Solstice by Lisa Sorbe

Author:Lisa Sorbe [Sorbe, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lisa Sorbe
Published: 2024-03-06T18:30:00+00:00

TWENTY-EIGHT

PAIGE

There’s a storm coming.

I can feel it in the air, thick and heavy like a weighted blanket. Superior is pitching her waves like the lash of a whip, and the sound of the water crashing into the shore almost drowns out the music blaring from the speakers stacked in the bed of an old Chevy truck.

“Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard is a rumble in the background, the lyrics barely audible over the lake’s wild roar, and it makes me think of Alexis.

Because almost everything makes me think of Alexis.

I’ve shouldered her burdens along with mine for years, took responsibility for her very survival, and in all the time we’ve been together, rarely have I made a decision without thinking about how it would affect her first.

This isn’t to say that I’ve always made the best decisions when it comes to our relationship. The summer after high school is proof of that. But I think about her, I always think about her, and isn’t that what friendship is? Isn’t that what friends do? Doesn’t that count for something?

She hasn’t been home in days. Not since our fight a week ago, when I said things I shouldn’t have, and she slapped me—hard—for it.

I’m a nervous wreck.

“Free booze all night. Doesn’t get any better than this.”

I look up to find Nikki, her outline glowing orange from the bonfire behind her, and force a smile. She hands me a plastic cup full of whatever the keg’s pumping and flops down in the folding chair next to mine. The aluminum whines under her meager weight as she shifts in the seat. “Thanks,” I say, taking a sip.

“You’re welcome, m’dear,” she says before tipping her own cup back and taking a long swig.

We’ve been here for a little over an hour, and the beer is going down easier now than when we first arrived, toting several to-go bags that Blake special ordered from The Lucky Buck. After dishing everything up on a long picnic table next to the lake, we were invited to stay—a privilege not often granted to those outside of the club. Nikki accepted the offer eagerly. And since she was my ride, I accepted by the offer by default.

But now, sitting here with a drink in my hand and watching the party play out, I’m glad I stayed. This respite in my otherwise nose-to-the-grindstone schedule is a welcome distraction from…hell…my entire life.

Plus, being here, snug on the outskirts of a Sinners’ party, beyond reach of the bonfire and cloaked by the dark, I get to watch Blake Soren all I want.

I watch him mingle with his flock, taking drinks from his cup as he moves through the crowd, smooth and easy and dominant in every sense of the word. His presence is king; it’s in the way he walks, the way others look at him as he passes. Even those he deigns to speak with are reverent, their attention focused as if they don’t dare miss one word that falls from his lips.

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