24

Adam

Let's Fucking Party

There was no fucking way Piper Fontaine locked me out.

I yanked the door, shaking it on its hinges.

Goddammit .

Piper gave me a light shrug.

"What the hell?" I banged on the glass. "Piper! Piper! "

She came close to the glass and spoke loud enough for me to hear. "This is your babysitter putting you in a time-out."

"This isn't funny!"

"This isn't meant to be funny!"

I rapped my knuckles against the glass again, but Piper strode ahead. I walked alongside her on the porch, trying to spot another way in, but Piper was one step ahead of me, locking it too.

"You're worried that I'll make this party fun! " I shouted. "Because you couldn't stand that, ice princess! You wouldn't know a good time if it bit you in the ass!"

"No, Adam, you're a toddler! "

"You have the toddler insults!"

Piper stared at me, hard. "You're a toddler because if you don't get attention twenty-four seven, you freak out! "

For a second, I tried to come up with anything and everything to say back to that. It was bullshit. That wasn't me. If anything, she was probably projecting or whatever the hell she talked about at Gianna's . But I couldn't come up with anything. The longer I stood there, the more I felt like a dumbass in a tux.

"The exit's right over there," Piper informed me, pointing towards an off-ramp that led to the sidewalk down below. She gave me a little wave and stepped away from the glass. "You have the night off, Marrs Manwhore."

"You're kicking me out?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes!"

I couldn't believe it. "What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know and I don't care! Go do whatever the Marrs Manwhore does!" She sucked in a breath. "It's like walking around with a three-year-old on my hip!"

"As much fun as this is, it wasn't my idea," I argued.

"Then you've got to suck it up! No wonder you skip from one girl to the next. If anyone stuck around long enough, they would leave! "

She disappeared before I could say anything else. With a swish of the dress that I would see behind my eyelids for the next three months, she was gone.

I stared at the glass.

Nobody ever said that to me in my entire life. Not one girl had ever looked at me and said, this is why no one sticks around. Because that wasn't the truth. I hit the road every time. First one to go, always . I was the one who found the exit. It was practically what I did professionally, ever since my junior year in high school.

Ever since I found out how easy it was for people to walk away from me.

It was the easiest thing in the world for them, and that was back when I gave a shit. Before I became the party guy, the fun guy, the Marrs Manwhore. Now, I had something to give. A great time. But what if that wasn't enough?

What if Piper's right?

"This is bullshit," I muttered under my breath and stalked along the porch again, rounding past the walkway.

The walk should've cleared my head. It didn't. It just made me think about her again. What was I going to do with the rest of my night? I hadn't felt this shitty in a long time.

And all those weasels inside. And the way they stared at her. The way their eyes trailed down her dress, the way those guys elbowed each other when she walked close. The idea that she'd bring back one of those shitheels to our room, or a fucking hockey player, made my hands curl into fists at my side. Those guys were first-class jackasses. They didn't deserve her.

Past the next corner, something red caught my eye.

A grin tugged up on my lips as the plan started coming together. "Oh, yeah. Let's fucking party."