using all the advantages she had to get what she wanted.

Katherine gestured for the waitress to hand me a drink as well.

I gratefully took it. Two days with Sam in my office, and I needed this drink.

“I’m surprised we’re at Sparks,” I told her to get my mind off of him. “I thought you liked Club 360.”

A cloud passed over her face. “I did. But…Natalie happened,” Katherine said dryly. “The audacity of that girl.”

“What’d she do?” I asked, surprised I hadn’t already heard about it.

Katherine waved a hand. “What hasn’t she done? I’m over her. I don’t even want to go to her party, but I won’t let her try to dethrone me.”

I would have laughed if Katherine wasn’t deathly serious. For as long as I could remember, I’d had my crew. Penn was the ringleader. Katherine was the instigator. Lewis egged them both on. And Rowe was…well, Rowe—a tech genius and the quiet type. And then there was me. I was the glue that kept them all together. And lately, that had been a lot harder than it used to be.

Katherine and Penn had been hot and cold, on-again/off-again since, well, ever. Until Natalie. It didn’t matter that Katherine had entered an arranged marriage with none other than the devil himself, Camden Percy. Only that Natalie had thrown down the gauntlet with Penn, and so she was a problem to be disposed of.

I was saved from trying to navigate that mess when I saw English’s blonde head bobbing toward us. She waved once and nodded her head back as if to say Whitley was the problem.

But what else was new?

I loved Whitley Bowen with a fiery passion, but she was a handful. She’d been in medical school while English and I were in law school. Now, she was on her way to becoming one of the best plastic surgeons in the city. For someone who was borderline genius, she was total a head case.

English finally pushed through to our box. Her pale skin was flushed, and she glanced back once to look for Whitley. She shook her head and then pulled me in for a hug. “Hey, babe. How are you holding up?”

“I’m doing…okay.”

“She’s anxiety-ridden,” Katherine said, tipping her champagne at English. “We need to get her drunk.”

“Great idea,” English said, brightening. “If only Whit could get her ass over here, I’d say we should do shots.”

“Why wait?” Katherine said. “Tequila?”

“God, yes.”

English stepped toward Katherine to greet her when Whitley appeared at the entrance to our box. She was five foot nothing with olive-toned skin that glowed with gold highlighter and the best pink ombré to her natural waves. For all her lack of height, she had a giant personality.

“Larkin!” Whitley tipped back the rest of her drink and then threw her drunk ass toward me. “I’ve missed you so f*****g much.”

I laughed as she hip-checked me. “I missed you too, Whit.”

“Sorry we’re late. Ran into a guy I used to date.” She made a face that said it was not a good run-in. “You know how, like, no one ever gets over me? Well, he hasn’t either. Awkward.”

English snorted. “Your t**s were in his face, and then you got a free drink out of him before ditching him, Whit. I wouldn’t exactly say that he hasn’t gotten over you, honey.”

Whitley just rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, is that tequila? Pour me some of the good stuff.” She winked at Katherine. “Ren, baby. Bring it in.”

Katherine shook her head.

My friends—the pinnacle of self-restraint and letting loose. Watching them together was like waiting for the clock to run down on a ticking time bomb. As much as Katherine complained about Whitley’s behavior and Whitley complained that Katherine had a giant stick up her ass, they actually loved each other. At least…in small doses.

“All right, shots all around,” English said, passing out the tequila, lime, and salt. She raised her glass. “To my last night in the city and not having to deal with hookers and blow for once.”

We all laughed and then threw the shots back. I coughed over the burn of the tequila.

Whitley patted my back. “Let’s get you another. How hungover can you be tomorrow at work?”

“Um…probably about as hungover as you?”

“Oh, I can do my job drunk with a blindfold on,” Whitley said. “So, you should be good.”

I snorted as she grabbed the bottle of Patrón out of the waitress’s hand and poured the liquor into my empty shot glass.

Then she winked at the waitress. “Thanks. What’s your name?”

“Keri,” she said automatically, taking the bottle back. She gave Whitley a small, secretive smile.

“Keri. I like that.” Whitley grinned big at the waitress. “You’re hot.”

Keri laughed. “Thanks. So are you.”

Whitley leaned back toward me. “I think I’m going to take her home. Girls are so much less complicated than stupid boys.”

“Are they?” Katherine asked. “I wouldn’t think that.”

Whitley looked her up and down. “Girls like you maybe.”

English just shook her head. “Can’t we just have drinks and dance and leave worrying about going home with someone to Lark? Because she needs it.”

“I do not need a one-night stand.”

Whitley nudged my glass. “Yes, you do. Drink up.”

I narrowed my eyes at her but tipped the second shot into my mouth. It went down better than the first. And I felt the effects almost immediately. I went from steady to shaky as soon as it hit my stomach. If I didn’t slow down, I was going to be throwing up in the bar restroom.

“You know…maybe you do,” Katherine finally said.

“Traitor,” I said, sidling up to her.

Katherine arched an eyebrow. “It’s not like it’s your first time.”

“Well, I haven’t since…right after Thomas,” I admitted.

“Are you telling me that you haven’t gotten laid in over a year?”

I blushed. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. I just…well, I had an arrangement.”

“With whom?”

English’s eyes rounded. “Oh my god, yes, tell us who.”

“Um…Kurt Mitchell.”

“No!” Katherine gasped.

English and Whitley focused intently on me now.

“Who is Kurt Mitchell?” Whitley asked.

“A guy who got kicked out of our prep school freshman year and bounced around European boarding schools. He’s like the Upper East Side fuckup. I didn’t even know he was in the city,” Katherine said. “How did that happen? And how the hell did you keep it from me?”

“My mother,” I admitted, ashamed. “She set us up when he came back.”

“You didn’t!” English gasped.

“It was never serious.”

“And when did it end?” Katherine asked.

I shrugged. “A few months ago.”

“So, you do need to get laid,” Whitley chimed in. “A few months is a lifetime.”

English turned back to face the crowd in front of us. Even on a Wednesday night, the place was packed. “Well,” she mused, “we should look at our options.”

Whitley laughed and shook her head. “I’ll go scope them out from the floor.”

Then she vanished into the crowd as quickly as she had come.

“Are we ever going to see her again?” I asked.

English shook her head. “It’s probably fifty-fifty with Whit.”

Katherine asked Keri to make us a round of drinks. “You know, I think she’s toned down some.”

Our eyes met, and we both burst into laughter. Because this was toned-down Whitley, and that was pretty terrifying.

I took a dirty martini from Keri and knew this was a bad idea. But what the hell? I was with my girls.

“I swear, in my next life, I just want half of her confidence,” English said.

“Whatever. You’re insanely confident,” I said.

She pointed at a guy standing at a high-top table nearby. “Him?” she asked.

I shook my head, taking a long sip of my drink. “I’m definitely tipsy, but I’m still firmly in the I don’t need d**k to feel better about Sam category.”

“The fact that you just said that proves otherwise,” Katherine said.

“Both of you are married,” I said, gesturing between my two closest girlfriends. “You seem to be doing just fine. But neither of you found your significant other because of a one-night stand.”

Katherine’s eyebrows rose, saying everything that I’d left out of the conversation. She and Camden had an arrangement. She got access to the considerable Percy hotel fortune, and he got…her. I was still unclear if that just meant s*x or what. She’d been totally weird about it all since the honeymoon. It used to be clear that she hated Camden with a fiery vengeance and was only doing this by the contract, but now, I didn’t know.

“So, okay,” English said, “I didn’t meet Josh in a club, it was a film party at the Beverly Hills Hotel.” I rolled my eyes. “But we slept together on the first date. Does that count?”

“Nope.”

“God, Josh Hutch. He’s so…Hollywood,” Katherine said with mild disdain. “But damn, does he have a rocking body, and he’s a great actor.”

“Yeah, I locked that down quick,” English said. She pointed out another guy, dancing in the middle of the room.

He was in a business suit, and his hips swayed to the beat.

I shook my head again.

“Are you going to disagree with all of them?” English asked.

“I think we should just stick her out in the middle of the room and let the guys flock to her,” Katherine said. She twirled my red hair around her finger. “Guys go crazy for redheads.”

“That’s a big no,” I said. I polished off my drink and reached for another one from Keri.

English grinned. “This is way more enjoyable than work. If I have to deal with another movie star throwing up in a limo or a rockstar getting caught with a groupie or have to try to calm down another irate wife, I might quit.”

“Is it that bad?” I asked, leaning forward and nearly falling over. “I thought you loved it.”

“I do,” she said, blowing out a breath. “I really love the PR part. Working for Poise PR is like the best thing that could have happened. And I don’t even mind fixing things. It’s just, sometimes, I wonder if I’m fixing the right things, you know?”

I blinked back the alcohol. “I think I’m too drunk to know.”

“Well, I get it,” Katherine said. “Everyone thinks it’s easy to be me, to work as a socialite. But it’s a literal job to keep my place in this world. And sometimes, I just want to f*****g stop.” She shrugged one petite shoulder and downed her martini. “Poor little rich girl.”

Wow. Katherine had to be drunk to be opening up to English. She didn’t open up to anyone. Hardly even to me.

I opened my mouth to reach for something profound, but nothing was there.

Then Whitley appeared with a super-hot guy from the dance floor, and I didn’t have to respond.

“Y’all,” she cried, “look what I found.”

“What did you find, Whit?” English asked with a shake of her head.

“A guy for Lark.” Whitley not-so-subtly winked.

“Oh,” I muttered.

He was incredibly good-looking. Platinum-blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a dimpled chin. He wore fitted dark jeans and a short-sleeved button-up. He wasn’t exactly my style. But then again, I was used to Upper East Side guys. And while they all dressed nice, they were also douche bags.

“Hi,” he said, stepping forward. “I’m Chad. You must be Lark.”

“I am.”

English nudged me toward him. I stumbled forward a few feet, suddenly losing control of my legs with all the alcohol. It was like it all hit me at once. I’d thought I had control over it. I wasn’t a lightweight. My parents had started me drinking wine at a very young age because they said that you were never too young to develop tolerance and taste. They’d hardly approve of the option before me. But maybe that was perfect.

“Yes, I am,” I said more forcefully. I stepped away from my friends, and Whitley hustled over to the other girls. “So, do you live in the city?”

“Yeah. Queens.”

“Nice,” I said.

“You?”

“I’m on the Upper East.”

His eyebrows rose. “Oh wow. So, I guess your place is closer than mine.”

I opened my mouth and then closed it. “Uh, yeah. I mean, physically speaking, yes?”

He chuckled. “Cool. Well, you ready to get out of here?”

“Already?” I asked in surprise. I was drunk, but I couldn’t be that drunk.

“I mean…you do want to hook up, right?”

I whirled around. “Whitley, what did you say to him?”

Whitley just grinned back at me. “I told him that you wanted a one-night stand.”

I shook my head at her in frustration. “Jesus Christ, Whit! I do not want a one-night stand! Let alone with a guy I just met!”

“Uh…guys,” English muttered.

Katherine had skipped over to the front of the box, and for the first time, I realized through my drunken haze that we had an audience. Camden had just shown up. Katherine must have let him know where we were.

Next to him stood Court and Gavin.

And then, to my shock and utter horror, I locked eyes with Sam Rutherford.