Page 9 of Breakaway Bet

“Yeah, well, you’ll thank me when you realize you don’t have herpes tomorrow morning after giving your virginity to that assfuck,” Dex mutters.

“Excuse me?” I roar. “You can kindly fuck all the way off, Dex. I’m an adult, and who I do or don’t sleep with is none of your—”

“Okay, okay,” Everleigh says, mothering the two of us the same way Dex just fathered Ains and me at the club.

I need to get out of here. I need to move into my own place. I just want some independence. I want my family to stop looking at me like I’m a freaking child, and I especially want them to stop babying me. It’s ridiculous. I’m freaking twenty-two, not twelve. But they all still see me as a twelve-year-old. It’s fine for Dex to fuck my best friend. It’s fine for Everleigh to fuck a client. But me? Nope. No sex for you, Ivy. Virgin for life!

And the worst part? My bank account was co-signed by my father, which means it was frozen with the rest of his assets. My savings account is gone, the savings account I built over twenty-one years, and I can’t access my own trust fund for three more years because I haven’t aged into it yet.

So…I’m basically broke until I turn twenty-five.

I’m living paycheck to paycheck as it is. It’s part of why I wasn’t so opposed to Dex coming out with us tonight. I knew he’d pay.

But in the end, I’m the one who paid. Right? I missed my chance at Cash Maddox, and I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive Dex for that.

So I play the role everyone already casts me in anyway. I stomp up the stairs to the room Everleigh was gracious enough to let me stay in, and I slam the door.

I flop down onto my bed and think of those dark eyes.

I’m tempted to get an Uber and head back to the club.

Like, really tempted.

Instead, I find him on Instagram.

I study every single one of his pictures.

Yep, still attractive. Still sexy. Definitely curated, and I’d love to see him in the wild, some real, true, user-generated content instead of these studio-posed ones, but still.

I could’ve been pinned beneath him right now. His mouth could’ve been on mine.

His hand could’ve been trailing down my throat, to my collarbone, to my chest, down to my stomach. I let my own fingers take that same trail, wishing it was him. Pretending it was him.

I’m just about to my hip when there’s a soft knock at my door, and it opens before I even get the chance to tell whoever it is to either come in or go away.

Note to self: if you’re going to slide that hand any further down, lock the door first.

“What?” I snap at my sister as I click off my phone and toss it to the side.

“I get that you’re mad at Dex, but me?”

I sit up and sigh. “You all still see me as the baby, and it’s frankly both insulting and getting very old.”

“Well, slamming doors and throwing tantrums sort of tracks. If you’re going to act that way, that’s how we’re going to treat you,” she says.

I roll my eyes. “I’m twenty-two. If I wanted to go home with Cash—”

“Dex did you a favor,” she says.

“You don’t know that, and I’d really, really love to just be able to make my own decisions.”

“Because he’s hot? Ivy, you deserve a better first time than sleeping with someone who’s going to forget your name by morning.” She purses her lips as if that’s that on that.

Well, it’s not.

“You don’t know that. And you all keep referring to my virginity like it’s this huge thing, and it’s not. It’s really, really not, and so what if I just want to get it over with? That’s my choice, and maybe I want a player like Cash. Just because you don’t want that for me doesn’t automatically mean I’m not going to do that. Look, I’m sorry if your first time wasn’t what you thought it would be, but I get to decide what mine’s going to look like.”

“It’s not that. We just care about you, sissy.” She sniffles, and I’m not sure why she’s getting emotional here, but now I just feel bad.