Gluttony Read Online Free PDF

forgive herself.
    Two days, she thought. Forty-eight hours . If she could survive, stay sane, stay hidden, keep the real her—the unforgivable her—under wraps for the weekend, it would be a sign. She had hoped for a vacation from the torment of her life, but maybe that wasn’t what she needed. Maybe she needed one final test, proof that she could put the past behind her and focus on normal life, that she could live with keeping quiet, that she could go on, even here. She would survive Vegas, and that would be proof—she could survive anything.
    “Forget the drama, guys,” Kane said, drawing the group toward the exit. “We’re wasting valuable party time.”
    “I’m, uh, thinking I might get some sleep,” Miranda said, staring at the ground.
    “Yeah.” Adam’s gaze was fixed on the ceiling.
    “Maybe they’re right, Kane—” Harper began.
    “What the hell is this?” He pointed ahead of them to the giant neon sign blinking a few feet away: M IDNIGHT M AGIC B UFFET —24-H OUR F EAST . “It’s two-for-one drinks night. What are we waiting for?”
    “No more drinking tonight,” Adam said. “Not for me.”
    Kane gaped at the three of them as if they’d sprouted antennae. Then he nodded with sudden understanding. “I get it.” He grinned. “I spooked you. Look. I’m sure none of us have any secrets….”
    He turned to Harper, who met his stare without flinching. He knew what she had to lose—and she knew he was daring her to chicken out.
    “But let’s just say, hypothetically, we all do,” he continued. “So I suggest a pact. We’ll hit the buffet and drink to it. Anything we find out about each other this weekend … well, it doesn’t count. All secrets forgotten as soon as we leave the city limits. After all, what happens in Vegas—”
    “I don’t drink to lines that are so old, they have mold growing on them,” Harper snapped.
    “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” Kane finished, arching an eyebrow. “Agreed?”
    They nodded, and they shook on it. Not that it mattered. Harper knew she was the only one with a secret that really meant something—and there was no way in hell she was risking exposure. Pact or no pact.
    “Good. Let’s get some cocktails and make it official,” Kane ordered, charging toward the buffet. “Eat, drink, and be merry, folks, for tomorrow—we do it all over again.”

    Reed was buzzed.
    But it wasn’t the drugs. It was her. It was the blond hair, the blue eyes, the cotton-candy lips—all of it like a doll, a picture in a magazine. Picture perfect, but so real, and so unpredictable, starting with her inescapable, unbelievable choice: him. From honor roll to rolling blunts, from superstar to slacker—he didn’t even remember how she’d woven her way into his life. She’d just appeared. As if he’d been asleep and then, on waking, there she was. Part of him.
    After Kaia … Beth had helped him. Not to forget—never, he had promised himself. But Beth had helped him survive the remembering. To live.
    He had never asked her why she was hanging around the slums of his life, maybe because he knew it wouldn’t last. But Reed had never before cared about the future. Why start now?
    “Guess I should have changed into a bathing suit,” Beth said, stretching out on the edge of the pool and skimming her bare toes across the water. “We could have gone in the hot tub.”
    Reed had only ever been in one hot tub in his life, and it was a part of his life that was over now. It’ll be fun, he heard Kaia’s voice say, somewhere in the depths of memory. Promise .
    “I don’t do bathing suits,” Reed said, and—except for that one time—it was true. He gestured down to his black AC/DC T-shirt and dark, well-worn jeans, his standard uniform. “This is it.”
    Beth stood up, her long legs mostly bare beneath the sheer pajama shorts, and joined him on the lounge chair. He scooted over to give her room, but she barely needed any, stretching out alongside him,