To a Hot Night

Beneath the unsteadily flickering outdoor light, two cigarette tips glowed. The men who had been snickering through their conversation glanced at Zena and gave her a nod.

"Go in that way."

One of them pointed toward the back of the building with the end of his cigarette. She went through the side gate into the backyard and found a stairwell dropping to a basement door.

The instant she came down the steps and opened it, a beat several times more violent than anything she'd heard outside slammed into her face. It was so loud she thought her soul might shake loose.

"What are you still doing in there? Hurry up! You cleaning the bathroom by yourself?"

A man standing near the entrance pounded on another door, barking at whoever was inside. Four or five people were already waiting their turn outside the bathroom. She had vaguely assumed only a handful of acquaintances would be here. Apparently she'd been wrong.

Zena looked around and moved farther in. Popcorn and cracker crumbs crunched under every step. The narrow hall was packed with strangers, and there was hardly an empty patch of floor to be found on the stairs, in the living room, or in any corner.

"Zena! You came!"

Luke appeared from somewhere and greeted her with a hand on her shoulder. His eyes dropped to the small flowerpot in her hand.

"You brought that for me?"

He flicked the cigarette between his fingers toward the dainty little bud.

"Yeah."

"Thanks. I'll put it in the bedroom. This place is a wreck right now."

Pot tucked under one arm, his other arm around her shoulders, Luke steered her into the living room.

"Hey, this is Zena. We work together. Everybody say hi. These are my roommates and their friends."

A few men and women, arms and shoulders sleeved in vivid tattoos, nodded at her.

Crushed beer cans and empty bottles rolled across the table and the floor. Slices of cold pizza jutted from boxes whose lids hung half open. Half-dead cigarette butts sent up endless threads of smoke, climbing into the dim light of the lamps.

"Want a beer? There's vodka too."

"Huh? A beer..."

Liquor stood in a careless row along the kitchen counter, and through the middle of the living room mismatched tables—borrowed from somewhere, by the look of them—had been lined up end to end.

Zena picked her way carefully over and sat in a folding chair in the corner. Luke came back with two cans from the fridge and dropped down beside her. The flowerpot was gone; he must have left it in the bedroom.

"We hardly ever get to see each other like this. We're going all night, right?"

He looked genuinely thrilled that she had come. She didn't want to kill the mood the second she walked in, but she had a shift tomorrow and couldn't stay long. Uneasy, she glanced at the clock on the wall and tried to work out how long she ought to remain.

An hour or two of sitting around, then leave—that should be enough. The place was so crowded that if she slipped out at the right moment, no one would even notice. Oblivious to that calculation, Luke handed her a half-frozen can straight from the freezer.

"Here. To a hot night. Cheers!"

Zena took the can he offered and looked around.

"Emily and Shannon aren't coming?"

He had said the other waitresses from work would be here, but she didn't see them. A familiar face would have been better than sitting stranded among strangers, and their absence left her at a loss. Luke's eyes drifted for a second, then he let out an ah, as if it had just come back to him.

"Emily suddenly had plans with her boyfriend, and Shannon said she wasn't feeling well, so she couldn't make it."

"I see."

Zena turned the can in her hands, then popped the tab with a click. As she brought it to her lips, the corner of Luke's mouth lifted, smooth and easy.

"You said you had something to take care of. Did it go all right? I was surprised when you said you'd come."

"Huh? Yeah."

Embarrassed, she gave a small cough and took a sip. Sharp bubbles tickled their way down her throat.

Once the alcohol was in her, her thoughts drifted of their own accord toward the source of her stress.

Liam Carlson. The man was a monster, plain and simple. She knew well enough that humanity and social success were separate things. Liam Carlson stood where society respected him, but he was the dangerous kind who felt no shame at all over his lack of morals.

What was he after, trying to fasten a sugar baby onto his own partner—a man who already had a fiancée? His feelings toward Dane Hunter didn't seem malicious, but she couldn't be entirely sure of that either.

What do you expect to accomplish in life with neither guts nor stubbornness? If you can't do it, just open that door and walk out. I won't stop you.

Anyone you have to protect is nothing but an Achilles' heel. When anyone in the world becomes a weakness, the wise thing is to throw them away. Don't you think?

The words Liam Carlson had left her with flickered at her ear. The bitter taste circling her mouth made Zena grimace before she could stop herself.

He might be right, at that.

She couldn't take responsibility for the whole of what remained of Ryan's life. Even if she put out the fire sitting in front of her now, nothing might change in the long run. Even so, if she turned her back on the situation Ryan was in, she didn't think she could ever wash off the guilt branded into her body.

Dane Hunter's face—the one she had run into in the lobby—tangled her thoughts as well. There had been no reason to react so sharply, and yet her pride, of all things, had flared, and she had been rude.

Like Liam Carlson, he stood where wealth and status let him have whatever he wanted, but Dane Hunter was different somehow. Partners and close friends, the two men set her nerves on edge in starkly different ways.

Your hand.

The memory of that gaze driving, dead serious, into her face made the nape of her neck go suddenly hot.

If it can't be done, it can't be done.

No matter what anyone said, seducing a man who had a fiancée was out of the question. However desperately she wanted to help Ryan, there was a line she could not cross. So the plan to save him was already as good as gone.

She let out a long breath and tipped the can. In that same instant she felt a strange current right behind her. Zena flinched and turned her head.

"You work with Luke?"

The housemates who had been clustered in a corner, tipping back beer bottles, had come over at some point and were looking down at her. Wrapped in bright tattoos and piercings, they gave off a vaguely threatening air even when they smiled.

"Yeah. About eight months, I think."

"Luke hasn't been hitting on you? A guy like him isn't going to just look at a pretty friend and leave her alone."

"Fuck, shut up. Cut it out."

Luke, listening beside her, cut in and shut them down.

"No, it's not like that. Luke's so kind. He's sweet."

The music had been cranked until it thudded, so the talk went back and forth as if they were shouting. In the noise that stuffed her ears, there were countless things she didn't catch and simply laughed past. She talked with them and drank about two cans. Her stomach warmed enough that her mood lifted a little.

If she woke up hungover tomorrow, that would be a problem. Zena pulled her phone from her bag and checked the time.

Just past nine—not what anyone would call late. But people were already staggering from a party that had started in the early evening. By two or three in the morning, when a night of drinking usually broke up, everyone would obviously be zombies.

"Another one?"

Luke flicked a glance at the empty can in her hand.

"No. I don't think I should drink any more. I should get going."

She quietly closed her hand around her bag and started to rise. Luke seized her wrist and yanked her back down.

"It's the weekend tomorrow. Why are you already making a fuss about leaving?"

"I have a shift in the afternoon."

At her answer Luke let out a long breath and scowled, plainly displeased.

"On the weekend you should rest like everybody else. Why are you working so many jobs? What are you even doing with the money?"

Maybe it was the drink. His hardened face made him look like someone else.

"Luke, are you really drunk?"

Zena tilted her head and studied his expression.

People kept pouring him shots and pressing them into his hand, so he looked fairly gone. The change in his alcohol-soaked face was obvious. As the liquor climbed he raked a hand through his hair and messed it up, then turned eyes reddened with drink on her.

"I'm quitting Tori's."

"Yeah? Why all of a sudden?"

"I only meant to do it for a month or two, but I ended up staying longer than I thought. Someone I know is opening a tattoo shop and asked me to help out. The pay's not bad, and it suits me. No reason to turn it down."

Zena's lips parted on a soft ah, and she nodded as if that made sense.

"Right. You said you used to do tattoo work. So did you tell the manager you're quitting?"

"Yeah."

"It's good news, doing work that fits you. I'll miss you, though."

"You mean that?"

His mood had turned suddenly serious, and Zena's face went stiff as well.

"...What?"

"You're going to miss me if I quit?"

Luke drew the corner of his mouth up over his flushed cheek.

"Of course. What kind of question is that?"

"Then you, Zena."

In the noise of the loud party, a silence passed between just the two of them. Luke watched her through narrowed eyes, then opened his mouth.

"Want to go out with me?"

At his words Zena's eyes went round.

"I've been interested in you since the first time I saw you. I don't think you noticed."

She couldn't find an answer, and for a moment the quiet held.

"Luke, you're drunk, right? Stop drinking. Keep this up and you'll be kicking the blankets tomorrow."

To get out of the awkward conversation, she turned it into a joke. Luke stared at her and wrinkled the brow that held a piercing.

"I'm serious. Why are you talking like that?"

Displeasure edged his voice.

Zena's gaze dropped to the empty can in her hand, then came back. Her mouth felt dry at having to refuse him, but there was no help for it.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not in a place to be seeing anyone right now."

It was a poor excuse, but it wasn't a lie. Since she and Ryan had broken up, she hadn't had the nerve to meet a man.

With Ryan's wings broken, could she really meet someone again and love them? She could say with absolute certainty that the answer was no. Unless she could turn the past back and change everything, that answer would not change.

"So you're saying you don't care if we never see each other again."

Luke put on an ambiguous smile.

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what?"

She had denied it, but it was true she had no room to invest much meaning in relationships, or to look after the people around her. More than that, she had grown close to Luke as a coworker. Not as a man.

Zena, who had been fidgeting with the surface of the empty can, opened her mouth a moment later.

"Luke, I think of you as a good friend."

The voice was gentle, but the meaning inside it was plain. In the loud music, a brief stillness passed.

"Yeah. All right."

Contrary to her expectation that he would be hurt, Luke got up with a calm face. Heading for the kitchen with an empty glass, he turned his head.

"You're really not drinking any more? If you refuse even drinking with me, I'll actually be disappointed."

On weekend afternoons she had to go to her building-cleaning job. It was simple physical labor—sweep, wipe, empty, fill—but there were so few people on the crew that she was usually wrung out once the work was done, so she needed to rest the day before.

Zena checked the time again. It wasn't that late yet. Staying a little longer shouldn't be a problem.

"All right. Just one drink, then."

"Two."

"No, Luke."

"Then one and a half."

Watching him insist, Zena laughed in disbelief.

"Fine."

"Okay. One beer and one shot ought to do it, right?"

With no choice left, Zena nodded. After Luke disappeared she sighed and slowly looked around.

Vodka filled the large glass a woman was holding. When she brought it to her lips, whistles and cheers burst out around her. A game penalty, by the look of it.

Drink like that and something really bad was going to happen. Everyone was pouring liquor down as if there were no tomorrow. Uneasy, Zena looked in the direction Luke had gone. Why wasn't he coming back?

She could pretend she was heading for the bathroom and slip out, but she didn't want to leave hurt feelings with Luke when he was about to quit.

A moment later he returned with a shot glass of sloshing blue liquid and a bottle of beer.

"What's this?"

Zena brought the glass he had handed her to the tip of her nose, sniffed, and studied it. Meeting her curious eyes, Luke smiled.

"Try it. You'll like it. I know you will."