“Yeah.” She folded up into a corner of the couch and a few minutes later he came out bearing two heaped plates, two bottles of orange juice tucked under his arm.
“Chef Shep,” she said, instead ofthank you.
He said, “Drink the juice. You need the sugar.”
The juice was very cold, and very welcome, and a few sips spurred her appetite. She crunched her bacon and said, “I really didn’t get wasted. I only had three sips.”
He nodded and swallowed a mouthful of eggs. “I know. Somebody drugged you.”
She froze with the piece of bacon halfway to her mouth. “I…what?”
With his head tipped down over his plate, he glanced up through his lashes. It was a look he’d probably given every man he’d ever decked—it had that energy—but she read it ascome on. “All the club parties you’ve been to, you’re gonna tell me there was fruit punch in all the cups I’ve seen you drinking out of? Your alcohol tolerance isn’t that shitty.”
She blushed, but lifted her nose to a superior angle. “I’m underage.”
“Uh-huh. Right. So three sips of weakass college kid vodka and you’re lights out? Someone dosed you.”
He was right, of course. A part of her had known it last night, while she was swimming inside her own head on the sidewalk. She’d known she was far too affected for the amount she’d drunk, and he was also right about the punch: ithad beenweakass. Vodka cut with water so it barely burned.
She didn’t want that to be true, though. “No, they’re my—”
“Friends?” He snorted. “No, they’re not.”
She sighed. “I wanted them to be.”
“Well, they’re not, so fuck ‘em,” he said, a sharp edge undercutting the dismissive words. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and he stabbed the next forkful of eggs hard enough the fork tines skidded over the plate.
Oh. He was angry. He was furious.
But not at her, she didn’t get the sense.
The knowledge kindled a small, warm fire in her belly.
“Sig and his friends are all NYU legacies,” she said. “They’ve all had gallery shows. They’re, like, a big deal.”
“They’re big assholes,” he shot back. “What were you doing there? That was a house for rich pricks.”
She grinned. “Youhaveseen where my sister lives, yes?” After things with Abacus settled down, Raven had decided to sell the flat she’d picked out herself, and she and Toly moved permanently into the safe house flat Ian had put them in, the building that looked like the one fromGhostbusters.
Shep scowled and waved a dismissive hand. “I saw that kid trying to push a drink on you last night. I know his type. All the money in the world and they still act like fucking creeps.”
Cass’s opinion of Sig was rapidly swirling down the toilet, but seeing Shep riled up about him was fascinating. “It was water.”
“Laced with what?” His brows went up, lines stacking up on his forehead, mouth turned down sharply.
“I don’t know. It smelled like water.”
“You were smellingcolorsat that point, you couldn’t tell shit.”
“What do you think was in the punch?” she asked, changing tack.
He shrugged and went back to his food. “Rohypnol. Special K, maybe. Shit, maybe Oxy. It was a depressant, whatever it was.”
He shot her an assessing look. “How’s the head?”
“Pounding.”
“Vision?”
