My Personal Hell, D. Richardson [ebook reader browser txt] 📗

was another person wanting to talk to me. Most of them were young men, though a good deal of them were older men and women. Friends of Drake’s who wanted to meet the second lone wolf that he had taken in. One man even referred to me as a stray. I made sure to ‘accidentally’ spill my drink on him.

“Oh I’m so sorry, I’m so clumsy,” I gushed as he flustered and stuttered his way to a napkin. I dropped my act as soon as he had turned his back.

“Smooth,” Sadler said right behind me. I turned to look at him with my best innocent expression.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Kelsey was standing right next to him, and let out a loud sharp laugh.

“Uh huh, you know he’s the alpha of a neighboring pack?” he asked, I just shrugged.

“I said I was sorry.” He finally cracked a smile.

“I just wanted to say happy birthday,” he squeezed my arm gently and moved on, but Kelsey shot me a thumbs up behind his back before following.

An hour later I finally gave up trying to hide. Too many people wanted to talk to me. So I decided to keep moving, limiting my one on one time with people. I did my best to act like a gracious hostess. Saying hello to this person or that as I passed. Until finally I sidled up next to Kelsey again. She was just leaning against the wall, watching everyone stand around and gossip.

“So, when can I leave this thing?” I asked, quietly. She grinned at me.

“Not until the first guest leaves.”

“And how long does that usually take?”

“Not until you open your presents.” She nodded over to a ridiculously long table, stacked three feet high with wrapped gifts. I couldn’t stop my groan, I tried, I swear I did, but it slipped out anyway. I hated presents. Always having to pretend to like what others give you, when they don’t know a thing about what you do or do not like.

“Relax, until your wedding day this will be the last time you have to deal with anything like this.” I snorted.

“Yeah, I’m not getting married anytime soon.” She looked at me with a sense of camaraderie. It occurred to me then that she was twenty one, and there was no sign of a wedding ring on her finger. I excused myself when Chris caught my eye. I met her, Jake, Kiera, and Kevin in the middle of the floor.

“Are you as miserable as we are?” Chris asked.

“This is torture,” I groaned.

We all looked around the room as one. It was mostly a bunch of adults standing around, holding glasses of this or that, and talking quietly amongst themselves. The few younger people had grouped together with people that they knew. Though they didn’t seem to be any better off than we were. Even the band looked like they were ready to fall asleep.

“Do you think there’s anything we can do about it?” Kevin asked.

It occurred to me that this was my opportunity to ask him for a favor that I had needed to ask him a while ago. Mostly pertaining to the ballroom dancing that we needed to learn for one of our performances. But I hadn’t been able to find a way to get a hold of him until now. I would have to wait for later, however.

“It is my party isn’t it?” I asked. They all gave me dubious looks, as if saying that I should know better. But I continued to give them my clueless look, until one by one they started to smile.

Jake followed me up to the band. I got the attention of one of the men, as the other three went around to gather up all of the wolves that we had been working with lately. When I asked the man if we could borrow his spot to spice things up, he gave me a grateful grin, and offered up his place.

We didn’t really feel like playing so instead Jake turned to the sound system hidden behind the small stage. I moved to go back to Chris and Kiera but nearly fell on my face, thanks to the damn dress.

“Okay, I’ve had enough of this,” I muttered, and singled Asher out of the crowd. I happened to know that he carried a pocket knife with him at all times. By the time I made it to him, all of his friends had noticed me.

“Hey, do you have your knife on you?” I asked sweetly, but he gave me a suspicious look and put a hand down to protect his pocket.

“Yeah, why?”

“Can I use it for a second? I’ll give it right back,” I promised, but he gave me that obstinate look.

“I don’t see any reason why you would need it.” I took a deep breath, to keep from yelling at him for treating me like a child…again, and smiled before turning away.

That was when I spotted Sadler across the room. With as much space between him and Asher as possible. It took some maneuvering, but I finally made it to him. He was talking to a man who looked to be about twenty five. They seemed to be deep in conversation, and judging by his body language, they were pretty good friends.

His friend saw me before he did, giving a small polite bow when I approached. Sadler looked down at me with a quizzical smile, but I didn’t feel like I was bothering him at least. I leaned in to speak quietly, afraid another male would tell me I had no business asking for what I was.

“Do you have a knife on you?” His friend gave me a surprised look. But Sadler reached into his pocket, and handed me a small, very sharp, butterfly knife. I loved butterfly knives. They were just so much fun to open.

“Yeah, why?” I took it from him lightly, opening it in quick practiced movements. Then shoved the blade into the fabric of my dress. It took very little pressure to cut the slit from my thigh to the floor.

I was wearing panty hose, and I had been careful not to cut anything but the dress. I bent my knees a few times, delighted that I actually could, and handed the knife back. His friend had the most shocked look on his face that I had ever seen.

“There, that’s better,” I muttered. Sadler looked at me with an amused expression, while he pocketed his knife.

“Lily.” If it weren’t for the smile I would have taken the admonishment as it was. But it’s hard to take someone seriously when they’re taking you to task for something they found funny. So I waved him off.

“Yeah, I know, it was inappropriate. They should have thought of that before they made me wear the damn thing,” I answered, while I reached back to pull the pins out of my hair. It fell in waves and the headache I had felt for the last hour finally eased. This time his friend was the one that said something. His eyes were slightly squinted as he took in my new appearance.

“You look…better,” he decided with a subtle nod meant only for himself.

“I feel better,” I answered, and both of them chuckled. “Anyway, I’m sorry for bothering you. I’ll let you get back to your conversation.” Then I walked back to the middle of the room where Kiera was standing with her brother. Both of them gawking at me with ridiculous grins on their faces.

It turned out that the sound of clothe ripping in a quiet room attracted a lot of attention. Half the room stared at me while I moved. By the time I reached my friends, most of the younger people had gathered around them. Several of them were laughing as we spread out in a line, with three more lines behind us. As we moved into position, the older guests were forced to move back along the walls. Then the music started playing.

Jake had picked an upbeat play list, filled with mostly songs that the dance team already had routines for. Which was fortunate because we used several of those routines as warm up for rehearsals. All of it was tasteful, no one had to crawl around on the floor. And by the end of the second song, we were all laughing.

What I found more interesting were the looks that we were getting. It looked like the room was split in half. One half looked on with amusement and appreciation. While the other, not so shockingly, predominately male, looked on with blatant disapproval. Asher was among the second group. So I avoided him when we split up to dance among our closer friends.

Kevin and I were dancing together to another upbeat song, Kiera and Jake were next to us, and Chris had snagged the hand of a guy I didn’t know. But when Kevin put on hand on my waist, and by that I mean that he put his hand halfway between my hip and my underarm. It was completely appropriate, he wasn’t making a move or anything. He simply wanted to spin me around. Since it seemed to have a direct line to my laughter.

Asher was suddenly there, pulling me away by my arm. It took every ounce of my self control to let him pull me out into the hallway. It took even more when he spun on me, anger filling every inch of his face.

“What the hell was that?!” he snapped. I didn’t know why he bothered to pull me out of the room, everyone could clearly hear him. But my self control had hit it’s limit, and I was sick of him treating me like I was second class.

“What was what?!” I snapped back, and his face turned a really uncomfortable shade of purple.

“First, you take a knife from Sadler to mutilate your dress. And then you upset the entire party by taking over the music to show those ridiculous dance moves in front of all of my friends. Then you were completely inappropriate with that boy!” I took careful stock of everything he said, so I was ready when he finally paused to breath.

“I asked you for your’s and you treated me like a disobedient child. If anyone had ever bothered to ask me what I was comfortable wearing I wouldn’t have had to cut the dress. And for the record I think it looks better this way.

“And it wasn’t about the damn party, or dancing, it was about having fun with my friends. I was bored out of my mind in there, and everyone that joined me on the dance floor was too.

“And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t this stupid party supposed to be in honor of my birthday? Why I should I be miserable just because you want to keep some ridiculous image of how you think I should act. And you didn’t seem all that bothered by me dancing with Kevin on our date while you were busy grinding against that waitress. What’s wrong, afraid your friends will see that I’m a disobedient girlfriend?” I asked, I don’t think I had ever used so much sarcasm at one time in my life.

“Your friends?” he sneered down at me. “You wouldn’t even have those friends if you weren’t with me.” He was standing so close I could feel every angry puff of his breath.

“Let’s find out,” I put every ounce of venom I had buried inside me. “We’re done.” I tried to turn to walk back into the ballroom, but he grabbed my arm, forcefully spinning me back around.

“You don’t get to walk away from me! Eventually, you’ll learn your place. You don’t get to dump me!” I leveled my gaze down at his hand, gripping my arm so tight it was starting to hurt. Just like that my anger dissipated, leaving nothing but cold indifference.

“Let go of my arm, Asher,” my tone reflected my feelings. Cold, nothing. His