Chapter 12

Chapter

Twelve

Rhonda

Rhonda settled onto the barstool, running her fingers over the polished wood of the counter. “So what am I drinking?”

The waiter nodded to the bartender. “After that spiel in the booth? There was no way in hell I was ordering for you. I just told him to get you whatever you wanted.”

The bartender gave a mock bow, and Rhonda laughed. “Whiskey sour.”

The server raised an eyebrow. "Didn't peg you for a whiskey girl."

She smiled, leaning in. "Mixing things up, I guess."

He shrugged. "I don’t know. That's a bit of a classic."

Rhonda laughed. "It is. My mom used to make them."

"Oh? She was a bartender?"

Rhonda shook her head. "No, definitely not.”

Her mother had made that drink one time. She remembered it vividly, the image burned into every cell. Her mom stood in their beautiful kitchen with new countertops and the name brand dishwasher. The drink hadn’t been a celebration. It had been all she had in the house—a random bottle of whiskey her father had brought home and forgotten about, and a shriveled lemon from the back of the fridge.

Rhonda watched from the doorway as her mom poured, stirred, and gulped it back. Then, with shaking hands, she set the glass down, wiped her mouth, and quietly told Rhonda and her sister, who still lived at home, that they were getting divorced.

She’d never forgotten the look in her mom's eyes that night. Like a wild animal. A rabbit staring down a fox.

Leaving had been the hardest thing her mother had ever done, but staying would’ve been death by a thousand cuts. Her dad didn’t hit them. He didn’t have to. His control was absolute, like a puppeteer pulling invisible strings.

That summer home was when she’d rewritten her childhood. As a kid, her father had been a hero. Always taking care of anything, saying yes when her mother said no. But after being away, she saw his behaviour for what it was.

He managed every detail of their lives—what they ate, who they saw, what they wore. Rhonda didn’t know it was possible to do something sinister with a smile. He kept her mom isolated, convinced her she couldn’t make friends, refused to let her take classes. "I provide for you," he’d say in a tone that now made Rhonda's skin crawl. "Isn’t that enough?"

But Rhonda had seen the way her mom’s eyes would linger on books or commercials for community colleges. The way her hand hesitated when she wanted to call her sister but never did. Back then, Rhonda believed she was ungrateful. In reality, he’d made her so dependent on him that when she finally left, she had next to nothing. No savings, no safety net. Just the clothes she could carry and a couple bags of groceries.

Rhonda avoided the years after. Always finding excuses to stay on campus. They were filled with crappy apartments, overdrawn bank accounts, and clothes that never quite lost that thrift store patina. Rhonda’s mom worked two jobs, sometimes three, and still didn’t ever have enough since she didn’t know how to manage her expenses.

But there was freedom in the chaos, and if Rhonda paid her mother’s bills for the rest of her life, it wouldn’t be thanks enough for the way she held things together growing up. How she shielded them so much that Rhonda grew up loving her father.

The bartender slid the glass toward her, and she took a drink. Awful, but she revelled in the way it burned down her throat.

“You’re a woman of ritual.” The waiter turned on his stool, and Rhonda felt it. That was her moment. She could riff on the line he gave earlier, make it witty and sexy. Watch as he adjusted himself, drawing her attention to the way his body responded to the suggestion.

It was simple. She’d done it before, meant it before. And, not surprisingly, never regretted it before. Maybe she’d had some regrets about people she hadn’t taken to her room, but never about the ones she had.

But tonight, her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth.

“I have a confession to make.” The server leaned on the bar. “I already know your name.” She gave him a look, and he laughed. “From the reservation list. I didn’t google you.”

She smirked. “Too bad. I have some damn good dating profiles.”

He laughed out loud. “So you’re single.”

“Sometimes.”

He reached out and spun her glass on the bar. “Depends on the night? I’m Reid by the way.”

She took another drink, and he made a point to brush her thumb with his. “Correct.”

“And tonight . . . “

“Taken, unfortunately.” Reid’s face fell a little, and Rhonda put a hand on his arm. “This week I’m married to my work.” He let out a puff of air. “If he wasn’t such a cruel master, you’d be the first to know.”

Reid ran a hand through his hair. “But you’re going to finish that drink?”

“Of course. A super sexy waiter bought it for me.”

Reid grinned, and Rhonda exhaled, the tension seeping from her shoulders. Good. This was good. She did have work to catch up on, and probably people she needed to reach out to since she’d been radio silent for the past two-and-a-half hours.

She glanced up at the screen above the bar. The Avs were playing. A pang hit her in the gut so hard she almost gasped. She wanted to be home at the ice centre, sitting with her friends watching hockey. Damn it, she was getting old.

Rhonda chatted with Reid while she finished her drink, then shook his hand, blushed when he lingered too long, then exited the restaurant and headed for the elevator. The ride up to her floor was silent, but Rhonda's mind was anything but.

Who even was she?

Her existential crisis started the second she left the elevator and ramped up until she slid her keycard into the lock and pushed the door open. She kicked off her shoes and walked straight to the washroom.

She turned on the shower and stripped while she waited for the water to heat up. When steam began to fill the room, she stepped under the spray. The water was hot, almost scalding, but she liked the burn on her skin just like she craved that burn in her throat. Water rolled off her shoulders, down her back, and over her legs and feet, warming her freezing toes.

She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the stream, pulling out her bobby pins and setting them in the soap dish. After a few more seconds, she turned her head to breathe and wiped her eyes, then reached for the still-wrapped body soap. The packaging was stubborn, but when she got it open, she lathered up and ran her hands over her body.

She wanted touch—craved it. But this was the first time she was desperate for one set of hands. Despite the heat, she started to shiver.

Rhonda cranked the temperature higher and stood there, letting the water heat her back and shoulders. Finally, she turned off the shower and stepped out, grabbing one of the fluffy towels from the rack. She dried off, wrapped her hair, then grabbed her toothbrush, not bothering to dress.

She ran through her nightly routine, and her skin glistened with moisture as she walked to the nightstand and pulled out her Kobo eReader. She grabbed the extra blanket from the closet, jacked the thermostat up to twenty-four degrees, then threw the blanket over the comforter and climbed into bed in her birthday suit.

She turned on her eReader and settled back into the pillows. Rhonda hadn’t read a romance in years. Her books of choice were usually psychological thrillers or nonfiction. But tonight she was suddenly desperate for a love story.

She scrolled through the recommended books and impulse bought the first one with a review that read, “Bookmark chapter nineteen. IYKYK.”

Just as the book was loading, she realized she hadn’t checked her phone and it was still in her purse across the room. Cursing under her breath, she forced herself from the bed and crossed to the entryway. She grabbed her phone and froze as the notifications showed on her screen. Seventy-five texts?

Rhonda swiped up, navigating to her messages as she walked back to the bed. Messages from Anne, Tina, and?—

What the actual!?

She scrolled back in the text chain, her stomach dropping to her knees. She needed an alibi for Friday night—because she was going to murder her friends.