The Lying Season (Seasons #1) - K.A. Linde Page 0,84
new me.
Lark 3.0.
Not all good. Not all bad. Just me.
33
Lark
Two hours later, and I still hadn’t heard from Sam.
Not a call. Not a text. And he damn sure hadn’t shown up to Thomas’s party. Not that he could have even gotten in without the fucking invitation that I had. But he would have had to call me for that. And he hadn’t done that. Which meant…he was still at his place…with Claire.
I didn’t know what the fuck they needed to talk about for two hours, but I was drunk and murderous. Half-ready to catch a cab and drive back over there to demand answers. But I knew that I wouldn’t do it. Even though I’d unleashed something within myself, I wasn’t ready to go that far. He’d said he’d text. Until he did, I’d get drunk as a skunk and let my anger simmer.
“Can’t we just go dance?” Whitley asked, holding out her whiskey. “You both need to let loose a little more.”
“You can go dance,” Katherine said. “You’ve been dancing all night. Why would you need us?”
“It’s more fun with my friends.”
“You make friends everywhere,” I reminded her.
“Well, yeah…but you two are the hottest.”
“Obviously,” Katherine said with a quirk of her lips.
“And I’m pretty sure Gavin already left with that brunette chick.” She pushed her currently blonde-highlighted hair off her shoulders.
“Are you jealous?” Katherine asked evenly.
“Of what?”
“Gavin being with someone else?” I added.
Whitley snorted. “No. Why would I be?”
“Because you like him,” Katherine said.
“You have it all wrong. Gavin King and I are oil and water. We don’t mix. We just have a lot of fun dancing and drinking. He’s a good wingman.”
“Please.” Katherine rolled her eyes.
“I’ll admit, he’s good to look at,” Whitley said with a shrug. “But there are so, so many more men and women who are pretty to look at.”
“If you say so,” I said with a smirk.
“Whatever. So…you won’t go dance with me?”
“I think we’re good here,” I told her.
Katherine’s attention suddenly shifted, and I saw immediately why. Fiona hadn’t left Camden’s side all night. She’d been hanging on to him for dear life. He was mostly ambivalent about her presence. As if she were more prop than person.
But now, he was walking away from the table that he’d been playing poker at and leaving Fiona behind. He was coming straight toward us.
Whitley and I fell silent, waiting for the incoming bomb to explode.
“Hello, Camden,” Katherine said evenly. As if she were hardly interested in his presence.
But he brushed right past her indifference and took her arm. “We need to grab Court and get you home and safe.”
Her eyes rounded only slightly. “Home? You want me to leave?”
“No, you’re coming with me. Where you belong.”
We all gaped at him. Ever since the party, they’d been living apart. As far as I knew…they weren’t even speaking, except at public events where they would be photographed together. Their secret was out about the arranged marriage and his mistress. So, they kept up appearances to a certain extent. But this was altogether different.
“I don’t understand,” Katherine said softly. Honest confusion in her voice.
“I just got a tip from a detective that I know. He said that if I was at this party, then I needed to get out now,” Camden said. “This place is about to blow up.”
I gasped. “A raid?”
He nodded once, not taking his eyes from Katherine’s face. “I need to get you out of here.”
I could see everything roil through her. He was worried about her. About Katherine and not Fiona. Was this a gimmick? Or real?
We didn’t have time to worry about it. If a police raid was about to hit the party, we needed to get the hell out of here.
“I’m going to get Court,” I gasped.
Fuck, English was going to kill me. This wasn’t supposed to happen while she was a thousand miles across the ocean.
I dashed into the crowd, heading toward the table where Court had planted his ass in front of the entire night. He had a sizable number of chips in front of him. He was not going to like having to move. I could already tell that he was drunk. Just by the set of his shoulders. Sometimes, he was so like Penn that it was scary.
“Court, we have to go,” I said, grabbing his arm.
He didn’t even glance at me. He just brushed me aside with the grin of someone who was beating the odds. “Can’t leave. I’m on a roll.”