Chapter 42 – Tanner
FORTY-TWO
TANNER
I raise an eyebrow at Jenna as she squirms under my gaze, avoiding eye contact. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”
Jenna scratches her head and stammers out a denial, but her body language betrays her true feelings. I know she’s lying, and she knows that I know.
“Come on, Jenna,” I urge, using my most persuasive tone.
“Okay, fine! She guessed,” Jenna admits, unable to keep the secret any longer. It is no surprise to me—Jenna is terrible at keeping secrets. I was a little shocked she managed to hide the party-planning from Kat as long as she did.
We’ve been planning this day for weeks. Kat had been noticeably quiet about her birthday, and we knew we had to fix that. She deserves a great birthday, even if the devil incarnate insists on being home tonight. Like, seriously, why is it such a hard ask for you to stay at the Lambda house when you know your presence makes her uncomfortable?
Oh, right, it’s because you’re Elijah, and you are a self-centered, egotistical prick.
As if he can sense the tension in the room, Elijah saunters through the front door with a petite redhead on his arm. My stomach churns at the sight; seriously, what is wrong with this guy? In what world does it make sense to show up to your ex-girlfriend’s party—where it’s abundantly clear that no one wants you there—and bring another woman? It’s like he’s actively trying to ruin her birthday.
I clench my fists, fighting the urge to confront him and throttle him for even showing up here. It’s like he does this shit on purpose to hurt her, and I will not stand for it.
“Hey guys,” Elijah says with a confident grin on his face. Despite the clear instructions to wear a costume, he’s dressed in a simple red cable-knit sweater and dark jeans. It’s a stark contrast to the short redhead clinging to his bicep like it’s her lifeline, who is dressed in a tight, bright purple dress that barely covers her ass.
In any other situation, I wouldn’t even bat an eye at the display of skin and blatant disregard for the theme of the party. But this? This is Elijah being calculated. He’s always calculated, but this seems too far for even him.
I don’t even look at him before walking away. I can hear him scoff at my dismissal, but I really don’t give a fuck. I spent years pretending to like him for the sake of keeping face. But now, after all the shit he’s pulled with Kat, dude can get fucked.
Despite the clear awkwardness of the situation, Marcus appears at my side with his pirate hat and sword and a grin plastered on his lips. “Are you a…stripper?” he asks, inspecting my bare legs.
“ Reno 911! ” I reply flatly, too irritated to indulge anyone.
Attention soon shifts away from Elijah and the girl he brought the moment Kat descends the stairs. Jenna had said she had Kat’s costume covered and that it had something to do with Taylor Swift, but otherwise I know nothing. Now, as Kat reaches the bottom of the stairs, grinning from ear to ear, I’m confident Jenna made the exact right choice.
Kat is wearing a white T-shirt with block lettering spelling out the words “ NOT A LOT GOING ON AT THE MOMENT ” in all caps. Atop her head sits a black flat-brim hat, and covering her ass is a mouthwatering pair of tight black yoga-style shorts. Admittedly, the outfit doesn’t make a lick of sense, but judging by Jenna’s squeal of delight, I’m almost positive it’s a matter of me just not getting the reference.
Once Jenna is done fawning over Kat, she approaches me quietly. “Were you able to get the cake?” she whispers.
“Yeah, I picked it up a couple hours ago. It’s in the fridge.”
“Perfect. Go grab it and I’ll bring everyone into the kitchen.”
I do as Jenna tells me, drill sergeant that she is, and struggle to walk back to the kitchen in my horrible shorts.
Grabbing the crisp white box from the fridge, I lift the lid to inspect the cake for damage before closing it again. The amount of effort that went into acquiring the same cake Kat’s mom has been getting for her birthday since she was a kid far exceeded what I anticipated. Luckily, my mom was more than happy to assist me in getting it from Kat’s mom and driving halfway to Kent for me to pick it up.
Everyone begins filtering into the kitchen. As Kat walks into the room, she gasps, her eyes immediately drawn to the familiar cake box sitting on the table. Her fingers reach out and trace the smooth white cardboard, taking a moment to linger on the familiar logo as a small smile forms on her lips. With a gentle lift of the lid, she reveals a perfectly baked chocolate cake covered in rich chocolate frosting and embellished with delicate pink letters spelling out “ Happy Birthday Kat! ”
I don’t know what to expect, but it’s definitely not the tears glistening in her eyes. She stares down at the cake with an unreadable expression before she looks up. “Who did this?” Her voice is steady, but her hands tremble as she waits for an answer.
Shit .
Her eyes linger on Jenna, who shakes her head in response, then her gaze lands on me.
I frown and sigh. “I’m sorry. I just—I remembered you saying how much you missed the cake that Rodrigo from Pip’s would make for your birthday every year when you were a kid. So I got ahold of your mom and my mom went to go get it.”
Tears begin streaming down her cheeks and I instantly curl in on myself. How the hell could I have fucked this up so colossally?
“Kat, I’m so sorry. I just thought?—”
Before I can finish apologizing, she lunges into my arms, squeezing me tightly with her arms around my neck. The familiar scent of her body wash—the delicious scent of toasted coconut I’ve grown to love—invades my senses as I tighten my arms around her waist.
“Thank you,” Kat whispers, and I breathe a sigh of relief. We stay like that for a few seconds before she loosens her grip and I hesitantly release my hold on her.
“Seriously, guys, thank you for all of this.” Her voice is significantly steadier as she looks to her best friend, who is beaming with pride.
However, I’m momentarily distracted by the scowl directed at me from the back of the room. The girl Elijah brought tries and fails to garner his attention, but it’s no use—he’s entirely focused on me.
The old Tanner would have shrugged it off, made a joke to lighten the growing tension between us. Hell, that’s what I’ve always done when it comes to this unspoken issue between Elijah and me. Not now, though—not now that she’s finally away from that sleazeball. He doesn’t deserve my diversion. Instead of lightening the tension, I lift a brow at him, which causes him to clear his throat and look at the redhead he brought.
Yeah, it would probably do you some good to pay attention to your date, you fucking prick.
Kat moves to grab a knife out of the drawer to start cutting the cake when Jenna smacks her hand. “We need to take a picture!” she says. “Gather around the counter. We’re going to take a picture!”
Everyone does as Jenna says, even Elijah—but when the mystery girl he brought moves to join, Jenna hands her her phone. “Can you take this?”
The girl nods awkwardly as she steps backward.
After four different tries, we finally take a photo of which Jenna approves, at which point I am elated, because it means I can finally take off these shorts that have my balls in a vise-like grip.
As I step back into the living room, I let out an irritated sigh. Music blares from speakers while people sway and dance in various corners of the room. My eyes scan the crowd, trying to find familiar faces among the sea of strangers. Jenna and I had agreed that it would just be our friends and those who live here, but it’s clear that word of our party has spread far beyond that. There must be close to fifty people packed into our house, spilling drinks and laughing loudly. My stomach drops as I realize this is not what we planned for at all.
“What the hell?” I ask Jenna.
She pins me with a glare. “I didn’t do it, ya dick. I don’t know who did, but I’d bet someone posted about it and people just assumed it was a free-for-all.”
Great—just fucking great.
Within a couple hours, most everyone is hammered, and I find myself silently regretting following Kat’s lead in only lightly drinking. She’s had two spiked seltzers and has been nursing a third for close to an hour. It is almost guaranteed to be warm.
“Are you having fun?” I ask when I find her alone in the kitchen, picking at a piece of cake from earlier. Seeing her hiding away from it all causes a pang of pain in my chest.
She nearly jumps out of her skin, then realizes it is me and lets out a sigh of relief, which I appreciate more than I would like to admit. “Yeah, the party is great.”
As the only other sober person here, I’m far more aware of her inflections than even Jenna at this point. Without giving it much thought, I step up behind her at the counter and gently place my hand on her lower back. Her breathing quickens as I softly trace my nails up the outside of her thigh, causing a visible shiver to run through her body. A faint smile tugs at the corners of her mouth as she leans into my touch.
“Are you sure you’re enjoying the party?” I whisper against the shell of her ear. As I slide my hand up from her thigh to rest on her stomach under her cotton T-shirt, she shivers against me, melting into my touch .
“It’s okay.” She gasps as my fingertips trace the waistband of her skin-tight shorts. “A lot more people than I’d prefer, but it’s fine.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t the plan. I think Brendan posted it on Twitter.”
“Makes sense.”
“We could always go upstairs,” I suggest, my lips grazing the sensitive spot just below her earlobe.
Kat’s eyes flutter closed and she bites her lip, considering my suggestion.
“Well, isn’t that just adorable.” The smarmy voice that carries from the doorway causes my skin to crawl and I know without looking up exactly who found us alone in the kitchen.
I feel Kat tense against me.
“It’s none of your business, Elijah,” I say without looking at him. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, I refuse to pull away from her.
Elijah made his choices—some shitty ones, at that. Kat has made it crystal clear since this semester started that she isn’t interested, but he hasn’t seemed to catch the hint.
“The fuck it’s not,” Elijah spits with vitriol as he strides into the kitchen.
I look up—his date is nowhere in sight, but Marcus and Jenna suddenly appear in the doorway.
Elijah sways slightly on his feet, just in an undershirt now. The smell of alcohol wafts off of him as he slurs out a string of curses. “So that’s why you won’t talk to me then, huh? I mean, I figured you’d fuck someone else eventually after how pathetic you were, but Tanner?” He laughs mockingly.
“Elijah, that’s enough,” Marcus says in a low voice, but as Elijah steps further into the room, it becomes clear there is no calming him down.
Lucky for me, I don’t give two shits about the trust fund baby’s feelings. I release my hold on Kat and walk around the counter to face him. “Where’s your date? Or did she come to her senses too?”
Elijah lets out a big, bellowing laugh, but judging from the look on his face, he is anything but amused. “Come to her senses? Please. I’m Elijah fucking Hanas. And who the fuck are you? Oh, right. Some scholarship nobody whose parents had to take out student loans to get you into a state school .”
It’s not the first time he’s made comments alluding to the fact that he feels he’s better than me because my parents are upper middle class and his dad is the great Governor Hanas . The part he fails to consider, though, is that there are few opinions in this world I care about less than his.
“Guys.” Marcus tries again to put a stop to things before it gets out of hand, but Elijah doesn’t back down and I’m sure as hell not giving him what he expects—for me to bow down to him.
I don’t pay him any mind; that’s how little his words matter.
Except he keeps going. “Sounds like my parents were right after all, though, right, Kat?” His lips curl up into a smirk. “Just another whore from Dublin like your mom. I’m sure you’ll spend your life working at the same sad little diner. It’s pathetic.”
There are a lot of things Elijah Hanas has said over the years in an attempt to get under my skin, most of which I never batted an eye at. However, hearing him call her a whore has me seeing red. My feet start moving of their own volition .
Elijah’s head snaps to the side as a tightly clenched fist collides with his jaw with a loud crack.
It takes me only two seconds to process that the punch I was planning on landing never happened because someone else beat me to it.
Jenna now stands hunched over with blood streaming from her balled fist. A whine breaks past her lips.
It all moves rather quickly after that. I rush over to Kat, who appears to be in shock, her mouth hanging open as she stares at the man who’s hurt her so many times.
“Go upstairs.”
I expect her to fight me on it, to say she doesn’t need coddling, but she just nods and does as I ordered.
“What the fuck!” Elijah yells before splitting blood onto the kitchen floor. “Marcus, your bitch just?—”
“Get the fuck out!” Marcus, who I have never seen yell—ever—gets in Elijah’s face and shouts, “Get the fuck out of this house. I want your shit out before the end of the weekend, but for tonight, leave !”
“You can’t kick me out. I’m on the lease.”
“And I know enough about you to tank your dad’s campaign for reelection. You want to play chicken? Because I promise you, tough guy, you’ll lose . You and I will talk tomorrow, but right now you need to go.”
Elijah either realizes Marcus is right or simply decides this isn’t a battle worth fighting. Either way, within seconds he’s out the front door without even looking for the girl who came with him.