Free Wild Violet (The Vi Trilogy of The Gilded Flower Series Book 1) by Vivian Winslow Page A

wished was something she could appreciate, and over time, when she’d grow tired of her shoe closet of an apartment, the not-so-quiet company of these never-to-be-heard-on-Broadway patrons was something she’d come to appreciate.
    “Want to talk about your Thanksgiving?” The bartender leans onto the bar.
    “Don’t you have clients to serve?” Vi looks over at the four other people at the bar.
    He follows her gaze. “Nope. They’re set. Want to talk about it? Being a bartender makes me a quasi-therapist.”
    Vi shakes her head. “Nothing in particular. Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday for me, so I can’t attribute any real importance to it.”
    “Right, I get it. Well, it used to be a big deal at my house until my parents divorced when I was ten.”
    “Uh-huh,” Vi feigns interest, drumming her fingers on the bar, hoping someone will interrupt him before he breaks out into some sob story.
    “Then after that, I was with a different parent every year, but it was never the same. When my dad got remarried, my mom changed. She just didn’t want to try during the holidays. I guess she got depressed.”
    “That sounds utterly miserable,” Vi offers, beginning to wonder if she should’ve taken Dahlia up on her proposal to go to some pop-up club in DUMBO. But she couldn’t be bothered. It was pretty obvious that Dahlia was high throughout much of the Baron Thanksgiving party, which was an even more elaborate affair than the year before. Spending time with Lily wasn’t going to happen since she and Jack were leaving that very night to join his family in Paris.
    “Then my dad kicked me out a few years back and that was it.”
    Vi turns her attention back to the bartender. “Dad’s an asshole, yeah?”
    He nods. “Damn prick.”
    “What did you do?”
    “After he kicked me out?”
    Vi shakes her head. “No, to piss him off?”
    The bartender holds up a finger and goes to refill a beer for one of the patrons. “Screwed his wife.”
    Vi chokes on her drink and sputters. “Wasn’t expecting that. Sorry.”
    He laughs. “Neither was I.”
    “You make it a habit of fucking your dad’s better-halves?”
    He shrugs. “Total lapse in judgment. In my defense, I was a teenager when she seduced me. Kinda hard to resist when this hot woman is sticking her tits in your face.” His full lips slide into a half-smile.
    Nice guy who doesn’t show an ounce of remorse. Go figure. “And now?”
    “No more Thanksgiving at his house or anything. He froze my trust indefinitely, but my mom has her lawyers working on that since a lot of that money is from her family. It’s all such bullshit you know. Ever since their divorce I feel like I’m the one who keeps getting fucked over. At least now, I’m not at the mercy of my Dad. I’ll take being poor over that any day.”
    Vi finishes her drink, considering those words. She envies him, the freedom he has to do what he wants, unafraid of what living without his parents’ money means.
    She sighs and runs her finger along the rim of the glass.
    “Hey, by the way, aren’t you in my Religions of India class?” He asks.
    She looks up and studies his face, not having taken a good look at him before in the dimly lit space illuminated by a single black light in the corner. He has big chocolate brown eyes that make him appear more innocent than he is, considering he fucked his own step-mother. Her eyes fall on his lips. Those lips with his big eyes are a winning combination in Vi’s book.
    But ever since that night with Senna and Andrés, she hasn’t been in the mood. She came home a few days later to find an envelope with five thousand dollars in cash that he had slid under her door. No note. It wasn’t hard to interpret the message—whatever it was they’d had is no more.
    Is that why I agreed to that night in the first place? In order to push things toward some kind of end—to be together or not at all? She shakes her head to banish the thought, tired of thinking about it