The Anti-Hero (The Goode Brothers, #1)(61)

“Very funny.”

“I’m serious. Let’s go rub our relationship in his face. We can even record a video in there.”

He makes it sound so simple, as if Brett wouldn’t throw the biggest fit in the world, acting as if he is somehow the victim here. And how I’d somehow fall for it.

“No, we shouldn’t,” I reply.

“Why not?”

“First of all, recording in the club is incredibly unethical.

And second of all, I have no desire to see my ex or rub anything in his face. I’m moving on.”

Even I can hear how unconvincing I sound.

“Come on now. You said you wanted revenge on him and that it was part of the deal. Besides, if we want to fuck up his relationship with my father, I think us showing off ours is a big part of that.”

Letting out a long, annoyed-sounding sigh, I lean back in the seat. “Fine.”

He shoots me a wicked-looking wink from the other side of the booth, and I hide my own smile behind my coffee cup.

As he continues to talk, going on and on about how well this new video is performing, I let my eyes take in the sight of him.

Adam has changed a lot in the last two months since I met him. His clothes are grungier, his posture is more relaxed, and his demeanor is softer. Like he’s becoming more himself, or maybe I’m just rubbing off on him now.

Either way, he’s changing.

And it’s like the worse he behaves, the better he gets.





Twenty-Six

Adam

S age’s hand feels so small in mine as we walk across the parking lot toward the club, her heels clicking on the pavement. I have a bit of déjà vu, remembering what it felt like pulling up to this place for the first time.

It still feels as strange and as foreign now as it did then, only this time, I’m not alone.

“We’re just going to go in and let him see us together, and then we’re leaving,” I say to comfort Sage. Her usual confident and headstrong demeanor is changing with every step closer to the building. It’s like she’s shrinking before my very eyes.

The girl at the hostess stand waves her right through without making either of us pay or check in our phones like she did to me on the first night. So either this girl is her friend, or word doesn’t travel very fast in sex clubs.

As soon as we enter the main room of the club, we both pause near the outskirts of the dense crowd and look around for a familiar douchebag with blond hair. When there’s no sign of him and we start growing uncomfortable, I tug her toward the bar.

I have to squeeze through bodies just to get close enough to get the busy bartender’s attention.

A strange tingle travels up my spine while I wait for our drinks, and it’s the indistinguishable feeling of being watched.

Subtly I glance around the room, looking for a camera or a pair of watching eyes, and what I find is far more than a pair.

Damn near every set of eyes in this place is either glancing at Sage and me or rudely gawking at us.

Sage must feel it too, because she squeezes my hand.

“What is going on?” she whispers.

Just as I turn to answer her and suggest we get the fuck out of here, a girl from across the bar leans forward on the surface

and points directly at us. “Oh my god, it’s you!”

Jesus Christ.

Now, literally everyone is looking at us, some with confusion and some with recognition. So she continues hollering through the noisy club.

“You’re that hot couple from FanVids!”

A collective gasp of awe fills the room as throngs of people turn toward us. Sage and I are suddenly bombarded with requests for photos and autographs, which we both do our best to politely decline. I don’t like the way the men are looking at her, hovering too close, so I put her body between mine and the bar.

Someone hands us drinks, and when I notice Sage lifting the straw to her lips, I nearly smack it out of her hands.

“Don’t drink that.” I tear it away and set it on the bar, giving her a stern glare.

When I hear more than one person asking to watch us, I lose my patience. I grab her hand, ready to make our way out of the club. But just then, a woman with wavy red hair and a face full of makeup steps up close to us and calmly directs us to follow her, and for some reason, I listen.

I let the beautiful girl pull us out of the crowd, across the dance floor and straight into the same VIP room where my father and his goons beat the ever-loving shit out of me two months ago.

As soon as the sign on the door comes into view, my heels dig into the tiles and I stop the woman from pulling us in there. She turns back toward me with sympathy on her face.

“Relax,” she says with a smile, “your dad’s not here tonight.”

My body relaxes as I let her drag me the rest of the way.

As we enter the VIP room, I notice that it’s far calmer in here than the last time I came barreling through these doors. I keep my eyes forward as I follow the redhead to the bar.

I glance back at Sage, who gives me a quick shrug, which I take to mean she doesn’t know this woman. There’s no sign of

Brett either, which grates on my nerves. We’re here to ruffle his feathers and he’s not here to let us do that, so the only one with ruffled feathers is me.

“I bet you two didn’t expect that,” the girl says with a smile. She’s a bit taller than Sage, with round curves and her cleavage spilling from her thin dress. As her eyes travel the length of my body, down and then up, I pull Peaches even closer to my side.