Rocking Kin (Lucy & Harris, #3) - Terri Anne Browning Page 0,14

with them. The younger girl’s expensive shampoo and conditioner had been subjected to the same thing. The week-long grounding I’d gotten for turning Jillian’s daughters’ hair pink was well worth every second of home confinement. I’d had something to smile about at least each time I’d caught sight of that ugly pink color for the two days the food coloring had stuck around. The two hadn’t stopped washing their hair until the pink was all gone. Now SoCal was in a drought.

I probably wouldn’t have even done anything to my two step-bitches if they had just left Lucy alone. Instead they had badmouthed her one too many times for my liking and I never let someone talk shit about my friends. Lucy and her family were the only shining lights to the otherwise dimness that my life was living with my father and step-monster. Without them, I was sure I would have lost my sanity already.

Thankfully my punishment was finally over, and I was getting cabin fever from having locked myself in my room for so long. So I’d texted Lucy and gotten a little surprise when she’d called me back and told me to get ready. She was taking me to First Bass, one of California’s hottest new clubs. My new best friend had VIP access to a place where normal people had to wait weeks to get on the actual official waiting list, and she was finally going to use it.

Knowing the owner handled the age requirement to get in, I guessed, because I was sure that places like First Bass didn’t normally let seventeen-year-olds inside. So there I was, dressed up—well, as much as I dressed up anyway—in jeans, one of my old rocker T-shirts and flip flops. I didn’t even touch my wild collection of new makeup Jillian kept adding to.

With my hair flowing down my back I stood with Lucy at the bar as we waited for the yummy-looking bartender to grab our drinks. If Marcus, Lucy’s bodyguard and shadow, hadn’t been there I would have flashed my fake ID—a present from Angie on my last birthday. I wanted a beer more than the ginger ale that Nate was currently pouring for us.

As soon as the guy returned, flirting like mad with my drop-dead gorgeous friend and offering his number, I took my drink and glanced around for somewhere to sit. With her own drink in hand, Lucy turned to follow my gaze. I’d seen more than one face that I recognized from various tabloids and movies that I’d actually liked over the years, but nowhere to sit. The place was amazing, the music kickass, but I was kind of bored.

“Lucy!”

My eyes instantly connected with an older chick in a dress that was almost indecent and heels that I figured she wasn’t used to wearing from the way she was stumbling. Her long dark hair was hanging almost limply in a tangle around her shoulders and her makeup was smeared around her eyes. Still I could tell that this chick was beautiful despite all those things that suggested she was both slutty and perhaps bordering on skank.

Then she got closer and I realized it was probably more than not knowing how to walk in those deathtrap heels that was making her stagger all over the place. Her eyes were dilated in a way that clearly told me she had something worse than alcohol in her system. She had a glass of champagne in her hand, but the way she kept stumbling and staggering, the contents kept spilling over the rim of the delicate glass she was holding.

Long, thin arms wrapped around Lucy, and I was assaulted by the smell of her hair. Gross, but it only confirmed for me that whoever this chick was, she was flying as high as the clouds right then.

“Damn, babe, you look hot,” the newcomer told Lucy as she pulled back to run her eyes appreciatively over Lucy’s curves. When Lucy didn’t look like she was going to respond, her friend took a sip of her drink. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Harris has been in a bad mood. For weeks now he’s been unbearable. Did you two have a fight?”

The skin around Lucy’s eyes tightened with displeasure. “I haven’t seen him to have fought with him, Jenna.” The chick stumbled again and if Lucy hadn’t reached out to catch her, she would have knocked the three men down who were passing and followed after them. “Let’s sit