Blame it on the Tequila by Fiona Cole (reader novel txt) 📗

pity? Not a single one had me wanting to figure out what was going on. The guys sat around the table, all pushing food around their plates, looking like someone kicked their puppy. Ash’s eyes popped up to mine, and despite the dread creeping its fingers around my neck, heat from last night clashed with it, bleeding into my cheeks.

He smiled, but it wasn’t his usual smirk—no, this one almost held an apology.

Sensing the abyss waiting for me, the first drop of adrenaline kicked in, and I stepped back, only to collide with Parker.

“Hey, Aspen.” His rough morning voice that had woken me moments ago, filling me with warmth and so much love I’d burst, now stood like a wall blocking my escape. I wanted to turn to him and beg him to run and hide with me—nothing good waited for us out here. “What are you doing here so early? We still have a couple hours until practice.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? We could have prepared,” she jumped right in.

“Told you what?” he asked.

“That you two are fucking. I knew you had a thing between you, but I didn’t realize this much.”

“We’re not just fucking,” he argued.

She didn’t even acknowledge what he said because the fact that we were fucking was the least of her concerns. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me the full story about what happened to her before I pulled her on board like a PR nightmare,” she snapped, pointing at me.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“They know,” Ash cut in, his voice weighted and tired. His muscular arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back in the seat, staring at his full plate of food. Slowly, his gaze lifted to mine, and he explained the apology I noticed earlier that had nothing to do with last night. “A photographer got a photo of Nova last night coming out from you guys’ date. It was a head-on photo, so they were able to dig deeper into the hippie-redhead that Parker switched model-Sonia for.”

“Fuck,” Parker muttered.

“No,” I breathed.

I stood on the edge of the platform, eyes squeezed tight. My flight response told me to bolt, run, hide. My fight told me to open my eyes and look. Knowing it would only make things worse, I stormed over to the table and snatched the computer Aspen had open, clicking through the tabs. One after the other, the depth of the fall loomed in front of me, growing with each picture of me smiling at the photographer before climbing in the back of the SUV last night right next to one of me leaving the hospital almost six years ago with broken posture and hollow eyes.

Parker Callahan, from The Haunted Obsession, Caught with His New Love Interest: The Last Victim of the Serial Killer, The Backstage Slicer.

Leaving the five-star restaurant, Kovoks, Parker was spotted climbing into the back of an SUV. Before this mysterious redhead climbed in with him, she posed for a photo, appearing to be none other than Nova Hearst. Sound familiar? It should. Her case made headlines as she was the last victim, and only one to survive, in the clutches of the notorious serial killer, Hank Dalton, also known as the Backstage Slicer. He was known to capture his victims at concert venues and keep them for prolonged periods, only to leave them out in the open months later with their throats cut and hundreds of incisions at varying stages of healing, leading investigators to believe he sliced into his victims each day.

A horrid fate Ms. Hearst was lucky to escape from when Mr. Dalton died in a car accident the very next day after taking her.

It looks like Hearst’s luck didn’t run out just yet as she’s nabbed the attention of the lead singer and guitarist of Grammy-nominated band, The Haunted Obsession. After his recent split with long-time girlfriend, Sonia Caravin, it’s hard not to compare the two, especially with so many similarities. I guess it’s obvious Parker has a thing for redheads.

The article went on, but I’d read enough.

I should have kept my eyes closed. I should have turned back.

All of a sudden, every light I’d avoided for years shined brighter than ever, leaving me nowhere to hide. Everyone who wanted to would be able to stare and gawk and wonder and constantly ask questions, poking and prodding at my past—a past I desperately fought to move past—to not talk about. But the population had a sick fantasy with gore—fear mongers wanting to be a part of your terror to validate their fears. Because the knowledge that things happened wasn’t enough—they wanted it to be theirs too.

I knew the victim of the Backstage Slicer. We were so close it was like it was my experience too.

I hated it. I hated talking about it.

I knew I couldn’t hide forever. I never wanted to. I never wanted it to dictate my future. Each step I worked towards being better and the steps over the last month to show my face—to show the real—had all been calculated so I could control how it came out.

Now, it slipped from my fingers in a chaos I had no hope of controlling.

This was it.

I stared down at the abyss, fully strapped into my gear, my muscles coiled tight. All I needed to do was let go of the bar and fall, having faith that the panic-filled vision of me crashing into the ground wasn’t real and the bungee cord would hold me.

This was it.

I looked over my shoulder, taking Parker in. His hair rumpled from where I ran my fingers through it this morning when we still lazed naked in bed. His defined shoulders and biceps decorated with bits of ink that I’d traced with my tongue. The blue eyes I loved to watch darken with pleasure. But there was no pleasure now. His lips pulled down. His brows scrunched with frustration.

This was it.

I told him I could do this—that I wanted this.

I