Just My Luck by Adele Parks (best romance books of all time txt) 📗

the dance tent. I only realize how long I’ve been searching when I notice that the music has stopped. The DJ has packed away, is probably back on the motorway by now. The dance floor looks like a crime scene, pocked with spilled drinks and shards of crushed plastic glasses. The colors from the party popper streamers have bled into the puddles caused by wet and muddy footprints. With the lights up, the scene that had seemed thrilling just a short time ago now has the dank, grubby quality of a public toilet. No one is tidying up. The staff are too exhausted to bother to paint on smiles when they see me. They sag and slouch, suppress yawns and reach their arms into coat sleeves, no doubt very glad of the decision we made to clean up tomorrow in daylight. The guests have thinned out to a few stragglers. Jake is still deep in conversation with one of them. I don’t recognize whoever it is he’s talking to. I spot Logan, asleep I think. He is slouched on a tall stool, his head resting on the bar. “I can’t find her,” I yell. “Jake, Jake, we need to get security. We need to call the police. I can’t find her.”

Of course, this draws everyone’s attention. The staff immediately swap their exhausted demeanors for ones of alertness, curiosity or panic. The laggard guests fight through their drunkenness and stare at me with confusion and the sort of ghoulish interest rubbernecks give car accidents. Jake walks swiftly toward me. He moves me away from the fray by placing a determined hand on the base of my spine. In the past this gesture has felt tender and territorial—now I feel the manipulation. His first priority seems to be avoiding causing a scene. Avoiding anyone else becoming upset or alarmed. Anyone other than me, that is. I don’t give a damn. All I want to know is where Emily is.

“I’ve looked everywhere for her. No sign.”

“She’ll turn up.” He smiles. If he’s trying to be reassuring, I just find him arrogant and annoying.

“When?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“It’s obviously not.”

We are talking in splintered sentences that stutter out like gunfire: abrupt, deadly. Jake takes a deep breath. Waves goodbye to the last few guests, tells the staff they can go. Why is he letting people slip away? We need these people to help us search for her. I feel drained and powerless, a flat, sputtering battery because I don’t throw out contradicting instructions. I let him have his way. “You know what, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. I bet our first guess was right. I bet she’s with Ridley.”

I want this to be true. I wouldn’t care. I really wouldn’t. Him or any boy. The rich, pompous ones who arrived with vodka and attitudes, or the scruffy, meaty ones who arrived with bad haircuts and acne. Right now, I’m desperate for it to be this level of deceit. Praying for it. “Have you seen Ridley?” I demand of no one in particular, but the entire room.

“Someone asking for me?” I turn, and there he is, head hung, looking for all the world as though he wants to vanish rather than be brought into the limelight. I pounce on him.

“Have you seen Emily?” He shakes his head slowly.

“Not at all? Not all evening?”

“Well, a bit. Earlier.” He’s clearly reluctant.

“When? What time?” His eyes are glassy and red. Drink, drugs, tears? I don’t really care. I just want him to answer my questions.

“About eight.” Over five hours ago. My heart sinks.

“What’s going on?” asks Jennifer. I’d been so intent on interrogating Ridley, it’s only now that I notice he is flanked by his mother and father. He looks protected, defended. My daughter is absent, Jake’s and my inadequacies bite. And although I hate Jennifer, loathe her with a base, visceral certainty, at this moment I just remember that she’s known Emily since she was a baby. Thoughts clash about my head, pleading for attention. Jennifer once drove us at breakneck speed to the hospital because Emily had fallen out of a tree that she, Ridley and Megan had been climbing. Jennifer makes separate gravy for Emily because Emily is veggie; so few people bother to do that. She has always sewn the name tags onto Emily’s and Logan’s school uniforms for me, because she has a sewing machine and it takes minutes, whereas hand sewing swallows hours. She has driven to my house with medicine because my kids were running fevers, Jake was away and I was housebound. She’s plunked a sunhat on my daughter’s head when she’s spotted her running in the garden unprotected. She taught Emily to sail. Jennifer might have fucked my husband, but right now I don’t care. All I care about is finding Emily, and I think that will happen sooner if the people who love her are galvanized. So I tell her, “Emily is missing.” I see Jennifer’s face crumple in horror. I feel vindicated that she sees the agony as I do.

“Has someone taken her?” she asks.

I gasp. A new horror. “You think that’s possible?” I had not thought of that. My fears just ran to alcohol and accidents.

“Well, you are so wealthy now. She might have been kidnapped.” My knees start to shake, and I stagger. Someone lowers me into a chair. I let them.

“I’m guessing she’s just passed out somewhere,” adds Jake. I see Jennifer’s face change, suddenly relieved.

“Well, that would be better,” adds Fred.

I know it would. A teen in turmoil, a teen in a sulk, a teen drunk and lawless is infinitely preferable to a teen who’s been kidnapped and held for ransom, but I suddenly feel a deep despair crawl through my being and I’m certain Jake is wrong.

“Yes, that will be it,” says Jennifer. “I noticed she was drinking earlier on tonight. I’m sure it’s nothing serious at all.” I hate Jennifer for instantly siding with Jake, for instantly accepting his version of events