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Fucking typical.
“Trashcan girl is back, and I see that not much has changed,” a laughing female voice told my bent back.
The old nickname was familiar and despised, and epitomized everything I hated about this place.
I straightened with my lipstick in hand to face a small group of snickering women. There were three of them, all girls from high school that I recognized instantly as being part of the mean girl pack that had done their best to terrorize me back when I’d been a stuttering mess.
I was not a stuttering mess now.
“I see the bitches still travel in packs around here. And by the way, guests aren’t even supposed to come into this part of the house.” I told their leader, Mandy, my voice steady, eyes flashing. That had been a strict rule of Gram’s. No guests in the kitchen, ever.
Also, I was extra defensive and hostile with the way they had caught me, the sore spot they had rubbed right off the bat.
“Oh, guests aren’t welcome, but charity cases are?”
She had a point. Mandy was a bratty little bitch, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Just because Gram had treated me like family didn’t make me any less of a charity case. I’d just been too stupid to see it myself back then.
No, I shook off the thought. No. Just because Dante had thrown me away didn’t mean Gram had.
Gram had really loved me. I was as sure of it as I was of anything.
I smiled unpleasantly at Mandy. She hadn’t grown up to be an attractive woman, but then she’d never been an attractive teenager. Looking at it in retrospect, I could see clearly now at least one of the reasons she’d hated me. I may have been trash, but I was beautiful trash, and there was not one beautiful thing about her. Her weasel face was as ugly as ever.
“Well, this charity case is allowed in the kitchen, and you’re not.” I waved at the door that led to the front part of the house, the section where company was allowed.
Mandy took a threatening step toward me.
I laughed, setting down my clutch. I held my arms out wide. “Please. Is that a threat? Come at me. I dare you. If all three of you attack, it’ll be just like old times, right? I remember how you thought the odds of three to one would help you.”
Of course they backed down. When they went in for the kill, it was usually with words.
Because mean girls don’t kill. They dehumanize.
A few times they’d tried their luck with me the other way, but I could see that they still remembered how that had gone for them.
That was the moment that Dante walked into the room, and damn him, and me, I was actually happy to see him.
He zeroed in on Mandy and strode right up to her. “I’m only going to say this once,” he told her harshly. “It’s your first and final warning. If you can’t be civil, if you try to pull one of your childish stunts, or I catch you making one snide comment, or even hear that you did, you’re out of here. Also, no guests in the kitchen.” He pointed to the door.
The pack of bitches left, shooting murder at me over their shoulders.
“God, do you have any idea how you just crushed her?” I asked him, smiling. “She’s had a thing for you since high school, and don’t ask me why, but it looks like she still does.”
“I give less than zero fucks how she feels. That one is a coward and a bully. I don’t even want her in this house. I haven’t forgotten how she treated you in high school.”
“You haven’t?” I asked him.
He looked at me. “I haven’t forgotten anything.”
I looked away. “Well, this started as badly as it could have. I already got caught digging in the trash and almost got into a fistfight, all before I’ve even walked into the reception.”
“If anyone else gives you any problems, I’m kicking them out, I swear to God.”
My eyes flitted to him and then away. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“It’s not hard, Scarlett. In fact, it feels a hell of a lot more natural than what we’ve been doing.”
