Filthy Vows - Alessandra Torre Page 0,4

pull my phone back out and examine the birthdate on the photo. Was he younger than us? Older? Maybe he was ancient, one of these twenty-eight-year-old college kids that had stretched four years into ten. He lifted Chelsea up and she swooped, her hands lifting into the air as if she was on a ride. I eyed her closely and hoped she was done vomiting.

“My height?” He guessed, nodding towards a white sedan at the edge of the lot. “That’s mine.”

“I’ve been in this car,” Chelsea said loudly, as the car’s headlights flashed.

“It wasn’t your height.” It was a nice height. Totally uncomical.

I opened the back seat and held the door open, watching critically as he carefully maneuvered her into the space.

“By been in this car,” she stage whispered, “I meant in the biblical sense.”

Easton shot me an apologetic look and I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing again.

“We were dru—” he started to say, and she cut him off with an earsplitting yell.

“We are IN LOVE Easton North. Don’t you dare diminish the beauty that it is!”

I raised my brows at him, letting him sweat for an excruciatingly entertaining moment as he carefully moved her feet into the car and shut the door. From inside, Chelsea began to belt out the national anthem.

“Well,” he said quietly, spinning his car key around one finger. “I don’t know how well you know Chelsea, but we are, in fact, betrothed to be married.”

I think it was at that moment that I fell for him. Right then, in my beer-stained J Crew capris, with Chelsea singing the Star-Spangled Banner at the top of her lungs, in the night that was still soaked in anticipation.

“I did know,” I said with a quiet smile. “I’m actually your maid of honor.”

“Ahhh…” he said. “So you’re the tempting maid of honor with the bedroom eyes and bachelorette antics. I’ve been warned about you.” He opened the passenger car door and waited for me to get in. “You’re the one who’s going to seduce me on my wedding night and whisk me away to your dungeon of passion.”

I let out a laugh as I stepped into the car. I hadn’t expected the fabled Easton North to be charming. Pulling the seatbelt over my chest, I tried to place the reason Chelsea stopped seeing him. Had it been her decision or his? I don’t think there had even been a decision, actually. I think, like so many of her relationships, they had hooked up a few times, then wandered away. Case in point—tonight, which had been a calculated attempt for her to seduce Tainted Love’s guitarist, only the band had canceled last minute and left us with a DJ who seemed to have last year’s hit list on repeat.

He made sure my feet were inside, then shut the door. I looked through the dusty windshield at Potbelly’s, the bar still overflowing with drunk bodies who didn’t care what was pumping through the speakers.

He sat down in the driver’s seat and inserted the key, the engine whining as it sputtered, then came to life. I carefully moved my heels out of the way of a pile of empty Gatorade bottles in his floorboard. Definitely not the sleek Challenger that Jonah vacuumed out and waxed every Sunday afternoon.

“So, Ellen? Is that right?”

Technically it was, but I’d crawl under my comforter and die before responding to that. “Elle.” I studied the bar. “Do you have friends you need to say goodbye to?”

“Nah, I’ll come back after I drop you guys off.” He put the car in reverse and turned toward me, gripping the back of my seat as he looked behind him and backed the car up. I shifted closer to the door and tried not to notice the way the edge of his thumb touched my shoulder. From the backseat, Chelsea mumbled through a horrific rendition of the anthem’s third verse, unbothered by the conflicting song playing through Easton’s speakers.

“So, what about you?” He braked and looked at me, the dim lighting in the car only enhancing his features.

“What about me?”

“Are you betrothed?”

I smiled. “You know nobody says betrothed.”

He gave me a mock puzzled look. “Every guy on the baseball team says betrothed. Like, every day. It’s second in line to glove.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay.”

“That was my humble segue into mentioning I’m on the baseball team.” He pulled to the edge of the lot and glanced right, before turning left. I tried not to be bothered by the